Chicken-less Eggs Benefit People With Egg Allergy

 Beyond Eggs may be just what the doctor ordered for egg allergic consumers. For those of us in my family not allergic to eggs, I spend the extra money for free-range eggs, as I don't want to contribute to the practice of hens in tiny cages. Finally there's an alternative that deals with the egg allergy and the humane issues.

A report on NPR's "All Things Considered" caught my attention last week. "Why Bill Gates is Investing in Chicken-less Eggs", talked about how Hampton Creek Foods has come up with a plant-based substitute for eggs. 

Why mess with Mother Nature, you ask? Well, there is growing concern that in the coming decades the demand for animal meat and by-products will surpass the supply. In addition, these substitute eggs:

• reduce our carbon footprint
• are less expensive
• have no risk of salmonella
• contain no cholesterol
• and, most important to me, are safe for those with egg allergies. They are also free of soy, lactose and gluten.

In a recent taste test, cookies baked with chicken eggs were compared to cookies baked with Beyond Eggs. Tasters did not notice a difference. And watch this video using Beyond Eggs to make scrambled eggs.

I did contact Hampton Fooods to inquire about nutrition information and I am very pleased with the response. Chicken eggs and Beyond Eggs are pretty comparable in terms of protein. Beyond Eggs also contains a good amount of calcium, less fat and no cholesterol.   
 
While I've adapted many of my recipes and find a mixture of baking soda, oil and water to work in many of my homemade cookies and cakes, I love the idea of this nutrition boost and I'm hopeful that Beyond Eggs will work in some of the recipes I've had to abandon for now (traditional brownies, pound cake and angel food cake to name a few).

Check out Hampton Food's Facebook and Twitter pages to keep up 

with the release date and latest news. It's eggcellent (insert groan 

here) news and I can't wait to try it out!

Annual Meeting of ACAAI Always Delivers

Spice Allergy

While I don't attend the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), I always look forward to the information that comes out of it. This year we learned more about food allergies. Did you see these headlines from the conference?

• Living with Spice Allergies
• Higher Family Income Linked to Higher Peanut Allergy Rates
• Baked Egg Tolerance
• Epinephrine Use Under-Utilized by Paramedics
• More Allergists are Using Twitter

You can catch up on all the tweets from the annual meeting that wrapped up on November 13. Check out the program guide for a complete listing of all events and sessions. From "Getting Comfortable With Off-the-Beaten-Track Food Allergies" to "Food Allergy: Controversies in Diagnosis" the field of food allergy got a lot of attention at this year's conference.