Casein Free Eating, Lactic Acid, & Deli Meat

During our ever developing adventure of finding safe food for our son Boomba who is severely and anaphylacticly allergic to trace casein, Husband and I learned a new trick.

Lactic Acid is a questionable ingredient! It can be derived from two different sources: plants or dairy.

Lactic Acid SOUNDS like it contains Casein. But then again, it's not the Lactose Boomba is allergic to, it's the Casein. A little reading in my very informative cook book Food Allergy Cookbook taught me about the way Lactic Acid can be derived. For example I just found some "butter" spread that is Casein Free but it does in fact contain Lactic Acid. Thank you Earth Balance for including in the ingredient's label that the Lactic Acid in your spread is derived from beets! YAY!

In the last 6 months or so we've cut out lunch meats from Boomba's diet generally because of the Lactic Acid.

It's an important lesson to also remember that getting Deli meat cut at your deli is a dangerous move.

These Deli Meat Slicers not only slice the yummy meat in the cooler display case but it also slices the blocks of cheese sitting right over there to the left in neighboring display case.

We have not had cold meat sandwiches in the house for nearing 6 months.

We finally found some ham that was safe and I sliced it as thinly as I could and made our own lunch meat!

Now, Boomba did have a small reaction but it must have been because Husband splurged and had a slice of cheese on his sandwich. It's amazing how difficult cross contamination can be to control!