SWEET!

A sweet treat!

With the official start of Fall looming, it seems only natural to start thinking about which candies I should fill my apothecary jars with this season.  I have an undeniable sweet tooth combined with a need to decorate! It is my favorite time of the year. I love ALL of the colors of Autumn, the sounds and smells of the outdoors and, yes, all of the many food events surrounding us.  With that said, now is the time to start thinking ahead and making Halloween a sweet treat for all of our families and friends to enjoy.

I have been searching for candy corns, for a couple of years, that are not cross contaminated with tree nuts or peanuts. To my surprise, my parents found a bag at their local dollar store that stated just that. It is by a company called Coastal Bay. I have never heard of them but I am happy to say that these candy corns are just as tasty as leading major brands. Nonetheless, they will be the perfect addition to my repertoire of candies needed to fill my jars and add to my Fall decor.  

After doing a bit of sleuthing, I have learned that Coastal Bay is a private label manufactured at Sunrise Confections. I spoke with a Sunrise representative and she confirmed that the Sunrise Confections facility does NOT process anything containing tree nuts or peanuts, therefore there is no risk of cross contamination. Mount Franklin Foods, LLC is the parent company of Sunrise Confections. Please visit www.sunrise.com to read more about their manufacturing processes.  

I realize that we all have different allergens in mind when searching for the perfect Halloween candies. For us, that means no Reese's Peanut Butter cups for mom and dad, among many others.  It works out well since there will be no temptations to buy such delicious little treats.  Like you, I will scour my kids jack-o-lanterns to remove such 'offensive' candies. In all seriousness, SAFETY is ALWAYS paramount, but especially this time of year.  Being proactive, all the while educating our little ghouls and goblins, educators, caretakers, families and friends about the hidden dangers in those little sweet treats are first and foremost.

Please share your sweet treat story with us!  

Houston FARE Walk!

Good morning!
My son spotted this beautiful rainbow the morning of the walk.  

The 2014 Houston FARE Walk proved to be an exciting day for all in my family.  I hope that it was great for all of you too!  The day was fun filled with lots of products to sample and vendors to answer questions.  My family and I arrived early and were, unexpectedly, greeted with this beautiful rainbow.  It seemed a bit random since the skies were so blue behind it.  I took it as a sign that it was going to be a good day.  The only things I would change for next year would be to make it about 10 degrees cooler with no mosquitos, but whose complaining?!

A special thanks goes out to Denise, team captain, for organizing our team so quickly.  We reached our goal the day of the race! Next year, HFAN will have a booth to promote our support group.  FARE has provided us with a banner and will provide educational materials.  

Great to see all of your smiling faces! 

FARE Walk 2014

Back to School Part 2: The best part is it involves shopping with no waiting in line!

Okay so maybe your not the type to stand in the long lines for tax free weekend, and maybe you managed to get all of your school shopping done in July. (I envy you) For the rest of us, okay me, who three weeks after school has started, was at Academy desperately searching for a boy's size 4 khaki short because I waited too long to place our uniform order and now everything is in back order, (gasp) shopping is probably not on your list of favorite things to do!

As our Nut Eggactly mom so eloquently blogged last month Back to School: Part 1/Getting Organized!, back to school means refilling prescriptions, scheduling doctors appointments, updating emergency action plans, and meeting with school administrators.  As I mentioned before this means that clothes shopping takes a back seat! I tend to prioritize shopping for allergy bands, cases to hold our auto-injectors, stickers etc.

This year shopping for allergy gear took on a whole different meaning after I came across  Blue Bear Aware. This site is full of allergy products to help manage our son's food allergy when he is away from home in what I call a fun, functional and fashionable way! I'll include links to a few of the products that I like and also one that my husband recommends for the food allergy dad's out there. The best part for us was learning that Blue Bear Aware is located here in Houston! HFAN would like to thank Blue Bear Aware Owner Heather for joining us at our Back to School Part 2 meeting.

Thank you Blue Bear Aware

HFAN Dairy Allergy Mom's Blue Bear Aware Fav's

FRIO - Helps keep auto-injector cool 
Inhaler - Puffer Pouch Shooting Stars
Customer Allergy Labels (the one labeled Housework of course!)
HFAN Dairy Allergy Dad's Blue Bear Aware Fav's
Plain DUO

So as we bring our Back to School discussion to a close I invite you to stay tuned to our blog and facebook page for announcements about our October meeting date and discussion topics.
HFAN Dairy Allergy Mom

Back to School Part 2: Recap

Follow up on Back to School Part 2. We covered quite a bit of information during the meeting, so I will recap a few points that stood out for me from the meeting. I first want to start off by saying THANK YOU to our guest, a Dietary Accommodations Nutritionist for HISD, for joining us in our back to school discussion. In a previous post I included links to HISD's nutrition information. I was impressed then as I perused their site and found tons of information for students with special dietary needs. Now after meeting the person involved in managing the process for Dietary Accommodations, I am in awe after learning about the meticulous process that goes on behind the scenes of the nutrition department in the 7th largest school district in the country. For our HISD families that follow us on social media I can say that you are in good hands! I also want to point out that this was HISD's first year with a tent at the FARE Walk here in Houston. So a big thank you to Food Service for making that happen! It's great when you know that an institution as large as HISD  is taking the time and resources to participate and advocate for our food allergy community! HFAN is looking forward to seeing them back out there for the 2015 walk!

HFAN Dairy Allergy Mom