Chapter 15
While party food generally causes itchy skin and a worsening of symptoms, it’s possible to have an eczema-safe birthday party and other special occasions such as Christmas. The party food guide given in Table 19 is suitable for adults and children over the age of one. These items are suggestions to choose from—you don’t need to serve all of the listed items. Ensure you choose items to suit the partygoers’ ages, allergies and feeding abilities. For example, a one-year-old child may not be able to eat hard foods such as toffee and if someone is allergic to nuts (e.g. peanuts) then it’s best to avoid serving cashew-containing foods.
Children usually like to have take-home bags of sweets given to them at the end of a party. If you choose to have them, the items marked with an asterisk* in Table 19 may be suitable lolly bag treats, depending on the age and feeding ability of the children attending the party. Non-food additions to the lolly bag can include kids bracelets, cheap jewellery, homemade beaded items, balloons, whistles, mini plastic dinosaurs and other small figurines from a discount shop.
Below are some ideas for what to include in your eczema-safe lolly bags.
Although unhealthy sugar-rich and fried foods are listed as eczema-safe in this chapter, I strongly recommend avoiding having these foods on a daily or regular basis. Most of these eczema-safe party foods and drinks are considered unhealthy as they take more nutrients to process than they supply, so they deplete the body of valuable nutrients needed for healthy skin. Furthermore, sugary foods increase acid in the body, so they may exacerbate the itch.
To help counteract the negative effects from eating sugar-rich or fried foods, drink a glass of highly alkalising juice such as Tarzan Juice or Healthy Skin Juice or eat Alkaline Bomb Salad or add mung bean sprouts to your next meal to help restore your acid–alkaline balance.
If you would like to treat yourself or your child occasionally, give yourself strict guidelines. If you stick within these guidelines it should not affect your results (or might only delay them slightly). Firstly, only have treats from the list of ‘eczema-safe’ treats in this chapter. Secondly, set yourself/your child a specific day and time when you can enjoy a treat. For example, ‘treat day is Sunday’, when you can have maple syrup on pancakes for breakfast (using eczema-safe ingredients) and later have a couple of marshmallows after lunch or dinner and Choco Milk after dinner or as a morning snack. Other examples include ‘iceblock day is Friday’ (only consume plain lemonade iceblocks/popsicles/ice lollies), or for the adults: ‘I can drink alcohol at birthday parties and weddings’ (two glasses or less of eczema-safe alcohol per fortnight). If you are craving sweet foods or alcohol, find out what your cravings might indicate on, ‘Sugar cravings’.
Eczema-safe party foods | Eczema-safe home-prepared items |
|---|---|
| lemonade, bottled (no colours, unpreserved) | jug of filtered water, chilled |
| natural mineral water (no flavours or colour) | Birthday Cake |
| soda water | cupcakes* (Birthday Cake recipe) |
| lemonade iceblocks/popsicles/ice lollies, plain (no colours or preservatives) | Baked Banana Chips |
| potato crisps/chips/fries (plain salted, no colour, no flavour enhancer or additives) | carrot and celery sticks served with Parsley Pesto (contains cashews) or Sesame-free Hummus |
| mini packets of plain potato crisps* | Potato Wedges (need to be cooked just before serving and served warm) |
| rice crackers (plain, salted, no flavor enhancer or additives, no corn/maize) | New Anzac Biscuits |
| green soy beans/edamame (available from sushi restaurants) | Papaya Rice Paper Rolls |
| plain caramels* (no number additives) | spelt chips (use Spelt Lavash Bread recipe), served with Sesame-free Hummus |
| plain toffee* (no number additives) | |
| white marshmallows* | |
| honeycomb | |
| Adults only | |
| gin | decaffeinated coffee (with soy milk) |
| tonic water, bottled (no preservatives) | unsalted cashews, raw |
| vodka and soda | |
| whisky and soda |
| * May be suitable treats to place in lolly bags. |