What is it about Hash Browns?????

[kate]

My daughter has had a reaction this weekend. The only thing it could possibly be is a hash brown she had as part of a cooked breakfast yesterday. I've suspected in the past that she's been reacting to them. The ingredients look safe to me though. They are as follows:

potatoes, sunflower oil, dehydrated potato, salt, potato starch, flavourings, spices.

She is fine with potatoes in general. Any ideas??

[Charlie Arnold]

Hi Kate, how are you going with the snow? Lucky will probably laugh but for us we have had alot at about 8"!!!!

Hmm, hash browns, what sort of a reaction does she get. I suspect it is what they haven't put in the ingredients combination that may be the problem, dehydrated potato may bump up the sugar level, plus what is in the flavouring. The food products only have to be above a certain % of the final ingredients to be specified in the list. Maybe try another make, what make did you use?

Meg seems ok with McCains or Iceland potato waffles which are very similar, although again I think the combined sugar level makes her a bit hyper for a while.

Will do a bit of finelli-ing on this matter and get back to you. How is the bubby getting on, any signs of food problems there?

[kate]

Hi Charlie and Lucky,

They were McCains but we've given her other brands in the past. In terms of the reaction, she gets a facial rash and a burnt bottom from the urine and she becomes very distracted and hyper. It lasted until the end of the weekend and today she seems fine although the rash will take another few days to subside. Its her usual fructose reaction, although it wasn't as bad as the other week when I stupidly gave her a grape.

Interesting what you say about hidden ingredients Charlie as I was wondering whether they maybe have some form of sugar in them to make them crisp up and brown in the oven.

Lucky, they're done in the oven but yes, they are relatively greasy. Thinking about it, she gets a similar reaction from greasy chips so maybe it is due to the fat content. Do you guys find this with fatty foods? Is it anything to do with fructose, or just an unhappy gut not coping with it?

Charlie, we've only had a couple inches of snow - very frustrating. No sledging for us. Baby Emma is doing well. She gets eczema when I eat peanut butter and dairy so it will be interesting to see what happens when we wean her. Her reactions are very mild compared to what Jyoti's were like so I think she'll grow out of it pretty quick (fingers crossed).

Thanks for your responses

[kate]

Well, we've worked out that it was probably the potato starch in the hash browns. I've just worked out that the frustrating unknown food causing reactions that we couldn't trace was potato starch in Hulahoops. That's a shame as she loves them.

Anyone else have issues with potato starch?

[Charlie Arnold]

Hi Kate, have pasted this from the HFI board to save typing twice so some may not be relevant but:

the trouble with alot of processed things is what they don't put in the ingredients I have found. The chances are there may be sugar contamination in the process but unless it constitutes a certain percentage of the final product they don't have to declare it. Also as colormist has said alot of frozen products are dipped in sugar water to get that crisp product when baked, for a long time chips never put this on the ingredient list (or dextrose) but now do.

another idea is the potato starch may have a fructose element to it as potatoes do have fructose in them, so maybe the concentration to obtain the starch may take some over the limit. As your daughter gets older and bigger you may find she can tolerate things better but for now the tiniest amount takes her over the edge. I wonder if (as she has more of the malabsorption problems with fructose and lactose) that maybe there is an overlap of absorbing sugars and possibly some starches and the lactose sugar in the small intestines where all these processes take place. I am sure that is what is going on with Megan as there are things she should be able to cope with if she has HFI but can't. Hula hoops are one thing she could never cope with. And potato starch is one ingredient of them. Chips and hash browns and potato faces always set her off too inspite of no sugar appearing in the ingredients. But as she has got older and certainly now she has hit 10 years old she seems to be coping better with things. I feel reassured by Lucky's idea that her liver has maybe matured enough to cope better with storing and filtering. But I feel convinced she has a starch problem too as she feels sick or goes hyper after a high starch meal. We shall see, we finally have a referral to Great Ormond Street metabolic unit next month so hopefully see someone who has experience of these things.

As for sausages, I always used to use gluten free ones (not the Tesco frozen as they are vile) but butcher ones but Meg always finds them too spicy so for a long time I made my own. I got an anthony worrell thompson mincer and bought pork and pork fat from the butcher as well as some sausage skin and actually they aren't too hard to make, takes a while to get the proportions right of fat so they aren't too dry but at least you know they are safe. If you can't get sausage skins then you can make a sausage shape and fry that. Meg seems to be ok though on Richmonds pork sausages, they are cheap and look like they should be crap but she really likes them and has them every morning with bacon for breakfast.