It’s bad enough that we need to convince people in our lives that food allergies besides peanut can create life threatening reactions too.  But what happens when even allergy researchers believe that certain food allergies are not as serious? Read more »

My heart is feeling 2 sizes too small these days.  I may not be green but I seem to be feeling the same biological issue affecting one of my favorite Dr. Seuss characters.  It’s not that I want to steal Christmas but that I’m feeling like I’d rather avoid it altogether.

I’ll be hosting my side of the family which is the first time we’ll all be together in the 7 years since we moved from Alberta to Vancouver Island.  The distance was just too great to drive over the wintery Rocky Mountains for 15 hours to my sister’s house and 17 hours to my parents’ house and too costly to afford airfare along with everything else that comes with Christmas.  But this year we all decided to make sure we could get together since my eldest nephew will be out of high school this year and most likely moving on to other things.  It was time to bite the bullet and be in the same place.

Add to our family of 10 the French exchange student that we’ll have for Christmas (don’t ask, it seemed like a good idea at the time) and we’ll have 11 people in the house for a week, 5 of them teenagers.

I’m now working on Christmas presents for the family and the French student along with planning meals and baking, all a bunch of things I haven’t had to worry about for years.  So I’m starting to feel the Grinch as I worry about what food is coming to our house and planning dairy free meals for our French student along with all of the allergy issues we always deal with.

I’m sure it will work out just fine but I forgot how stressful it can be, right at the time when society’s expectation is that we’re joyful.  Guess it’s time to get rid of the Grinch and channel my inner Who.

Time today for a little rant.  What’s new?  The topic is demos.  You know, where ladies stand behind a table in your grocer’s aisle, complete with a hair net and gloves.  They offer little samples of various food products, coupons and more.  Many people love food demos and even go to Costco every Saturday to “lunch” on the samples.  Companies do food demos because if consumers try the product we may like it or simply feel guilty and agree to buy an item from that kindly lady behind the table.

99% of the time I avoid food demos, whether or not my allergic child is with me.  In fact, I really try not to make eye contact and have been known to avoid aisles completely if it means I can bypass a demo.  When I have stopped, I’m inevitably disappointed, if not downright ticked off.  Sometimes I can see right away that there are food allergens that we need to avoid in the product but other times I have heard allergen information from the presenter that’s not even close to the mark.  As an example, several years ago Nestle came out with a new Real Dairy product line of ice cream.  Of course, we Canadians know that Nestle has several peanut free chocolate bars on the market here so hope surged within me that I just might be able to get a delicious new ice cream that was safe for our whole family.   Read more »

My husband and I just got back from Calgary yesterday after a quick trip to help support our best friends.  This trip has truly made me appreciate that our life is really pretty good; a feeling I hope to affect my perspective for some time.

It all started last Wednesday with a phone call from my friend Erica who was calling from the Children’s Hospital in Calgary after their daughter was flown to the hospital earlier in the week.  As of that Wednesday, they’d received a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer.  I was blown away with the news, trying to listen to the details from Erica when all I wanted to do was cry.

We then arranged everything that night to fly to Calgary on the weekend to help support our friends while they dealt with their life changing completely in an instant.  My parents took our girls, my sister in Calgary arranged to pick us up at the airport and make one of their cars available to us for the weekend.  We cancelled all of our kids’ weekend activities and cancelled our previous plans to go away for the weekend with other friends.  It’s amazing how everyone was fantastic and supported us to make sure we could head out quickly.

On the Thursday before we left, we received the good news that the cancer had been identified as Hodgekins.  Hard to believe that good news is knowing what kind of cancer is present but Hodgekins has a very high recovery rate and it really was the best kind of cancer to hope for.

On the way to take our daughters to my parents and head out to the airport on Friday, we received a call from our alarm company that our house was being broken into and that the police were being dispatched to our house.  At first my husband and I just looked at each other in disbelief but then we started to laugh while our children in the back seat thought that we were cracking up.  But really… we were on our way to a situation that was so much bigger than the physical objects in our house.  We decided to laugh rather than rant and it turns out that it was actually just a false alarm.

In the end, we were thankful for our time with our friends and their daughters because while there were times to cry, there was a lot of laughter too.  It really drove home that despite dealing with food allergies in our house daily and the fear that can sometimes bring, we’re all  very lucky to be blessed with good health.  It’s all about perspective.

Time flies when you’re having fun.  I can’t believe that 5 years have passed since I began making Nonuttin’ granola bars in my commercial kitchen located in my home.  Between batches, I’d be making phone calls, delivering orders to local stores, building our website and eventually, sending orders out by courier.  Originally, we didn’t even have an online shopping cart because I hadn’t envisioned selling granola bars online, only to stores.  But customers requested easy access so I built it. Those of you who have been with us since the beginning probably remember having to phone in your order and I was the only one on the other end of the line.

We’ve been through many ups and downs as many of you can attest to and there have been times that I wasn’t sure that we’d make it, often due to circumstances beyond our control.  And while my husband still has another job, we’re very positive about the future of Nonuttin’ Foods.  One day, I hope to have him working beside me, adding his passion to making our company better and better.

One of my employees who just joined us last September remarked the other day that she couldn’t have kept going for as long as I have with the dedication required.  Both she and another employee agreed that I was very stubborn.  I’m not disagreeing, just that I’d use a different word because the word stubborn indicates an unwillingness to yield, even when the facts suggest otherwise.  Tenacity on the other hand, is defined by persistent determination, even when the odds might be against us.

We’ve been out of that first commercial kitchen for a long time and are again bursting at the seams, ready to grow into our next space.  Where will the future lead us?  I don’t know for sure but I’m willing to use that determination to get me up the next mountain to make Nonuttin’ the company I originally envisoned it to be:  the leader in providing delicious foods for those with special dietary needs.  I’d love to have you accompany me on the journey.

I am childless!  After sending one child off on a plane on Saturday and delivering another to her grandparents for a trip to auntie’s house in Calgary on Tuesday, our house is really quiet.  And for someone who is now supposed to be eating ice cream until midnight and bouncing on the bed, I find myself somewhat rudderless.

Gone are all of the electronic noises, teenage groans and sibling arguments.  I no longer have to prod children to complete chores, I simply have to do them myself.  No more fighting for time on the family computer, the phone isn’t being used when I want it.  But it’s too quiet.  I got a call from my allergic child last night since I’d requested she phone once she arrived after the 3 day journey.  She had the audacity to want to get off the phone quickly so she could rejoin her uncle’s birthday party.  Hmmph!

As my husband said at dinner last night, “so this is what it will be like in a few years”.  I’m not so sure I’m liking that too much.  Because all of this silence isn’t exactly worry free you know.  Tween and teen children (allergic and otherwise) in the care of other people and perhaps taking on personal responsibility?  That would mean I’ve done my job well and they don’t need me anymore.  Ack!

Maybe it’s time to go get that ice cream out.

It’s the Victoria Day long weekend and so begins the odyssey of lily-white, sun-starved Canadians into the wilds of Canada bearing backpacks, tents, hot dog forks and sunscreen.  Forget that the forecast is only a chilly 15 degrees Celsius here on Vancouver Island this weekend, we’re going if we have to wear toques.  Luckily, we upgraded to a tent trailer last year so no sleeping on the ground will be required.

So what does it take to go camping with a peanut, nut and kiwi allergic child?  Surprisingly, it’s getting a little easier now that we have some favorite brands of items that go with us, not to mention Nonuttin’ granola, granola bars and trail mix.  We take a nut free brand of chocolate covered cookies that we use for S’mores, our own bread and buns, bake our own goodies and after that, it’s all about fruit, veggies and what can be cooked on an open flame.

This time, we’re not going alone so the planning does get a bit more complicated.  Like school events, this is where I find it easiest to simply volunteer to make all of the baked goods required.  Luckily, my 2 girls are like their mom and love to bake and cook so while I worked today, the muffins, banana bread and cake (there’s an anniversary celebration today too) were magically created at home since my girls had the day off school.  I love this teenager stuff (bet you don’t hear that too often).

I have to admit that when we first started camping when the girls were little, I was really concerned about being away from home in case an allergic reaction occurred.  Of course, we always have epi pens both on our daughter and ourselves but being away from civilization was worrisome.  What I discovered, at least on Vancouver Island, is that camping is not what I remember it to be when I was a child.  My dad was one of those guys who eschewed anything paved and took us on back roads into places I’m not sure we were actually allowed to camp.  I remember being rescued from a mud pit once by a logging crew after my dad got my grandparents motorhome stuck on particularly nasty back road.  Not exactly where I’d want to be in case of an emergency.

But every provincial park we’ve been to so far is removed from the main roads enough to feel isolated and away from civilization while still being no more than 10 minutes from a main highway, phones and even a grocery store.  I feel fairly comfortable with that. 

And now that I  have convinced my husband that camp food can be more than just hot dogs and eating out of cans, we’re all set.

Holidays where chocolates play a large part are a nightmare for food allergic parents.  The beautiful Easter displays in stores and supermarkets are a huge disappointment as you start reading all the pretty packages only to come away with either nothing or a pathetically small amount of options.  And if you’re trying to find chocolates for Passover too you’d be pretty lucky to find anything that worked.

When my girls were little, we were lucky enough to be nearby Twin Cove Confections, a Victoria based nut free chocolate company that made delectable truffles and bunnies with homemade toffee bits and marshmallows inside .  Like many small allergy friendly companies, it was a company run by two sisters who had family members with food allergies and was generally sustained by their big hearts, not the money it generated.  Unfortunately, last year one of the founding sisters died of cystic fibrosis and  the decision was made to put the company to rest as well.  For the time that the company was running, there were a lot of us grateful allergy parents who were thrilled to find delicious and beautiful options.

Around the same time, my allergic (and youngest) child found out that that the Easter Bunny was not who she thought he was and the pressure was off to come up with chocolates every year.  Instead, being 12 an 14, my girls are now thrilled to have other more grown up goodies instead:  itunes certificates, pajamas, etc.  So while I miss the days of little ones joyously running around hunting for safe chocolate eggs, I certainly don’t miss my annual hunt for Christmas, Valentines Day,  and Easter treats.  Goodbye Easter Bunny!

Our family  just got back yesterday from Tofino where we took the Manitoba in-laws for their first look at the Pacific Rim National Park, gray whales, sea otters, rain, rain, rain and…snow.  Ah, nothing like spring on the west coast of Canada!

Like many allergy families, we got a kitchenette and dragged all of our own food along so that we wouldn’t have to eat out.  Despite all of the careful attention to detail, I had a bit of anxiety when it came time to bedtime.  While the suite slept 8, 2 of those 8 were on a pullout and we had planned to have our allergic child there so us parents could have a little privacy. 

But, I just couldn’t put her on the pullout when so many people sit and eat on the sofa.  We ate at the sofa while we were there since there wasn’t quite enough room at the table.  While we weren’t eating nuts, how many people had sat there before us?  How many people would come later  that have allergies to wheat from our breadcrumbs?  In the end, I ended up sleeping with said allergic child in a bed while our oldest daughter was alone on the pullout. 

My husband thought I was going a bit overboard but in the end, I managed to sleep (somewhat, given her elbow in my throat), knowing that we were sleeping in the room farthest from the kitchen.