We're Moving

I am moving my blog over to www.webringourowncake.com. This way my sisters and I can all post on the same site, we can start building recipes and other resources for food allergies. Please continue watching us blog at  www.webringourowncake.com and watch as we grow and expand. Please let us know things you'd like to see in a website too.

Thanks!

Dreaded Marketing Label

While shopping for household groceries as well as supplies for my sisters' (gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, legume free) Baby Shower, I came across this: "New Improved Taste" on a coconut milk carton (this is a staple in all our households). While very please they announced they changed something (it's really annoying to not check a product we've deemed "safe" only to learn they recently changed an ingredient - thus suffering the consequences), I was also dismayed they changed anything. Why change a good thing?!

So my next task was to try and figure out what  they changed and if it was still a safe food for my family. They reorganized their ingredient label (ingredients, vitamins & minerals, allergens). Other than that it seem pretty close to what I could remember. I looked up Carrageenan and wasn't sure if our son had ever had that before. It  has potential to cause a reaction. I was unsure.

Then, after wrangling a 3.5 yr old back to my side, I remembered my husband is at home sick! Who knew I'd be excited about that?! I called him and asked him to read the milk label from the fridge to me. The change was from "evaporated cane juice" to "cane sugar" and the sugar moved to the number 2 spot on the list rather than the number 4 spot. By the way, that's not improved taste, that's simply sweetening it. 

Disappointed they increased sugar content, and happy our son can still drink it, I proceeded to place 1 carton into our cart. It will safely serve its purpose for baking for the baby shower. I have to decide now if I'm willing to continue giving this even sweeter drink to my son. This will likely mean looking at tons of coconut milk labels to see if any other brands will even work! 

Foreign Food and Allergies

I've been thinking lately of  how blessed I am to be handling these family food allergies in my country of origin. I can read and fully understand the language, I recognize and know the foods and packages in the grocery stores, I can read the ingredient labels with a somewhat full understanding of what is listed (I'm even learning those sneaky words!).

I tip my hat to all of you out there who are handling your own food allergies in a language not native to your tongue, in a country where even the food containers look different, and the entire shopping experience is different. I commend your bravery and encourage you to keep persevering. Feel free to comment and share your story!