Raising Maine

Welcome BethGeorge - it's great to have you here on Raising Maine... I have a neightbor who's child was recently diagnosed with celiac - it amazing how things have turned around for them since the diagnosis! Look forward to hearing from you again.

Hi Everyone, Here are some suggestions for avoiding foods with additives at birthday parties and Halloween, etc. Thanks for all the wonderful comments and welcoming remarks. I have a suggestion for moms or dads or grandparents for birthday parties when you are trying to avoid additives and other problematic foods for your kids. First, we are simply not shy about explaining to parents that our son has some special dietary needs, which we explain are really not that weird at all. Just no artificial additives and no wheat. Soooo.....when he got invited to a birthday party at Joker's, we had a few options so he could go and feel like he belonged. We could either make some stuff ourselves and pack to go, OR, as busy parents, we took a quick detour to Whole Foods - bought a few pieces of pizza made with our Spelt Right dough (seriously, I lobbied Whole Foods to carry our dough in the prepared foods so that we could go out for pizza....now a whole bunch of people can enjoy it) AND, we swung over to the Whole Foods bakery for some wheat free desserts. It was great! At the party, my son pulled out his pizza and cake and fit right in, though the other kids were kinda hoping they could have some too! At our birthday parties, I make a really nice light spelt cake with butter cream frosting. We natural colors (blueberries or beets or whatever) if we want to color the frosting. I will post the cake recipe another time. We have NO candy unless it is a natural lollipop or two. We have the kids make their own pizzas with our spelt dough, and we have the kids make fruit cabobs (and try to keep them from poking each other with the sticks). The last two birthdays in which we did this, we had NO meltdowns! Halloween - ahhh, Halloween!! We allow our kids trick or treat to their hearts content, BUT, we DO NOT allow them to eat the candy. Instead, we get a big piece of cardboard and some hot glue guns. The kids them build amazing structures with the candy. We have done this for three years in a row and now kids want to come to our house for Halloween to build candy castles. WE DO, however, buy natural candy from the health food stores and make our own caramel apples without corn syrup. I will post that recipe too! Hope you find this helpful! Really, diet change does not have to be a bore, and does not have to be intimidating. It really can become quite an adventure!