IT IS OFFICIALLY official – wheat is back on the menu.
It’s a massive step forward. Yet right at this minute it also feels like a big step back. Why? Because we have to go right back to the drawing board to discover what is and isn’t safe for Sid to eat.
The joy of many gluten free brands is that they are also explicit about being nut free, egg free, sesame free too. Dove’s Farm gluten free biscuits, for example:
Their wheat versions, however, read more like this:
Hence, no-go for us.
Even the pretty looking toddler biscuits from Ella’s Kitchen, or Organix, or Artisan, are “unsuitable for nut allergy sufferers”.
So I’m setting aside about half a day for our next big shop – it’ll be me you see lurking in the aisles like a lunatic, scrutinising packet after packet, scribbling down products and brands ready to phone or email once I’m back home to check whether traces of nuts might be present (although many manufacturers use ‘may contain’ labels it’s not actually compulsory and I need to know if nuts, seeds or egg might have been processed on the same lines).
Happily, I’ve had so much help from the fellow allergy community on Twitter and have already been told that Kingsmill and Hovis are generally ‘safe’, while M&S pitta and Waitrose par-baked ciabatta reportedly are, too.
Honestly, if you’ve just received an allergy diagnosis and feel like you’re flailing around in the dark, I highly recommend getting yourself on Twitter or Facebook and tracking down the very many fellow allergy parents and allergy sufferers and nurses and researchers and doctors and bakers and ‘free from’ manufacturers out there.
They will be your lifeline, a mine of information, tips, recipes and support. It’s where I’ve been turning these past few days and it’s given me the confidence to try this out on our little one this morning (as you can see, I am treading very cautiously!):
Verdict? “I want more.” Maybe tomorrow 😉
yesnobananas 
big LIKE thanks for sharing.