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Preparing your kitchen and home for a child with a newly diagnosed food allergy can seem overwhelming. Take time to clean out the kitchen of any foods that are unsafe for your child. Take a weekend to spend cleaning out and reorganizing your pantry, refrigerator, freezer and any other spots you store foods. This may take more than a day to get everything set up. Remove all foods that contain the allergen. You'll need to read labels and ingredient lists to ensure all potentially hazardous foods have been removed. You can choose to donate or trash these "unsafe" foods if you desire. Many times, unopened items can be donated to food banks. Consider having your child help you. He should not touch or come into contact with these foods; however, it will be good practice to have him read labels and identify potentially unsafe items. In addition to removing unsafe foods from your house, it's important to minimize "cross contamination." Make sure to wash and sanitize all items in your house. Cross contamination is when allergens from unsafe foods come into contact with cookware or flatware that is supposed to be "allergen-free." For example, if you use a knife to spread peanut butter on your bagel, but use the same knife (even wiped off) to spread jelly on your child's bread, you have cross-contaminated your child's meal with peanut allergens. All dishes and utensils need to be washed and thoroughly rinsed in hot soapy water. In addition, rinse off dishes that have food residue on them prior to putting them in a dishwasher. You may also want to consider labeling some flatware and cookware as "allergen-free" and only use these items to prepare and serve allergen-free foods. Also wash these separate from other kitchen items. If your child has a food allergy, it can be difficult to limit items in your house. This is especially true if you have other children in the home with you. If you need to include foods in your home that contain an allergen one child has, consider labeling your foods as either "safe" or "unsafe." This allows the child with the allergen to clearly see what products they can consume without worry. You can put green labels on "safe foods" and red labels on "unsafe foods" or create your own labeling system. Although this can be an easy system to follow, still teach your kids to read labels and investigate foods especially when they're outside the home. Another easy and somewhat common method of cross contamination is food, crumbs, and leftovers eaten in other rooms. Keeping foods and eating contained to one room can help prevent this. It's common for families to snack in front of the TV, eat in the car, or carry food to their bedrooms. However, this exposes an allergic child to many more opportunities for an allergic reaction. Limit food storage, preparation and consumption to only the kitchen and/or dining room. Do not allow other children or yourself take foods into other areas of the house. This can help children feel safe at home and not have to worry about unknowingly coming into contact with their allergen. Cooking and food preparation is a common time where cross contamination can happen. Take care when preparing foods for an allergic child to avoid this situation. Consider using specialty cookware, flatware and storage containers when preparing your child's meals or take away meals. This can help prevent cross contamination. If you're preparing both "safe" and "unsafe" meals or foods, prepare "safe" foods first. This allows you to know that no cross contamination has happened since you haven't prepared any foods yet with the allergen.
Clean out your kitchen. Wash and sanitize all cookware and flatware. Consider labeling foods "safe" or "unsafe". Keep foods contained to one room. Take extra precautions when cooking.