“Would you like to go to a masquerade ball?” My good friend and fellow dietitian had a spare ticket for the Juvenile Diabetes fund-raising ball at the Sydney Town Hall.  Of course I wanted to go! Dressed in our sparkly frocks we teetered up the red carpet which rolled down the steps onto the pavement. I flashed my wedding ring around and gave an extra friendly smile to the waiter serving champagne, just to make sure everyone knew we weren’t THAT type of couple.

The Glycemic Index Foundation had kindly invited my friend ‘and partner’ to sit at their table. It was a bitter-sweet evening. The masks were fun, the bands great, the food delicious, the wine abundant and the conversation riveting. But we were there because of a terrible disease that has no cure. Every dietitian knows the diabetic diet. What we don’t know is how it feels to live with diabetes. I thought I

The Auckland Food Show is on this weekend. I went with a friend today. Here’s my take on it.

[tweetmeme]Most unusual food: Halfords Earth Gems
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Earth Gems are multi-coloured, bite-sized vegetables that ‘are the jewel of the South American Incas’. They grow like a potato but are from the beetroot family and have an earthy taste. You sure know you are eating something straight from the ground. I think they are an acquired taste! With all those colours they are bound to have plenty of antioxidants.

Most native Kiwi drink: Kawakawa Fire Tea

A caffeine free tea made from kawakawa, lemongrass and ginger by T leaf T. It’s packaged beautifully with a simple Maori design. A lovely present and it tastes great.

Food I bought today and have already used: Australian semi-dried tomatoes and Monin vanilla syrup

I used the tomatoes on pizza but should have kept them for a salad. They were too delicious to waste on pizza. I mixed the vanilla syrup with low fat milk for a delicious instant vanilla milkshake. I also bought Monin’s Chai Green Tea Extract to make Chai Latte – a sweet, milky alternative to coffee.

What I’ll use tomorrow: New Zealand Breakfast Tea

A black tea blended with manuka. It smells like honey but tastes like tea. It should taste great with grainy toast and honey for breakfast.

Best buy: Dutch Maasdam cheese

It was half-price – about $20 per kilo. I bought a huge chunk!

Most interesting food: Cherry juice that helps you sleep

This tart cherry juice is made from Montmorency cherries from Canada. According to the promotional leaflet these cherries have significant levels of melatonin which promotes sleep. It’s 100% juice with no added sugar or preservatives which is good. It comes in a concentrate which must be kept in the fridge or freezer to maintain its nutritional value.

Food that brought back the best childhood memories: Fresh walnuts

There was always a tray of walnuts drying in the sun at my grandparents. We would spend ages helping my Nana to crack them open. My grand-dad liked them dipped in icing. Walnuts contain alpha-linolenic acid (a type of omega-3 fat) so make a healthy snack, preferably without the icing!

Biggest trend this year: Anything with omega-3 in it.

There was flax seed oil, biscuits, pills for kids that taste like jelly lollies, and even smoothies made with flax seed oil. Parents seemed most enthusiastic about these foods. I just hope they don’t mega-dose their kids. Omega-3 fats are good and most of us could do with a bit more but as with all nutrition too much of one nutrient is likely to upset the balance of others. Also flaxseed, like walnuts, contains alpha-linolenic acid which converts to EPA (the omega-3 fat in oily fish) in the body. The conversion rate is about 8% so you need to eat quite a bit of flaxseed to get the same effect as a from a meal of salmon.

Most organised person

The woman who had a suitcase on wheels filled with all her purchases. She had already made one trip back to the car to unload and was on her second round.

Most popular stand

Anything with chocolate!

Move over Generation-X. There’s a new generation and it’s not pretty. According to Australian clinical immunology and allergy physician, Dr Raymond Mullins, the next generation of kids should be called the A-Generation because of the number of allergies they suffer. Allergic disease has increased in the past decade and is now a major public health problem for Australia and New Zealand amongst other countries. No-one can say exactly why it’s happening. Like most health issues it’s likely a combination of factors.

In an attempt to reduce allergy risk we used to tell mums to delay giving their infants potentially ‘allergenic’ foods such as peanuts, nuts, fish and eggs. But now it seems (not yet proven) that it may have made the problem worse!

It’s a dramatic nutrition advice back-flip. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy says there is no evidence that delaying the introduction of potentially allergenic foods will prevent food allergy or eczema. This includes infants with a sibling who already has food allergy or eczema.

A study of Jewish infants in the UK and Israel (chosen for their similar genetics and lifestyle) found that children who avoided peanut in infancy and early childhood were 10 times more likely to develop peanut allergy than those who ate peanut from an early age. By nine months of age 70% of Israeli children were eating a peanut snack (about the same as 20 peanuts a week) compared with only 10% of those in the UK.

Researchers are studying this further and looking at the theory that skin exposure to allergens may sensitise an infant while oral exposure may lead to tolerance.

That’s great news for mums who follow the ’3-second rule’ – if the food is on the ground less than 3 seconds it’s fine to eat. Hey, we may even be doing our kids a favour!

Want to know more? If you live in Auckland (NZ), head along to the Gluten Free and Allergy Show this weekend at the Auckland Show Grounds.

Here are some useful links:

www.allergy.org.nz
www.allergy.org.au