I’m a mom of a boy with a dairy allergy (among others) and I am also good friends with a gluten-free family of 8.
Check out:
http://www.livingwithout.com (or better yet, get your hands on the magazine itself)
http://www.celiac.com
http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.com
That should give you plenty of reading to do to plan shopping trips, gather substitute ingredients, convert recipes and plan meals!
If you’re overwhelmed, I’d be happy to send you my “master list” of products/brand names that are now staples in our kitchen.

Sorry, that should be http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org, (not dot com!)

While limiting diary and gluten intake can have huge health benefits,  you should definitely do a lot of research and speak with a health care professional (it could a a GP, Dietician, or Nutritionist) before cutting it out completely. I have a diary intolerance which was pretty severe as a child but I’ve been able to de-sensitise myself to it over the years, to the point where I only have to be careful of what I eat when I’m sick or while I’m pregnant.

In Oct. 2003, I started getting sick, sinus and chest congestion, etc.  Every time that I was going to call my doctor, I started to feel better.  I put it off until mid december.  I was diagnosed with pneumonia and sinus infection.  I was treated with antibiotics and prednisone. Everytime I came off antibiotics I would begin to get sick again.  By June or July I had 10 rounds of several different antibiotics and prednisone, some lasting 6 weeks, for repeated brochitis or pneumonia.  In January or February 2004, I was diagnosed with asthma and began treatment. The repeated antibiotics began to concern me.  They would run out eventually.  3 of 4 of my nasal sinuses were blocked.  I was sent to an ENT.  He preformed surger on my left sinus. I was concerned and so I went to an MD that practices natural medicine and he took a blood test to find antibodies for 100 of the most common food allergens.  He came back with a list of 15 or so items with a low sensitivity to, like wheat, sugar, dairy, eggs, chocolate, etc.  In other words, I would eat the food and react later or the next day and never tie the food to the reaction.  He had me stop eating those foods for 90 days and wanted me to introduce them back into my diet one at a time.  I resisted for a while but decided that I need to try to do this.  My result was AMAZING!  I felt like something left my body in one week or less. I did not go back onto antibiotics or have any problems until I began eating these items again. It took me awhile to realize where all the sugar was at in my diet.  I had already started drinking soy milk and realized after giving up the other sources of sugar that soy milk was pretty sweet.  Then I looked at the label.  I lost weight that I didn’t know COULD come off in spots that I had even when I was young and in good shape.
My doctor also wanted me to rotate the foods I did eat on a 4 day rotation, chicken one day, beef the next, turkey the next, pork the next.  I ate the foods that God made.  Life became very simple.  Packing for a campout was very easy.  I checked with my husband and children to see if they wanted anything that I wasn’t regularly preparing and they let me know what things they would like.  But it made it clear that I was the junk food Junkie. I made pasta about 1 time a week and just ate the meat portion with a sweet potato, baked potato, squash, etc.  My family ate better than they ever did.  When we went out to eat, we chose a place that had a chicken plate if it was chicken day, etc.  I carried raw potatoes to family functions so I could pop it in the microwave, along with my meat.  My snacks were fruits and nuts.  I ate a different nut each day of the 4 day rotation, cashews, macadamian nuts, pecans, walnuts.  Life was simple.
I have an overeating disorder and the foods that were removed from my diet were the ones that I am addicted to.  My doc says that that is probably why I have these sensitivities and that is why the 4 day rotation so I did not create new sensitivities.  I am involved with a 12 step group for my eating.  And to be quite honest, I am having a hard time removing these foods once again from my diet.  I am quite sure, like anything in life, we cannot do it without God’s help!
Oh, I did begin to eat rye crackers. Ry Krisp has an all rye cracker called Light Rye.  I am not big on rye but I was missing a surface to put things on at times.  They did the job.

I’ve been cooking dairy free for some of my kids for many years, and now my dh too.  Once he went dairy free - his sinus infections have decreased incredibly (from many per year to maybe 1 per year with an illness?).  I don’t have any fabulous resources but wanted to mention that there is usually a dairy free alternative to most foods.  Many stores carry them in their “natural” food sections.  Tofutti makes dairy free sour cream, cream cheese, ice cream, etc.  My family can tolerate goat cheese just fine and Mt. Sterling goat cheese is so good it tastes and melts just like dairy cheese.  Most margarines, though not all, contain dairy.  I was told that if the item you are buying has a CONTAINS: statement then it needs to inform you if it contains any of the top 8 allergens (dairy, wheat, egg, soy, nuts,...I don’t know the rest).  So, if under the list of ingredients it says something like CONTAINS SOY and nothing else is listed it should be safe to eat if you are trying to eat dairy or wheat free.  If there is no CONTAINS statement it doesn’t mean there are no allergens.  It just means that company doesn’t list them in that way.  I am able to cook nearly anything for my family.  We’ve even found delicious chocolate chips (ENJOY LIFE) that also taste and melt just like the real thing but without the dairy.  The wheat free is harder, I think.  We’ve tried it but had a hard time finding acceptable alternatives.  With dairy free I don’t really have to cook differently - I just have to buy different brand ingredients.

When I had to go dairy-free while nursing my son, I got great advice from a friend.  She told me you have to try new things.  The dishes you are used to will not taste the same with dairy substitutes, so it’s best to find recipes that don’t require dairy to begin with.  I found I really liked the way we started eating b/c it was much simpler: a meat, & a veggie/fruit for dinner. Good luck and have fun exploring!

My eldest son is celiac and from that I discoverd that I am wheat intolerant.  I eat mostly fresh veggies and protiens.  My carbs are pototoe’s (kettle brand chips are my down fall)!  Though I miss french bread and flour tortilla’s for tacos, I have adjusted well.  Most gf foods are very high in calories so I try to be extra careful.  That said glutenfree.com use to be one of my fav places to shop!  Now that my ds is in college on the east coast I don’t buy to much from them.

I see soy as a substitute for other things here, but be aware that soy could also be the problem!  Soy is found in most foods in the supermarket these days.  Soy flour and soybean oil are in many foods, and soy lecithin is in many others, and soy is on the list of the 10 most allergenic foods.  It took 4 years of removing foods from my diet to discover that soy was the culprit for me.  Read EVERY label, because allergens hide in foods you would never think they could be in.  There is a compnay that you can accessonline called Namaste foods (google it) that has allergen free (no wheat, eggs, soy, dairy, nuts)foods.  There are cake mixes, bread mixes, etc.  Giving up allergens doesn’t have to mean giving up everything you like, it just means finding a different way to make it.

Good luck to you!

I don’t eat gluten or dairy free, but here is a great cooking blog that is gluten free. Everything always looks delicious! http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/

My son is dairy and soy intolerant. I agree with the person who suggested the allergy diet. Soy is in everything! I have to say that we as a family are much healthier because I cook most everything from scratch. We use almond milk for cooking and almond butter on his toast. I also joined a yahoo group called Food Allergy Kitchen, which was very helpful in the beginning.

Allergies galore! My nursing baby is allergic to a bunch of stuff, as the previous ones have been. It’s a tough diet but highly motivating not to make the baby sick.

Check out crockpot365 for gluten-free slow cooker recipes—many are also easily dairy-free.

I hate the substitutes—hate soy milk, non-wheat bread, etc. and they cost a mint!!  So I radically changed my diet to a rice-based one. Some things are easy—tomato sauce over rice rather than pasta, etc. But I learned to cook Asian food, buying ingredients at an Asian market serving the local immigrant community.  The cookbooks and videos/shows of Martin Yan have been Very helpful.

The nice thing about it is that it’s better than takeout & I control the sugar/fat and can easily add more veggies! The only thing to watch out for is the wheat in common soy sauce, which speeds the fermentation of soybeans. There’s a wheat-free soy sauce : San-Jay brand organic Tamari, which I have to get from a health food store. The Kitchen Basics brand of broth/stock is allergen-free.

If you can get to an Asian market, rice noodles, bulk rice, and most other ingredients are MUCH cheaper than in the ethnic food aisle of the regular grocery. My curious and sometimes loud kids are always welcome in the Asian grocery.

My family has been very enthusiatic about me learning a new cuisine & it isn’t expensive. I gave myself a goal of mastering several favorites a week. It’s nice that many Asian meatballs have no breadcrumbs or eggs & freeze easily—we have had multiple different diets for yrs. and it’ll make you crazy after a while; meatballs in the freezer everybody likes is a big help.

Sorry, no concrete suggestions on websites.  My sister has allergies to milk wheat and a severe egg allergy (epipen severe) along with environmental allergies.  It can be done but the transition is probably going to suck.  Growing up (she’ll be 30 this year), we ate a lot of meat and potatoes and my sister went through at least a cubic ton of rice cakes (back in the olden days when all they had were plain, to boot!).  She ate a lot of peanut butter, too. 

Thinking back on some “special foods” we had: corn chips, corn tortillas, soy parmesan and soy mayonnaise, rice cakes made into sandwiches (oh man, the rice cakes), rice bread, soy margarine, rice crackers, Rice Dream (ice cream), carob chips, truckloads of tofu and so on and so on. 

The previous commenter is right on the money about trying out new dishes.  Trying to adapt your old favourites will just underline the fact that it’s Not The Same. 

When I first read this blog post, it immediately reminded me of your Lent post about eating rice and beans.  Maybe it’s fitting that you would try this during Lent?

I’m thinking of you.

When I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in college, I was jolted into a gluten free diet.  After the adjustment period of pouting, I was actually quite happy about my new diet as I basically eat what people are supposed to eat: lots of fruit, veggies, protein/ nuts.  I second the post about making sure you actually have to avoid wheat or dairy.  Can you see an allergist or internist or dietician?  I saw a dietician after I was diagnosed and it was the most helpful meeting!  If you’re sure you want to avoid wheat, I’m wondering why you’re not just avoiding gluten? I know some people can do wheat free, but not gluten free, so again, a profession opinion might be worth the expense and time.

If you are doing gluten free (gluten in a protein in wheat, just to clarify if readers didn’t know), then there are tons of resouces online.  I’ll list a few, but really, just google “gluten free” and you’ll begin to see what a wide wide range of options there are. The best thing to do, though, is make sure you need to do this.  It is expensive and frustrating at first and it is a lot more than “don’t eat bread or pasta or junk foody things that have wheat in them”. Gluten is everywhere, and if you like fast food or dining out at all really, you’ll need to rethink your game plan.  Both are possible, but not how most people do them.

A few of my favorites:
http://glutenfreemommy.com/  for recipes, tips for saving steps/time/money, and some GF resources linked on that page

http://www.clubceliac.com/clubceliac.htm  this web site has just, a whole lot of information about all things gluten free and it is quite up to date

http://www.clubceliac.com/foods_to_avoid1.htm  for the big, long list of all the stuff that sometimes contains gluten——like modified food starch (which is in TONS of stuff), “articifical flavors”, flavored rice packets…oh the list goes on and on

In my area Giant Foods grocery store has a gluten free section which has tons of different products.  Trader Joes has gluten free frozen pancakes which I think are very good.  Bob’s Red Mill brand is good and they have lots of gluten free mixes.  The thing about going gluten or dairy free is that you have to read all labels EVERY time!  Companies change ingredients and what was safe last month may not be this month.  Even some favored potato chips have gluten in them!  Good luck with whatever you try, it can be done!

OK, two things: one, as a previous commenter posted, many of us can tolerate goat’s milk but not cow’s milk.  I’m one of them - I reacted so badly (digestive issues) to cow’s milk when I was 3 years old that the doctor said he’d have to send me for a colostomy if the problem didn’t clear up by the time I turned 4.  Horrified, my mom took me to a naturopathic doctor who looked me over and said right away, “take her off milk”.  End of story - I was fine in a few days.  So if you find you miss dairy, I’d suggest giving goat’s milk a try.  Now that I’m an adult, I don’t react so badly to cow dairy, though I still avoid it in large quantities.  All of my family had varying levels of intolerance to cow’s milk though, especially as kids.  We found that switching to goat milk cleared up not only digestive problems, but also the icky constant runny noses and coughing that we had.
Two - a great website for recipes is tastespotting.com.  It’s foodie heaven for anyone, but there’s also a search bar at the top that you can type “dairy-free” etc. in to and get a wealth of delicious recipes.  It’s nice to have a website that’s not specifically tailored to/hampered by one dietary idea.
Good luck!

We did dairy free for the 1st 7 yrs. of DD’s life (she outgrew and allergiy), and while nursing 3 others. This is the perfect time of year - Passover. Check out the products in the Kosher section of the store (tends to be bigger this time of year) for Pareve or Dairy free everything. I used to stock up on Mothers Margarine now (only time I could find it) to use in cooking/baking.

Coconut Bliss makes a yummy “ice cream”

I hate soy too - it makes me feel crummy so I don’t use those substitutes in our diet any more.

iamglutenfree.blogspot.com is a fantastic blog for GF recipes that taste so great you wouldn’t even know there’s no wheat in the baking recipes!  Also, I’ve found that Trader Joe’s has the cheapest priced and best quality of rice noodles (for $1.99 for 16oz spaghetti,  as well as twisty noodles and penne) that my husband will eat!  They have a rice bread there, too, that’s really good toasted.  Also, Bob’s Red Mill (online and at Kroger and Whole Foods) has many different flours (rice, potato starch, Tapioca flour, etc…) and mixes (for pizza, brownies, cakes, etc…). 

Hope that helps!

At my blog http://www.learningtoeatallergyfree.com, I share food solutions for people who need to eat wheat-free, dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free, and nut-free. All are welcome.

I had problems with overgrown candida about a year ago and cut sugar, wheat, yeast, cheese, soy, and some other things from my diet and went to organic vegetables and free-range meats and poultry. What a difference it made! I don’t follow such a strict diet now but I continue to eliminate wheat and sugar (I try, anyway). I started using spelt and rice flours instead of wheat and continue to do so today. I buy spelt bread at Trader Joe’s (if you have one in your area). They also have a wheat-free brown rice bread. My local health food store also has many wheat and gluten free choices. I use crushed rice cakes in place of bread crumbs in recipes and prefer the taste.

My favorite foods have always been coffee cake and toasted bread with butter, so you can bet I was nervous about cutting out wheat. Don’t know if this will be the case for you, but I’ve found that if I combine protein and vegetables, I just don’t crave carbs like I used to. Good luck with your journey!

Around 1991, I tested positive for C-Diff - an infection of the intestinal system brought on or encouraged by Penicillin.  After treatment with some expensive antibiotics, I was unable to eat diary products (a painful learning experience).  From a digestive perspective, with the enzyme tablets that you can purchase at any store, I was initially able to handle some diary products.  Over the last nearly 20 years, however, digestively, my ability to handle just about any significant amount of lactose has worsened - I can only handle moderate amounts…and only with the enzyme protection.  From the sinus perspective, I ABSOLUTELY must be careful how much of any diary foods or even the so called “diary-free” foods I can consume at any given time (the diary-free foods can still have the cow’s milk protein in them).  While I still take the enzyme tablets for digestive protection, usually two days later, I can, depending on the amount of dairy protein I have consumed, be laid out for days with major sinus headaches.  If it is too severe and I am around someone ill, I have, on occasion, ended up with pretty severe sinus infections.

As the other posters have noted, there are tests by way of homeopathic and standard medical care options can offer to determine some things.  And, as may have been stated earlier, only change one variable (patiently) at a time.  It is easy to cut out too many things too quickly. 

For myself, it is only every once in a while that I have planned things wrong - and 99% of the time I always have an emergency supply of the enzyme tablets with me.  In the last couple of years, I have had to adjust to other issues besides diary; most importantly, I can now only handle small amounts of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, etc..  That was only determined after about a year of experimenting and two separate biopsies of the small intestine and other homeopathic analysis (I do not have Celiac disease - I was diagnosed with IBS unfortunately). 

While I do have a number of other food intolerances, as I grow older I am adapting and my quality of life is quite acceptable now.

Hope this helps….

I agree with the posters who suggested the rotation diet.  Once I went completely wheat and dairy free the improvement in my health was monumental.  I can tolerate goat milk yogurt and cheese, and butter well, as long as I don’t overdo it. My diet consists mainly of protein, veggies, some brown rice here and there, quinoa, beans, and fruit.  I use Almond milk in my coffee and cereal (gluten free of course!) and have even made a custard with it.  Watch the gluten free products. They tend to be very high in calories.  I am talking about the breads, cakes, muffins, etc.  I do not eat these on a regular basis.  I have used some of the websites mentioned above.  They are all great!  My staple snack is almonds.  12 is a good number for a snack.  You can actually have an ounce a day, that is 24 almonds.  This diet is not a “diet” to me, it is a way of life. It is second nature now.  People always ask me if I miss this or that or the other thing, and I tell them, no I do not miss feeling sick all the time.  : )

One of my daughter’s was allergic to wheat as a baby.  (She outgrew it around 5 yrs but we still keep it limited.)  Here are the “big 8” food allergies: milk, wheat, soy, egg whites, peanuts, corn, citrus, & food additives.  I cut out all 8 for a week to see if her problems would clear up.  when they did I added back one thing at a time. (She was nursing so I had to cut the things out of both of our diets.)  Anyway when I discovered that wheat was the problem I learned to cook wheat free.

I have 2 suggestions for wheat free cooking (long term): you can find gluten-free pantry mixes at your health food store.  They were my favorite.  And second “The gluten-free Gourmet” cookbooks by Bette Hagman are really good.

Arwen, I’m so sorry to hear that you are suffering with sinus issues.  Three years ago, I went gluten and dairy free (I’m not always perfect though) because of chronic sinus infections and bronchitis.  My doctor told me to get a new job (I’m a teacher) and because I consider teaching my vocation, I had to seek other options.  A fellow parishoner is a Chinese medicine practioner and with her help, I took these foods out of my diet with extraordinary success (more energy and only one sinus infection since I started the diet).  Here are some suggestions:
1) I haven’t found a good bread replacement.  But, I’m still looking.  Trader Joe’s wheat-free waffles are great.  Kinnikinnick has good hamburger buns and pizza crust.  2) I usually make a meat, a starch (potato or rice) and a veggie for dinner. 
3) Pamela’s cookies rock
4) Soups and salads for lunch
5) I eat a rice based protein drink for breakfast most of the time. It’s called Ultra Meal. 
6) I’ve rarely had a problem at a restaurant: Italian- Chicken vesuvio; Mexican- Chicken or steak fajitas with corn tortillas;  Brunch or places that serve breakfast all day- omelette with veggies and meat and hashbrowns. 

I thank God everyday for this diet.  I tell everyone who looks at me askance when I tell the about my diet, ” the proof’s in the pudding.”  I tried it, it worked.  I hope it works for you!

If it were me, I would try one or the other, not both at once. My SIL went dairy free while nursing a sensitive baby, and ALL her sinus issues disappeared. We learned that you can use non-airy Smart Balance (sticks, not tub) for most baking, and almond milk is really delicious for almost every use where you would reach for regular milk. Cheese products have been the hardest to substitute. Best of luck!!