My Top 10 Favorite Food Allergy "Things" of 2010

It's going to be hard for me to just nail down 10 favorite things but here it goes:

10.  Allergic Girl: Adventures In Living Well With Food Allergies :  This book is only at number 10 because I haven't read it yet.  But I'm so excited that Sloane (Allergic Girl) wrote a book that it's one of my 10 favorite things of the year.  And I LOVE that it says "Living Well With Food Allergies".  THAT'S what I love about Allergic Girl the most.  She focuses on the positives and she teaches us how to live with food allergies.  Too many times we focus on the negatives.  She points out the other side and shows us how it's done (with grace and elegance I might add).

9.  The #foodallergy hashtag on Twitter :  I can't monitor Twitter 24/7 but with this hashtag I can scan the food allergy tweets to make sure I haven't missed anything.  I've also "met" so many fabulous Health Activists due to the hashtag.  I can't live in Twitterland without it.

8.  The 1st Annual Cleveland FAAN Walk :  I hope they do this every year.  We so enjoyed meeting other people with food allergies.  I think it helped my son realize that he is not alone.

7.  Thanita's post Food Allergies and Being Catholic :  Food allergies affect every aspect of your life.  If you are Catholic then you know that communion is a big part of our religion.  To be excluded from receiving communion because you have food allergies is more than just avoiding your allergens.  It's avoiding something that feeds your soul.  And you do it because you have to because if you don't you could die.  Try explaining that to people who don't have food allergies.  (click here for some follow up information)

6.  Dear Universe, I'm an Idiot from Peanut Free Mama:  No, not because she called herself an idiot.  But because she admits that even though we deal with it every day, sometimes we slip up.  Food Allergy parents aren't perfect.  We really try to be because we're scared to death not to be perfect.  But even the best of us (and Gabs is one of the best) can have a slip up.  Plus I like the picture.

5.  I am the Empowered Patients Mother :  It's my post and I kind of feel like I'm tooting my own horn.  I like this post.  I like writing from the heart and that's what I've done here.

4.  How the food allergy community handled the Joel Stein peanut allergy admission : Some people were cruel, but for the most part the community did what I thought they would do.  They felt sorry for him and his child and hoped that now he would take nut allergies seriously.  We might not forget what he did, but we certainly didn't want him to have to become a member of the "Food Allergy Parent Club".  Most of us wouldn't wish that on our worst enemy.

3.  The crop of new food allergy cook books that came out this year:  As a food allergy cooking parent you know, YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY COOK BOOKS. Thanks to all the wonderful authors who spend their time and energy to give us something new to cook and eat.

This post is my December entry in the Health Activist Blog Carnival. If you're interested in participating too, you can read all about here:http://blog.wegohealth.com/2010/12/new-health-activist-blog-carniva...