That's Fit

A dear friend of mine has just been diagnosed with myriad food allergies. Eggs and gluten are among them. As a result, the thought of her future in the kitchen, let alone in restaurants and at dinner parties, has become somewhat daunting.

But there's a resource that might ease her transition. Cooking Allergy Free is an online community of food allergy sufferers and catalog of information and recipes just for them. We introduced readers to the site before. But a recent site redesign makes it easier to find recipes tailored to specific allergy-diets and allows users to create their own profile. Administrators have also added to the vast library of recipes.

Those who create their own profile can include personal information and a photo, allow others to see their allergies, and allow people to privately contact them. And those who create profiles during the month of May will be entered in a raffle for a free cookbook of their choice.

My friend loves that users can specify food allergies to search an online database of recipes that suit their needs. She loved that she could find suggested substitutes for her allergens that could be used to modify her own favorite recipes. But she did point out a flaw in the search engine: when a user wants to eliminate sugar from their diet, the search omits anything with fruit. She and I thought it would be much better to be able to have the option of eliminating certain types of sugars, such as refined sucrose, while retaining complex sugars, such as fructose.

Nonetheless, she's relieved to have the resource.