Happy Nut-Free Holidays! Tips for Navigating Holiday Parties, Baking Resources, Class Parties and More!

Have a sweet holiday by planning ahead for
potential food allergy pitfalls.

We're in the heart of the holiday season and if you have kids with food allergies, that can mean extra stress. Everything from holiday parties to visiting Santa at the mall takes on a new dimension when dealing with life-threatening nut allergies, but you don't have to let food allergies stand in the way of enjoying the holidays! True, food is everywhere but if you plan ahead and are prepared for it, you can keep the allergic family members healthy and happy and best of all, keep yourself healthy and happy.

If you are just starting out with severe nut allergies, finding a balance can sound impossible, especially dealing with holiday parties. Take a deep breath, realize you can't do it all and then check out my best tips for a nut-free, stress-free holiday including advice on navigating holiday parties.

Here's one tip I didn't include in that post but realize I should have. When you attend a cookie exchange, potluck, or really any holiday party with food of unknown origin, I do not recommend the following: asking everyone in the room whether or not the food has nuts in it as a basis for evaluating whether or not you should feed it to your allergic kiddo.

Why? Because, even if the food doesn't have nuts in it, cross-contact could have occurred during the cooking/baking process. Or the cook or baker could have used ingredients that have a cross-contact warning. Or the cook/baker's kitchen might have a lot of the allergen present and cross-contact can occur that way. Or one of the kids could have eaten peanut butter and stuck their finger in the batter when Mom or Dad or Grandma wasn't looking.

I could go on, but I think you probably get the gist: you have no way of knowing if a food is safe if it's unlabeled and made in another kitchen where the family does not deal with allergies. I know it's hard but it's best to avoid these home baked items of unknown origin.

What if Santa is giving out candy?

Recently, a reader wrote to me regarding how to deal with Santa at the mall when he's handing out candy and such after the kids visit him. This is a tough one because kids believe that Santa knows everything about them, so why would he give them unsafe candy?

Ideally, you have taught or are in the process of teaching kids to question any candy they get -- even if given to them by a trusted adult. Santa is no exception and you can tell the kids that he is very busy and occasionally makes a mistake. If your child gets candy from Santa and you can't determine if it's safe or not (for example, it has no label), one thing you can do is to immediately switch it with something from your own pocket. If your child questions you, you can say, "Oh, Santa gave you the wrong thing by mistake. One of his elves gave me this candy. I checked it and it's safe for you." Or whatever works for your situation -- you're a parent, I'm sure you're creative.

A lot of us will be baking, so if you have vanilla extract questions? Click here for baking tips and ingredients info. For those of you with general baking questions, this post has some thoughts for those without allergies who want to bake for us, while this post is geared to the families personally dealing with nut allergies.

Need nut-free Christmas dessert recipe ideas? This archived post has some good ones, plus check out my Pinterest board, "Christmas Sweets (Nut-Free)."

For some general advice on nut allergies and the holidays, check out these 6 excellent tips from SunButter sunflower seed spread: they quoted me and shared some of my fave tips for parents.

Looking for nut-free candy finds at the supermarket? Here are some that you will see on store shelves.

School parties this week? Click this link for an article about food allergies and school parties that I wrote for Chicago Parent magazine.

Please feel free to share your holiday solutions in the comments below. All best wishes for a very happy holiday season!

For more parent-to-parent advice on successfully navigating nut allergies, click here.

Nut-Free School Lunch Ideas and Resources for Back to School

Our district began the school year today and I know that many of you have kids back at school soon or maybe they're already there. And you know what that means: LUNCH! Sending kids with food allergies to school each day means that we are packing lunch 5 days a week -- a nut-free lunch. For some of you it might be a lunch free from other allergenic foods too.

Most of us weren't born knowing how to create tasty, nutritious and appealing lunches week after week, but luckily there are many lunch resources out there to help busy parents deliver the noontime goods.

First I want to share some really wonderful and creative lunches that I found online and that I have pinned on my Pinterest page. For example, this link has a creative and nutritious variety of nut-free lunches that you can tailor to your kids' tastes and needs. Go to my Pinterest page and look for the board "Nut-Free Lunches" to find more nut-free lunch ideas. I encourage you to share your own lunch ideas in the comments box below for a future post that I will then add to my Pinterest page.

Some of the recipes on this blog can easily be added to a lunchbox. Reader faves include two soups (make for dinner and save for lunch!): Minestrone and Mexican Meatball Soup. Click the links to find those recipes; they offer a healthy serving of vegetables but in a kid-friendly way.

For sweet sides, my ever-popular Nut-Free Granola Bars and Big Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies are a nice treat, plus they're easy to make. Or try the "No Nuts 'Peanut Butter' Chocolate Bars." Made with SunButter or soy butter, these are a family (and blog reader) favorite.

While out and about, I recently spotted the above book called "Best Lunch Box Ever" by Katie Morford. (In bookstores and at Amazon.com). True, this book does have some peanut butter and nut butter recipes, but the author acknowledges the prevalence of food allergies and assures readers that the recipes will work with PB substitutions like SunButter.

This book features lots of great ideas for leftovers plus many tasty and unique ways to work healthy fruits and vegetables into your child's lunch. My 10-year-old was flagging pages of lunches she wanted to try the day I brought it home. For those of you who have more adventurous eaters or for kids just plain tired of that same turkey sandwich (guilty on that one!), give this a look. You'll also find snacks and sweet treats that are designed to be healthy and nutritious as well as tasty.

If you're looking for prepared nut-free facility foods you can just pop in a lunch bag, three of my blog sponsors have lunch-perfect foods: Candice Foods protein bars, Skeeter Snacks cookies and Vermont Nut Free Chocolates (snack bars, granola bars and "nut-free" M&M type candies called "Skippers").

What about lunches free of dairy, egg and nuts? You can find wonderful lunches, dinners, snacks and sweet treats in Kelly Rudnicki's cookbook The Food Allergy Mama's Fast, Easy Meals. Most of these foods can be made gluten-free, as well.

And speaking of nut-free and gluten-free, if you need both and your child is young enough to appreciate a cute and tasty lunch, visit The Keeley McGuire Blog. This site is devoted to creating visually appealing, nutritious and delicious nut-free and gluten-free lunches. Even if you don't need gluten-free, take a peek just for inspiration alone. Your kids will be the envy of the lunchroom.

And, check out this past post (Nut-Free Lunch Items Spotted on the Shelves) about nut-free facility school lunch foods I've seen at the local supermarket. If you've seen any new ones, please let us know by commenting at the end of this post!

Online ordering is always a time-saving option when you need nut-free. For a huge variety of nut-free snacks and treats that you can order online, visit one of my favorite food sites, Peanut Free Planet.

What about packing these fabulous nut-free lunches? I found LunchBlox by Rubbermaid at Target last year and I love this eco-friendly reusable lunch packing system. The kids do, too. You will save a fortune on lunch bags and baggies while being kind to the environment. The salad kit, sandwich kit and entrée kit, respectively, all come with a blue ice pack for keeping foods fresh and cold. Best of all, they stack up and fit together so the lunches don't go rolling around. You will need a fairly roomy lunch carrier for these, depending on the size of the LunchBlox containers you use.

I also love the Laptop Lunches containers found at Whole Foods and online. These containers can be used to create a bento-style lunch and you can purchase a companion lunch "bag" (flat like a laptop) that perfectly houses each container. Again, the containers and lunch boxes keep foods from rolling around in the bag.

New to nut allergies?

In the past several weeks, I've heard from many parents whose child  received a recent nut allergy diagnosis: peanut, tree nut or like us, both. For support and guidance on navigating daily life with nut allergies, check out my e-book "The New Nut-Free Mom."

The book is available for the Kindle, Nook, iPad, Mac and PC. Free apps are available for your computer if you don't have an e-reader. Click this link for more details and a special thanks to everyone who has sent me great feedback via e-mail or posted a positive review of this book. It is very much appreciated!

Attention all Pinners, Tweeters and Social Media Mavens!

Did you know that all you have to do to share any of my posts on Pinterest, Twitter, Google + and many other formats is to click the "Share This" button at the bottom of my posts? By clicking Share This you will be taken to a menu of social media options that allows you to immediately share any post with family, friends or with your own social media page.

For example, some people have asked about a Pinterest button for my posts but apparently it's already there! Click "Share This" and you're good to go.


Share your lunches with us!

What about you? Tell us what your kids' favorite nut-free lunch combos are and they will be featured in a future post that I will include on my Pinterest board "Nut-Free Lunches."

Peanut Allergy? Nut-Free Christmas Cookies and Christmas Desserts

Wow, what a busy week of writing, work and yes, baking! This is one of my biggest baking weeks of the year. Since so many of you are looking for nut-free Christmas dessert ideas, I am sharing three of my favorites that have been popular with blog readers.

I focused on nut-free for these recipes, so they will contain dairy and/or other allergens. Some of these take more time than others and for beginning or reluctant bakers, I say you can't go wrong with the Christmas Butter Cookies, aka Super Easy Christmas Cookies.

The first one is my all-time favorite Christmas cookie, Snowballs. Usually these are chock-full of pecans or walnuts--not these babies. And they taste great. Enjoy!

Christmas Butter Cookies--these have that bakery taste but they are SO EASY to make with items you probably already have on hand in your house.

Peppermint Cream Mold--totally old-fashioned, really delicious. I modified this from an early 1960s cookbook and it turned out great!

Snowman Chocolate Cupcakes--OK, these take some time to prepare and this is not a quick recipe. For us, it's become a tradition. Get your family, friends or kids to help, and you can have fun while you work on these. And I think you'll really like the result! I submitted this recipe to Chicago Parent's online cookbook.

If you decide to make any of these, I hope you enjoy them! Happy Holidays!

Food Allergy News: Are Ocean Spray Craisins Nut-Free?

With food allergen labeling all over the map, it's always good to do your research on a product. Because my kids like dried fruit, I noticed while shopping one day that Ocean Spray Craisins say "peanut-free" on the bag. However, I also noticed that the company makes trail mix containing tree nuts, which are another group of allergens we need to avoid. Peanuts have definitely made it onto food companies' radar, but tree nuts, not so much even though they are one of the most common and potentially life-threatening food allergens.

I contacted the company for more info and was very happy with the following response:

"February 24, 2011

Hello Jenny,

Thanks for contacting us over here at Ocean Spray, where we pride ourselves on 80 years of taking great care in harvesting and manufacturing our products. It’s nice to hear from people who are as into cranberries as much as we are.

All of our products are produced in facilities and equipment that are free of nuts, dairy, and eggs. The production equipment is cleaned and sterilized between each production run. Thus, there is no risk of cross contamination between any of our products. We are currently marketing a selection of Trail Mixes, which contain mixed nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate. Those products are packaged in separate facilities, apart from our standard products."

It was good to know that the trail mix is not made in the same facility as the plain Craisins, aka dried cranberries.

With this in mind, here's one of our favorite family cookie recipes. We recently added Craisins to this and everyone loved it--plus it packs a little more nutrition into the cookie. I know I've offered chocolate chip and oatmeal granola bars recently, so Craisins would be a nice addition to those as well.

The Nut-Free Mom's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, (1 stick) softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar (I like dark brown)
1 large egg
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned or quick cooking oats, uncooked
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I use Hershey's semi sweet or Vermont Nut-Free)
1/4 cup Ocean Spray Craisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, with mixer set a medium, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla just until combined. Reduce speed to low and gradually stir in flour, just until blended. At low speed mix in oatmeal, chocolate chips and Craisins.


Drop dough by heaping tablespoons (I use a mini ice cream scoop for this), 2 inches apart, on two ungreased large cookie sheets. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes, rotating cookie sheets between upper and lower oven racks halfway through baking. With wide spatula, transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Repeat with remaining dough. Makes about 24 cookies.

Merry Christmas from The Nut-Free Mom!

I wanted to take this time to say Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate! As the year comes to a close, I can reflect on the many people I've either met through this blog or in person who are working hard to make life better and safer for people with food allergies. Thanks to all of you! Your efforts make a difference.

I also wanted to give a word of hope to parents who may be dealing with nut allergies for the first time this year. It does get easier. And you're definitely not alone. I hope you'll visit this blog often and share your concerns if you have them.

I also hope that everyone takes this opportunity to relax and enjoy time with friends and family. Food allergies can make holidays a little more difficult, but holidays aren't only about food. Serve your family some "safe" foods, bring them along to the parties with you and have fun with the spirit of the season!

If you're heading out to parties and are looking for some food allergy navigation tips, check out my holiday party guidelines. The title says "Thanksgiving" but my tips work for any holiday party.

Also, if you feel like any last-minute baking (as I'm doing today), I've heard some great feedback on my Nut-Free Snowball Cookies and Super-Easy Christmas Cookies, so check out those recipes if you wish!

To all of you, everywhere, Merry Christmas!