What the beeswax?

I am one person who has been plagued with one allergy or another all her life.  Grasses, pollens, whatever could make me sneeze, did.  I felt like I always had a cold.  So it shouldn't surprise me when something else crops up, but it always does.  Like the time I was in the hospital with heart flutters and they gave me chamomile tea and I burst out into hives.  Always an adventure with me!

So in the fall of 2016, suddenly my lips and the area around them got swollen, weepy, and my skin was sloughing off.  I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on.  I went to the doctor.  She told me I had impetigo.  What?!?!?!? So after a course of antibiotics did nothing, I went to another doctor who told me that I had chelitis.  No cream or potion was helping.  I resorted to putting hydrocortisone cream directly on my lips. It was embarrassing to go out to eat.   The minute I opened my mouth, my skin would split and my makeup would part like Moses parted the red sea, leaving me with a red weepy ring around my mouth.

At that time I was convinced it was a nutritional deficiency, so I was loading up on B6.  In the meantime I had completely changed out my lip balm supply just in case it was something contagious. And I switched up the brands just in case it was the coconut oil.  Something I was doing was working, and I was convinced it was the B6 since I had been tolerating coconut fine.  Finally my skin was healing.

Then one night I woke up a bit parched and I rummaged through my nightstand looking for a lip balm. I had a lingering tube of the coconut oil and beeswax lip balm that just didn't get thrown away for one reason or another, so I used it.  Then I woke up in the morning to itchy and swollen lips.

Thanks to help from Doctor Google, I was able to finally find the source of the problem.  Very few people report beeswax allergies, but there are a couple out there.

That is not the end of my story, however. On a Facebook group for food allergies I discovered another person with a beeswax allergy.  We started chatting and she was explaining to me all the things beeswax can hide in (carnuba wax being one).  I showed her a picture of what my lips looked like and then it hit me.  In this picture there are sores on my chin.  Sores I have had ever since then that I could not heal!

Yes, it just happened to be that the concealer that I used to hide those sores.....carnuba wax.  In fact, many of my cosmetics contain it.  Even the Cherry Chapstick that I thought was safe has it.

Now, from reading up about it, the allergy isn't actually to the wax.  It is the propolis, which is a glue that holds the wax together and is created by bees from the resins and buds of trees.  So essentially if you can find a cleaned and decontaminated beeswax, it should not be an issue.  This may be the case with the Chapstick I had been using as I didn't have a flare up on my lips.  And just because it has carnuba wax doesn't mean there is definitely beeswax in there, it just means that it is often mixed with it.

What this means is that now along with all the other vegan alternatives to egg and dairy that are super expensive, I get to buy vegan makeup which is also crazy expensive.  I may never retire.

I did it! Vegan Egg Yolk!

I finally figured out how to make vegan egg yolk  You'll have to probably get many of the ingredients on Amazon, but it's worth it! 

Vegan Egg Yolk Mix

★★★★★

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup and 1 Tbsp Sodium Alginate
• 1 1/2 cups Nutritional Yeast, Red Star preferred
• 3 Tbsp Kala Namak salt
• 1 Tbsp beta carotene
•

Note: Some brands of Kala Namak are saltier than others, so you can undercut that a bit to fit your taste.

Directions:

Mix all ingredients well.

For each 1/4 cup of hot water, add 1 tsp of mix to start. Add the mix to the water, not the water to the mix, or it will clump. You can get it to mix better by putting it in the microwave a few seconds at a time. Add more mix to get desired consistency. 

Can I interest you in a very eggy tofu scramble?

A Very Eggy Tofu Scramble

Before I grew allergic to everything good, I was a huge egg lover. I ate them every single day. No wonder why I was so sick!

I lived without them for awhile before I knew I needed to find a replacement. I fought with tofu over and over until I came up with something I now find addictive. I want to devour this like I used to devour Egg McMuffins!

First, although this can be vegan, it isn't made for vegans. It's made for those who love,  but are allergic to, eggs. I have to be honest and say I found other tofu scramble recipes very very vegan tasting.  So I set out to make one that is eggy. I've eaten tofu scrambles made by chefs, and I have to say, I can teach them a thing or two. Yes, I said that!

Here I go step by step with pictures so you can see products and textures.

1) Get prepped. What do you like in a scramble? For me that is onion, bell peppers and mushrooms. The cheese here is real (yes, I'm being bad, but it's hard to give it up when your main reaction is eczema!), but for dairy free,  I recommend for this Daiya shreds. This is about the only thing I like them in. You'll need extra firm tofu, Kala Namak salt (for the egg flavor), onion powder and paprika.

Ingredient list:

2 blocks extra firm tofu, pressed and drained
1 small onion, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 cup shredded cheese or Daiya shreds
Kala Namak salt to taste
Paprika to taste
Onion powder to taste

Part of prep is taking the tofu out, then place it on several layers of paper towels, toppled with several layers more of paper towels, and pressed with a weight. Do this before you start cooking. In fact it's best before you start the other prep. You need to get as much water out as you can.  You can use firm tofu, just make sure to drain it really well. Anything less will result in a pile of mush. This is where the draining is most important part of the tofu.  I have also tried the dry packages of extra firm tofu, and they are too firm and too dry. Skip that, as well.

2) With cooking oil of your choice, start by sweating off the veggies that take longer to cook. In this case it would be the onions and peppers. Add in about half a teaspoon of Kala Namak salt.

3) Add in the mushrooms to sweat them down.

4) Now, crumble the tofu into the pot.

5) Now Sprinkle in another half teaspoon of Kala Namak salt. (It won't be enough, but you'll taste along the way to adjust that.)  Also sprinkle in the paprika and onion powder.

6) Continue cooking to combine. The tofu will soften slightly and more liquid will cook off. This doesn't take long. Just 3-5 minutes. Lower the heat and add the cheese. 

 7)  Now is time to taste and continue to adjust seasoning. Add more Kala Namak salt as needed. The more, the eggier! Since MSG is one of the few things I'm not allergic to, I added a dash of that here. Feel free to leave it out if it bothers you.

This keeps well in the fridge. In this case I made it for our breakfasts this week. This makes 4 good size servings. 

Feel free to add breakfast meats to this if you like. For this scramble, I left the sausage on the side. 

This is a really satisfying hearty low carb breakfast for any egg lover. My egg eating boyfriend and son love this and they tell me you really can't tell it's not eggs. Thank you Kala Namak salt! 

As for where you can find Kala Namak, I got mine on Amazon. Some larger cities with spice shops probably also carry it. It is also referred to as black salt.  (Even though it is pink, it will turn black once it hits moisture.)

Let me know if you try this and leave me your thoughts! 

It Lives!

First, I'll start by hanging my head in shame that I started something and abandoned it. But I think it took me several years to navigate this food allergy stuff before I knew what the focus of this blog should be. 

Now, I have decided that it is a good place to share the recipes I've developed over the years. Some of them I think are pretty amazing. I also want to share some products I love. I think I've found my stride and I try everything that I'm not allergic to. So I'll share those things as well. 

For now, I'll send this quick post because I have a couple more posts dancing around my head that I want to share. One is my favorite tofu scramble and the other is how to cook Vegan Egg and how to make vegan egg yolk from scratch. 

Also, I probably will be changing the name of this blog to something that is more fitting since I've been told NO COFFEE anymore. 

See ya around the bend. 

Dina