  When you have a daughter as allergic as ours, every new food is potentially suspect. Past the age of 3 or so, there's really nothing stopping you from letting the child try something new -- although food allergies can develop, disappear, recur, whatever -- there's no immunologic benefit to be realized by postponing the introduction of something new. It just becomes a dance with chance, and whether you're in the mood for a trip to the E.R. if things go south.
As parents of an allergic kid, you get comfortable in your zone, then expand it -- little by little. Luckily for us, P's skin is really reactive, so if something's really going to cause a problem, a tiny bit on her arm will let us know. This isn't 100% foolproof -- wheat is her shadowy allergy, sometimes it causes a problem. Sometimes it doesn't. She can touch playdoh. Her lips swelled up from a cereal square one day and were fine the next. So we just avoid it for ingestion purposes. Though I catch her eating playdoh sometimes. There's a whole gray area of food she eats, but not in quantity. It doesn't cause her to react externally, but her GI tract could potentially become inflamed inside. She's on medicine for reflux to cover that. They recommended scoping her some years ago to look but I said, "what are you looking for?
" And they said, "Eiosinophils. " And I said, "Let's assume she has them and treat from there. " Some of those shadowy foods, which are highly allergenic, that she previously didn't or couldn't eat, which she now can, are: watermelon. Cantaloupe. Orange juice. Strawberries. Spinach. Chocolate we make from baking chocolate at home. And then, of course, she completely outgrew soy -- a staple food. All this by way of saying P has had three new foods this week!
Yes, ladies and gents, S and I have pushed the envelope once again. Please leave the requisite congratulations, because it's not easy when everything you give could have dire consequences. It's been a while since we've expanded her repertoire. The foods were: 1. Lemonade (Countrytime powder; fresh lemons at school) 2. Tuna (canned, Charlie Tuna brand) 3. Mushrooms (Kennett Square regular) S made such a nice baked chicken dinner tonight. He enjoys making new recipes for her. He even did a mushroom gravy. She LOVED the mushrooms and the lemonade, and that was a grand thing to see. It took me back to when I was little and my mom made such creations every night. The whole Rowhouse smelled divine. 
