When I’m at the grocery store I’ll pick up many different products for a variety of different reasons.

As the grocery shopper for a family with 6 different food allergies, I’m always reading the labels on products that I want to buy.  I check out new products to see if they’re suitable and I review old favorites to be sure that nothing has changed since the last time I purchased them.

But as the owner of a food company, I’m also perusing the food aisles for a whole different set of reasons.  I notice packages that I love the coloring or the artwork, perhaps the size or convenience of something makes me stop to take note or maybe a competitor has changed how they’re packaging their product.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up a new product at the grocery store last week simply because I liked its packaging and got quite a shock when I read the allergen information.  Right off the bat, I’ll tell you it was a natural snack with nuts in it which I already knew was off limits for my family but I read the allergen information anyway and that’s when I saw it:  “Contains nuts.  May contain other allergens not listed.“  Huh? Read more »

Do you ever wonder why you never see the words allergy free on our products or website?

I began using the term allergy friendly about 6 years ago and ever since then have been correcting those who refer to Nonuttin’ products as allergy free.  While I can understand that like “gluten free”, it’s a quick and easy way to refer to products that are designed for those with food allergies, it doesn’t communicate the true reality of food allergies. Read more »

I’m here to tell you a secret;  traveling is not all glamor.  Hard to believe, isn’t it?

I remember when my kids were little and my husband had to travel for work conferences.  I’d be exhausted when he came home and he had the nerve to be exhausted too!  How could that be when he’d had a hotel to go to sleep in, meals provided, banquets to attend, no children to wake him up in the middle of the night, no carting the kids back and forth between childcare plus work?  Now, I’ve discovered why as the shoe is on the other foot.

Because it is my company that I travel for, no one is planning my dinners for me at lovely restaurants when I’m away.   And, like many of you with food allergies and intolerances, I cart my own food with me so that I can eat safely and healthfully and try to book hotels with a microwave and fridge wherever I can.  I’ve been traveling so much in the last 3 months that I haven’t spent more than 10 days at home at a time.  At one point, I looked out of my plane at the city beyond and forgot where I was (Vancouver)!

So you might ask, why do I do it?   Here are the things that keep me going:

The eleven year old boy at the Canadian Celiac Association’s National Conference in Winnipeg who mowed through all of our samples once his mom had determined all of our products were safe for his Celiac disease, peanut allergies, egg allergies and dairy allergies.  What a smile on his face and his mom’s too!

The lady at Choices gluten free fair in White Rock who found out we’re free of sulfites and dairy.  She told me that she was in love with our company. 

The store owner who came up to our booth at the Canadian Health Food Association’s Expo West who said she can’t keep our Energy Explosion trail mix on the shelf, people love it so much.

The lady who’s been a customer for years who introduced herself at the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Annual Conference in Los Angeles in May.  It felt like I was meeting an old friend.

But it’s the same in all that we do isn’t it?  We handle all of the education and anxiety necessary to deal with our family’s food allergies and at times it can be really overwhelming.  We plough on, sometimes just putting our heads down and marching ahead because it’s really all we can do.  But then we get those moments of bright light; that small thing that may not mean much to someone not in our shoes but can mean the world to us.  A new safe product, a medical situation handled well, excitement over finding someone else who really “gets it”.

Small things – they’re really what makes the world go round.

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 »

Shows like The Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last month can be a little overwhelming.  Open only to those in the natural products industry (stores, distributors, manufacturers, media, etc.), not the general public, it’s hard to share with you the vast size and amazing diversity of items available at these shows.  There is everything from allergy friendly foods to organic skin care to vitamins and pet food.

But while there were some wonderful new products to discover, I found an underlying bandwagon at the show:  gluten free.  New market research shows that 1 out of every 10 new products introduced this year will have a gluten free claim.  Some of this is good, some not so.  Read more »

If you’re a subscriber to my enewsletter, you know that I like to showcase other special diet websites and products that I feel could be helpful to our Nonuttin’ clients.  One such company that we’ve been getting to know is Nutrition for your Condition.  The ladies who began this company know how difficult it is to go anywhere and eat safely so they put together a travel kit that anyone with a special diet could easily take with them to school or on the road or plane.

I asked Crystal Paulitzki, one of the founders,  to provide our followers with a bit of information about their company which she has done below.  She’s also graciously offered Nonuttin’ clients a discount coupon for use when purchasing any Nutrition for your Condition products.  Here’s what Crystal had to say: Read more »

There are a lot of people in the “free from” foods market that begin their businesses for different reasons.  Many, like myself, begin a company due to intensely personal reasons such as an affected family member.  Others  start because they choose to eat a certain way to feel healthier and want to share that with the world.  And others don’t have any of the medical issues involved but perhaps have a product that they would like to market to a particular segment of the free from marketplace such as Nestle’s chocolate bars in Canada being advertised as peanut free.

What I find frustrating are the people who want to market a product as free from a certain ingredient but have no idea what that actually means.  Read more »

I find Valentine’s Day stressful with food allergies.  In the past, when our allergic child was in elementary school, I found it to be the most stressful day of all.  It all came to a head when Megan was in grade 4 and Valentine’s Day became a food buffet of everything she couldn’t eat laid out in front of her.  Score in her head?  Other kids:  30 treats,  Me:  2 Read more »

If you’re like me, there have been times when you wondered whether your child actually had a food allergy or whether they had outgrown the allergy.  Both of our children outgrew dairy allergies which we didn’t know until we actually tried milk with them under our doctor’s guidance.  Until recently, we thought Megan might have outgrown her kiwi allergy but she wasn’t willing to do an oral challenge.  Unfortunately, as you may know from an earlier blog post and the Nonuttin’ News, we found out the hard way in December that kiwi is still very much one of her food allergies.

What if there was a blood test that was far more accurate than anything we have right now (skin or blood) that could give a definitive diagnosis without an oral challenge?  Would you feel relieved? Read more »

In last January’s enewsletter, I had mentioned that we had received many requests for products with sunflower seeds.  At that time, I asked for feedback on both the pros and cons after which we received several emails for both sides.

After carefully reviewing the feedback and, in many cases, having further discussions with the people who sent in feedback on the con side, it was evident that sunflower seeds would be overwhelmingly well accepted as long as they were  were controlled on the pouch line only (trail mixes, baking ingredients, etc.) in the same manner that we currently control the soybeans. Read more »