Talking Allergies

My DS1 (8 yrs old) has a severe peanut allergy. We're taking the whole familiy to Disney after Christmas. We'll be staying in a rental house outside of Disney so we'll be cooking a lot of our own breakfasts and suppers.

My concern is finding peanut free food down there in their food stores. Here I use a lot of Dare products, President's Choice products etc. Are there any companies down in Florida that anyone knows of that have a lot of peanut free products??? We're planning on packing a lot of snacks for our whole family to eat during the day. I'm planning on packing snacks (teddy grams, PC pretzels etc) in my suitcase but wanted to know about other options.

Quick responses would be greatly appreciated!

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SAHM of 3 children. Oldest DS (1999) is anaphylactic to peanuts.

I would suggest that you find a forum with members who are in the Tampa, Florida area and who have food allergies. You can ask them what brands of bread, margarine etc thay buy and then you can contact the companies and make your own inquiries to determine if these products are suitable for your family.
I was able to do research before heading to Western Canada this was and it saved me much time and agravation.
I used a search engine to find:
Parents of Children With Food Allergies
www.foodallergysupport.net

Tampa, FL and online community providing information, education, advocacy, community resources, and friendship to families of children with food allergies since 2003.


http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/community.html

Information. Support. Understanding. Hope.

That's what parents have gained from the Parents Of Food Allergic Kids (POFAK) Online Support Community. Join more than 9,000 parents and become a Kids With Food Allergies member today to take advantage of the support offered in our community.

Our POFAK Community is the largest online support group dedicated to food allergies. Our extensive food allergy support forums (message boards) connect parents together to share information and tips, emotional support, news articles, and allergy safe recipes
-must register ($25.00US/annum) to post.

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: allergies to some tree that flowers in May
Cat: allergic to beef, pork and lamb

We were at Disney last year - what a Great experience.

Disney is well prepared to handle your allergies. I suggest if you are staying at a park for supper that you make reservations in advance. We did that and mentioned our allergies at the time of reservation and again upon arrival. Each time the chef came out and gave us the safe recommendations and handled our food personally. The fast food joints for lunch all have allergy binders that list the ingredients. The "Micky Ears Ice Cream" wasn't safe at the time, but I believe they now carry some safe ice cream products. I think they are also selling Divvies which are peanut/nut free.

We packed lunches for some days and definately brought snacks (LOTS of water) with us, both from Canada and from the store. We trusted the labelling as they do have regulations in the US for labelling for the Top 8. We stuck with manufacturers brands that had clear labelling.

For offsite eating, we ate at TGI Fridays (they were excellent and had complete lists by allergen of what what was not safe). We also ate at Chilli's and although they didn't have anything prepared that we could read at the table, the manager was very accomodating and wrote down everything from his computer system and brought it to us. They were very concerned about cross contamination in the fryers so all deep fried items were taboo. Ribs & mashed potatoes were the order of the day. We also ate at Giordano's Pizzaria in Kissimmee. They had a Chicago double crusted stuffed pizza that was unbelievable. It must have weighed 10 pounds - all from cheese! Anyway, they were also every helpful and we ate there without incident. Place to avoid - Outbacks - they serve peanuts and people crack and drop the shells on the floor . . .

The only negative was Seaworld - Our son could only have the hot dog from the children's menu (I swear the weiner was 3 inches long) served in a Shamu shaped container. Kinda fun if you're 4, but not if you're 14! They didn't have ingredients at the counters so we ate Lays Potato chips and drank Water & Coke! It was a short day so wasn't really a problem. I'd suggesting bringing your own for there!

For all other meals we ate at our villa. Toast & Cereal & fruit for breakfast, leftovers from restaurants for suppers. We even went to the grocery store and bought a frozen pizza one night. Very simple. We ended up buying way too much which was wasted. I'd suggest smaller shopping trips to avoid the waste.

Sorry I don't have specific brand and grocery information, but thought you may benefit from this info.

Margaret

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adult son allergic to peanuts, most tree nuts, eggs and penicillin.

Glad to hear you are staying somewhere with a kitchen, its the best way to go with allergies in my view. The less you eat out the less stress.

In reality, you will probably find peanut free snacks if you spend enough time in enough grocery stores in the US. However, if you are not going for that long, I recommend you just pack and extra suitcase with enough special food for the whole trip for your son. It will save you time on your vacation.

You can always even pack it in a box or throw away container that you don't have to bring back. Just be sure to check the US import regulations, you can't bring in meat or fresh fruit, but dried goods should be fine.

For more tips, see my article in this issue of allergic living - Have Kitchen, Will Travel.

Scott

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9 yr old daughter - no allergies
7 yr old daughter - allergic to peanuts, nuts, sesame, kiwi, soy

I've looked into many different restaurants in the Kissimmee area and now feel much better knowing a couple of places we can go if we want to eat out. Thanks so much for all of your help.

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SAHM of 3 children. Oldest DS (1999) is anaphylactic to peanuts.

We just got back from staying in the Orlando/Kissimee Area. I have to recommend a restaurant called "Maccaroni Grill" I believe it is part of the Chilli's chain, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, they were very good at handling our son's peanut allergy. They have a full allergy menu, not just for peanut, but when shown the menu there were other pages which included all other allergies, ie milk, tree nuts, etc. The staff was also very good at ensuring and concerns were addressed and that our enitre family was satisfied (There were 22 of us, family vacation, and this still didn't seem to throw them off). We had a great meal, and even went back with just my son, my husband and myself for another meal, seeing as we had such a good experience the first time, they were just as good the second time around.

I really found that the grocery stores were not good at all. I can pretty much guarentee in Canada walking into a grocery store and being able to find peanut free products, but did I ever have to search in the grocery stores there. Publix carried some Dare products, so that was a little helpful. I wasn't able to find much more. Needless to say we ate really healthy for it, stuck to fresh fruits/meats etc.

Overall, the theme parks are pretty good, but we too packed a lot of snacks just incase. We were getting a little tired of Hotdogs by the end of the trip though.

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SON 3-1/2 W/PEANUT ALLERGY

Disney went all out to ensure our DS was safe. Everytime we ate there the chef came out and asked questions about his allergy. I was impressed with how much the chefs knew about food allergies to begin with.

Seaworld was also a great experience. I got a call from the Executive Chef 2 weeks before we left. He ensured that our group (all 16 of us) got into Sharks Underwater Grill (usually there are no reservations). He had a chef come out and ensure that DS's food was kept away from all nuts (they even have a separate fryer for allergic patrons).

As for food stores, I did my research ahead of time and I knew what companies to go with. I even found ice cream (thanks to someone on here) that was nut free so all of the kids enjoyed those!

All in all a great experience! The only thing that I'm going to follow up on is:

-- questioning Westjet as to why on the way down I had to ask twice for it to be announced that there was a nut allergic child on board (and nothing was done at all). On the way home we had an amazing flight crew who announced to all of the people in 3 rows on either side of my DS to not eat any nuts. She said they had changed their rules about allergic patrons. Sheesh. Couldn't have just did it 10 days prior?!?!

The other thing is I was surprised that I could find no candies/ treats in the Magic Kingdom that were safe for DS. All gummies etc were labelled as "may contain". I'm thrilled that at least there was labelling but I was surprised that they didn't have at least one or two safe options.

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SAHM of 3 children. Oldest DS (1999) is anaphylactic to peanuts.

Hi,
we took our 2 daughters to Disney and it was absolutely the best and safest vacation ever. We used the Disney Meal pLan which was $100 per day for 4 of us. Lots of food . Stayed at the resort. Every single place we ate at the Disney resort totally got it. All dinner reservations we made ahead and made clear we had an allergic child. They were waiting for us with perfect instructions - we felt the safest we ever have. During the day we had infomation at each lunch/brkfst place where we could make decisions - but having said that 90% of the food was safe.
I recommend trusting Disney - we had a great holiday and i didn't ahve to cook. It was 100 times better than eating in restaurants in Canada.
Kim