Why does it always feel like the new school season sneaks up on me, even when I’m thinking that I’d welcome the return to routine?  Some of you have already gone back to school (either yourself or your kids), and some are heading back shortly.  Even if you don’t have children and school is the furthest thing from your mind, it’s still a great opportunity to review the systems you have in place to control your special dietary and medication needs. 

1.  I know it is stressful to put your child’s life in someone else’s hands.  But remember that this may be an educational journey for the staff you’re speaking to.  It is imperative to work through the issues positively but firmly and recognize that it may take several meetings and contact on your part to implement an appropriate plan.  Having all staff who will deal with your child present at the same meeting is helpful but also ensure that part-time staff or teacher substitutes are included in the staff plan.  If you are in a workplace environment, take the time to educate your boss and co-workers.  Don’t assume that because someone has dealt with your same medical concern before, they know everything about the condition and treatment.

2.  As a former elementary teacher, I really appreciated having the parent of the child with medical concerns (food or otherwise) provide me with some helpful information and tips that I should be aware of.  This could include suggestions for healthy lunch ideas for the class that don’t include the allergen, facts about the food allergy he or she will deal with, providing safe treats to keep in the classroom and perhaps offering to come in and speak to the class about your child’s allergy.  Back to school is an incredibly busy time for teachers so taking away the burden of doing their own research about the allergy is appreciated and gives them something to refer to throughout the year.

3.  If the school does not already do so, create a bright, colorful poster with a picture of your child on it, what they are allergic to and the steps to take if a suspected reaction occurs.  Consider making several posters for the office, the staff room and any classroom your child will be in.  This is one situation where it is okay for your child to stand out; it may save their life.  Dorm rooms and offices where allergic adults are should be considered for this as well.

4.  Now is the perfect time to ensure that your epi pens are up to date, any antihistamines required are stored with the epi pen and instructions have not worn off the side of your epi-pen. 

5.  If you do not yet have an alert bracelet or necklace for yourself or your child, now is the time to get one.  If you don’t want to get a medic alert brand bracelet, you can find what you need at your local jewellery store and have it engraved as to your medical condition.  If you already have a bracelet, check that any engraving has not worn down and is still readable by emergency personnel.

6.  Do you have any old epi-pens or an epi-pen trainer?  If not, get one.  This is the time to refresh yourself on the use of the epi pen at the same time as teaching any new people in your or your child’s life from teachers to daycare providers and bosses to friends.

7.  Make sure your child is well prepared.  For us, this meant a lot of instruction on hand washing and setting ground rules for not sharing food, etc.  Include them in their choices of safe treats that will be kept at the school so they always know they’ve got something yummy should an unexpected food event occur, like another child’s birthday.

8.  Speaking of hand washing, make sure that your school has appropriate soap and towels (we had to get the school board to put up liquid soap dispensers) and that your child always has ready access to running water with ample supplies.  Hand washing before eating is much easier to control then having all surfaces washing consistently.

9.  Be prepared to be involved at school with everything from baking/bringing safe treats for parties to field trips and participating on the Parent Council.  It’s time consuming but worth every second.

10.  Finally… be good to yourself.  Worry and sleepless nights take their toll on not only you but your allergic child.  Take the time to spend extra time with your allergic child doing something fun just for the two of you; you’ll be glad you did.

Do you have some of your own tips?  Be sure to add your comments.

Many changes have taken place at Nonuttin’ Foods and those include changes to our best selling vanilla caramel and vanilla cinnamon granolas.  While it’s important that you check ingredients every time you order to be sure you choices are good for you, here are some highlights:

Pouches of granola are no longer called granola clusters, you’ll note that they are called “granola” instead.  Why?  In hot conditions (either in transit or in the store environment), our granola clusters had a tendency to lump into a large granola clump at the bottom of the bag.  Nonuttin’ “granola clumps” was not exactly what we were going for so we wanted to ensure that all customers were getting a more consistent product, no matter what the conditions.  Therefore, the pouches of granola “clusters” are now a different consistency with a more blended granola of very small clusters, whole grain oats and crunchy rice.  These granolas are now more suitable for sprinkling on yogurt/soygurt, berries, apple crisp and more plus being great with steamed or cold milk added on top.

Those who love the clusters can still get their fix in our 30 g snack pack of vanilla caramel granola clusters.

The Nonuttin’ pouches of granola are now sesame free both in Canada and the US.   Please note that the 30 g snack pack of granolas still has sesame as a potential cross-contaminant from the facility where that particular crisp rice ingredient is made.  Please see our allergen declarations for more details.

Could your school, camp, or local grocery use Nonuttin’ granolas?  We sell Nonuttin’ vanilla caramel and vanilla cinnamon granola as bulk (4.5 kg/9.9 lb) ingredients for applications such as breakfast cereal, yogurt parfaits or snack packs.  One school even orders our granolas to turn into their own in-house granola bars. 

We do only sell these to approved foodservice institutions and businesses (sorry to those of you with teenagers eating you out of house and home) but those businesess or institutions who are interested can contact our team at wholesale@nonuttin.com.

If you’re unfamiliar with the company Divvies from New York State, they manufacture and package yummy goodies that are all free of peanuts, nuts, eggs and dairy.  Offerings include everything from cupcakes and cookies to chocolate bars and candy.  The candy and chocolate items are made in their own separate building from the bakery so are also wheat/gluten free.

We’ve partnered with Divvies on different occasions to bring Divvies products to Canada through the Nonuttin’ website although we do not carry Divvies products year round.  We’ve found that the products are always delicious, safe (founders Lori and Mark Sandler’s son Benjamin has various food allergies ) and beautifully packaged.

Lori Sandler’s “The Divvies Bakery Cookbook” is no exception. It’s a visually beautiful book, looking as pretty and delicious as a Divvies bakery box full of cookies.  But I wasn’t the only one who thought so.  I also had my teenage daughters look over the book since we do a lot of home desserts due to our family’s food allergies and my girls are big baking fans.  They certainly found recipes and pictures that inspired them to want to bake.  And recipes aren’t the only treasure trove in this book; Lori provides helpful tips and personal suggestions throughout the book.

Not all recipes are “baking” but are ideas for fun treats that may help you creatively deal with parties and events where you’re either serving for many or sending that special treat with your allergic child.  For example, there is a recipe for chocolate covered bananas – not rocket science but something I’d never thought about serving to kids.

Our family no longer has all of the allergies in the book so in the majority of the recipes, it would be an easy switch back to an egg, for example.  However, some of these substitutions listed, including silken tofu or applesauce, would certainly improve the nutrition of many recipes so you might want to try it anyway, purely for that value.  I found that some of the substitutions suggested are not available in Canada but Lori has picked well known brand names so Americans should find most items readily available at the grocery store.

Although there are many recipes that are gluten free naturally or could easily be substituted (such as gluten free oats for traditional oats), there are several recipes that would need to have a practiced gluten free flour hand to be free of gluten, dairy, egg, peanuts and nuts.  So if you you are just avoiding wheat/gluten but not the other allergens, this may not be the book for you.  Overall, multiple allergy fans will find this a book to cheer about!  See www.divvies.com for ordering information.

In a previous post, I shared our family’s experience with Applebee’s in Minot, North Dakota.  If you haven’t read it, you can go to the blog post at http://www.nonuttin.com/blog/archives/349.

The bottom line is that our server at Applebee’s, Jennifer, essentially ran back and forth between our table, the kitchen, and her manager asking questions, checking with the head chef, checking ingredient labels and truly taking our family’s 6 food allergies seriously.  And she managed to actually serve us with a smile at the same time.

So we tipped her 30% of our bill.  We often tip quite large but this was large, even for us.  Some people might think that service of this sort should be the norm, and even if that’s true, it’s not what we run into on a regular basis.  So to me, tipping far more than the norm is part of my dining out strategy.  While I have no proof that this dining out strategy works, here’s my justification: Read more »

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post.  With renovating here at Nonuttin’, having guests and holiday travel, I have to admit that I haven’t been very prolific with the writing.  But with all of the traveling I’ve been doing with family, I have several blog posts to write about our experiences.  That said, I’ll start with The Applebee’s Saga.

 At home we have certain restaurants we feel comfortable with and don’t tend to deviate from those if and when we go out to eat as a family.  Since we have 6 food allergies in our family, it makes for a challenge which is why we’ve gotten to know the chefs and owners of local favorites very well.

That’s all well and good but has no relevance if you’re traveling, particularly in a different country such as the US.  Since we tend to dine where the owner is present, chains don’t often meet our needs.  And even if we’re comfortable with a chain in Canada, we’ve discovered that as soon as we hit the US, there’s a whole new set of rules in that same franchise.  Case in point, Applebee’s, which we went to while in Minot, North Dakota in July. Read more »