Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Easter egg hunting

Easter (religious aspects aside) is about children having a lovely time, hunting for Easter eggs.

But for parents who have children with food allergies, it's also a hunt, albeit one that begins months before and is often associated with large doses of stress! Searching for a safe chocolate Easter egg can sometimes feel a little like searching for the Holy Grail.

I belong to our Central Auckland support group, and thanks to two of our members, we have been alerted to the fact that K-Mart is stocking Kinnerton Easter eggs.

This information has led to a flurry of activity - I collided with a fellow member at the St Lukes K-Mart as stampeded the aisles in search of this egg, only to leave empty handed and gutted when there was nothing there.

But another super-chocolate-sleuther called up K-Mart, put the hard questions to them and discovered the eggs are being stocked, but only a few at a time. The wonderful member found out the barcode and passed this on to the rest of our group.

Give your local K-Mart a call if you are looking for an egg that is dairy, egg, wheat and nut free (it contains soy lecithin, which the majority of people with soy allergy can tolerate, but check this with your specialist first).

Here is the information: “Egg and Bar Casket”, and the sku/bar code is 5010775166646. They are $16.50 each.

If K-Mart sees the demand for Kinnerton chocolate, hopefully they will stock it all the time.

Happy Easter Egg hunting — and hopefully your kids will enjoy it too when it's their turn.

If you know of any other chocolate and where to get it, post away!


Inga Stünzner
Information Officer
Allergy New Zealand

Monday, February 15, 2010

First blog for the year! Food bans!


We're half way through February, so it seems a little redundant to say 'Happy New Year'.

A couple of weeks ago, this article appeared in the Australian newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph "Schools banned food list has gone nuts".

http://bit.ly/cWUiqs

Out of this story, the Herald on Sunday ran a similar article "Kids lunch box time bombs".
http://bit.ly/aoB7Vr

It's important to differentiate between schools and early childhood education centres, as the general consensus is that removing highly spreadable and allergenic foods, such as peanut butter, egg sandwiches or yoghurt (if there is a child with peanut, egg or milk allergy) is appropriate for younger children.

If you have a school-aged child at risk of anaphylaxis (and not just to food), how has your school managed this?