So much of life with young children is caught up in feeding — planning, shopping for, preparing, and serving food takes up a tremendous amount of time for any parents. For parents with children on a medically restrictive diet, the intensity increases immensely. This page is meant to serve as a list of the foods we found helpful during the various food trials.
Always:
Lentils I Have Known and Loved
Accidentally Safe Six Food Elimination Diet Breakfasts I Accidentally Love
Six Food Elimination Diet (No Dairy, Egg, Wheat, Soy, Nuts, or Fish)
Check the labels! We used these products between 2010 and 2011 and they were safe for the Six-Food Elimination Diet for eosinophilic esophagitis. Products and their processing equipment change all the time, so please read the labels before using these products for your own child. This is so important! It is heartbreaking to have to start a phase of the diet over again because of a mistake in reading your labels.
Daiya faux cheese products
So Delicious Coconut Yogurt and Coconut Ice Cream
Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles
Lays STAX potato chips in the can, plain flavor
Jelly Belly jelly beans
Enjoy Life products, especially chocolate products
Oat bran as a hot cereal
Coconut yogurt
Avocados
Popcorn
Corn Tostados
Hearts of Palm (whole, they look and “peel” like string cheese!)
Vegan, Nut and Gluten-Free
Tofu
Soy ice creams — just read the labels for nuts and wheat
Soy milk – manufacturing practices vary, so check for cross contamination with gluten and nuts
Fat-Free (for Chylothorax)
Quaker Rice Cakes: Lightly Salted and Caramel Corn
Mashed potatoes with Fat-Free Sour Cream and Parkay Spray
Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta with Fat-Free Tomato Pasta Sauce
Lentils
Fat Free Refried Beans (Several varieties of canned)
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[…] Food That Helped […]
My husband was recently diagnosed with EOE and we are on the 6 food elimination diet. Your site is the first one that pops up when looking for any information about food choices out there. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I already have a house of picky eaters. My 6 year old has been in food therapy for the past year trying to expand her diet to more than a handful of foods. Through our journey with Children’s Hospital Colorado, we have met many families that struggle with EOE and food allergies. Our therapist and doctor were both amazed and disheartened to find that the hospital has NO resources for what to eat when on these restrictions. You are always told what NOT to eat, but nobody says, hey here’s a list of recipes or sites that can help. I so appreciate your list of foods that helped and Sammi’s Soup recipe.
So far, this week we have had our regular chili (no cheese/sour cream) with rice crackers, boiled potatoes with bacon bits and Soy-Free Earth Balance ‘butter’, lots of dried fruits, Chex, rice cake pbj (we are tree nut free), and lots of salad. Tonight we will have steak with mashed potatoes (from the leftovers) and some side veggies and salad. Salad dressing is going to be old school oil and vinegar made at home.
I think a huge help for me was making a list of everything we can eat. Listing out friuts and veggies takes up half a page before I even have to think.
Oh my gosh, Marla, your comment made me teary! I’ve always hoped that you were out there — someone who really needed the information I collected. For your chili, do try the Daiya shreds — they’re quite good when they’re melted. Also, if your family likes Mexican food, I can’t recommend it highly enough. There’s so much you can do with corn tortillas, tostadas, etc. — and of course rice. You’re lucky to have meat as an option! We were vegetarians before the diet started, so we couldn’t add meat in case it muddied the test results somehow. Maybe your family would be willing to try some bean and lentil dishes, too?
Marla, keep reading and keep searching and hang in there!!! You’re doing a great job!
After 13 years of wandering around in the medical wilderness (at Stanford of all things) we just got a diagnosis of EoE for our 13-year old. It explains so much! Her real struggles have been allergy and pneumonia, and an EGD done in 2004 came back clean…so EoE has been masked for a decade. Sigh.
As our youngest, she has the full support of her older sisters and we parents (I just heard my husband say to her “I’m excited to go on this adventure with you, I just might get six-pack abs as I eat better” (!). Our next door neighbors are planning her favorite meals over this holiday weekend before we launch full-bore into this 6 (Really 8) Food Elimination Diet. Why, oh why, are the medical staff so good at telling you what you can’t do and not what you can do??? Somehow it’s always the MOMS that actually get it done and tell each other. Thanks for this blog and your spirit. Wish us luck! PS. We’re already nut free but meat eaters so I’m optimistic we can slog through the first 6 weeks of elimination. Hardest part will be her oral allergy to many fresh fruits. :/
Daiya and Enjoy Life brand products are your new best friends, Nicole! It was a lot of work, but without those two brands, it would have been so much harder. Please post any favorite foods that you can’t seem to replicate and I’ll try to help you figure out something similar. You can do this! You’re right — it’s the parents who have to support each other when the medical professionals fail to see the bigger picture.
Thanks for putting this together! Lots of helpful ideas. Just wanted to note for others who may be in the same boat, the list we’ve been given for the Six Food Elimination Diet says no tree nuts so coconuts are out as well. Unfortunately there’s coconut oil in the Daiya cheese products that I’ve seen. I think rice milk is one of the few options available as a dairy substitute.
Rose, without question you will need to follow exactly the diet prescribed by your doctor. Ours used the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network definitions for tree nuts which does not qualify coconut as a nut. You can read more about this here: http://blog.onespotallergy.com/2011/03/is-coconut-safe-for-people-with-tree-nut-allergies/. As we know, EOE is not the same as other allergies, and your doctor is certainly far more qualified than I am. I’ll work on adding something to this page about the controversy over coconut. Thanks for letting me know.
Hello. I, too, am so happy to find your blog. We received our sons diagnosis of EoE this last week. He often regurgitated his food an we had tried numerous ppis before endoscopy. He is 7. I am trying to wrap my head around the changes we have to make. We live in rural ND and to get into a doctor was difficult enough. His doctor is 4 1/2 HOURS AWAY. I doubt these foods you mention are available within 2 hours of me. I am going to sit down this weekend and try to write down a plan. Honestly, I am overwhelmed. Thank you for your insights. Your site has helped me more than several calls with nurses and dietitians.
Melissa, I’m so sorry to read this. What’s happening with your son is not easy, and I hope his doctor had enough empathy to realize that. Can you get shipments from Amazon where you are? That might be the best way to get things like Enjoy Life chocolate chips and cookies and specialty flours. In the meantime, check the more “ethnic food” sections of your grocery store. Corn tortillas are often found in the Mexican food section. Rice noodles are usually in the Asian food section (you might need to read the ingredients to see this — the labels are sometimes in other languages). Also, lots of popular cereals are ok — some kinds of Chex, and then also Fruity Pebbles. If your son likes a hot breakfast, hot oat bran cereal is pretty similar to things like cream of wheat — and oat bran is usually right near the oats in grocery stores. If your son eats meat, simple things like chicken and rice will be good dinners. Please do write to me whenever you like if you’re stuck for ideas! Hang in there, Melissa.
Hello there.
Please help.
I have just been diagnosed with EOE after being wrongly diagnosed with another autoimmune disorder. I am totally dumbfounded and don’t even think this is the right diagnosis. I have eliminated milk, eggs, fish and nuts from my diet as I have only been on Fortisp drinks for over 5 months. I am in the process of removing wheat and soya in the next few days.
I am totally lost with what I can and cannot eat. I don’t know where to turn. I have memory and cognitive problems and I am not good with technology and have even found replying to this really stressful.
How do I collect and understand all the information out there on what I need to avoid, and more importantly, what else is there for me to actually live on?
Thank you.
Shannon.
Hi Shannon. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. To start, if you eat meat, that will be the easiest thing to start with – cook your poultry and beef and pork in things like olive or canola oil. All your herbs and spices should be fine. To that, add fruits and vegetables, also cooked either steamed or in oil (just avoid cooking in butter). For starches, focus on rice and potatoes for now. If you can find oat or rice milk, you could add that to your tea or coffee. You could also use it to make oatmeal with fruit.
Feel free to reply here with your questions. I’m happy to keep helping.
Hello, thank you for this site, sharing very helpful tips on how to eat after being diagnosed with EoE. I was just diagnosed a few days ago. I’m a 61 year old African American Woman. My Dr. is scheduling more tests for me to have.
This is all so new. I was always diagnosed with GERD. I am going to have to unlearn and relearn how to eat as not to suffer. My flare ups would often lasts 3-4 days (severe nausea and dehydration). I would end up in the ER for fluids. It’s the absolute worst and really affected my quality of life. I just wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t want to leave from the scope being told there wasn’t anything seen. I’m grateful to have a diagnosis so it can be addressed.
Neischa, I’m really glad you got the diagnosis you need to start moving forward. Finding your trigger foods isn’t a fun journey, but I know the rewards will be worth it. If there’s anything I can help you re-create in a safe way, let me know!