My Food Allergy Family: Surprisingly Bryan-Safe

As much as I would love to say that I carefully and lovingly prepare every morsel of food that my entire family eats, I am definitely a member of the Convenience Food Fan Club. Now, convenience foods are definitely more of a challenge for the food-allergic child. Beyond the simple fact that milk, eggs, and/or peanuts are used in a lot of basic cooking (cookies, cakes, breads, pastas and sauces, etc.), you also have to worry about cross-contamination. Just how carefully did they clean those machines between the peanut-butter crackers and the regular crackers? And while food labels have gotten much easier to read (all food products manufactured in the US are now required to use the "simple" words for allergens somewhere on the package), there isn't a lot of consistency as far as what "Manufactured on equipment that also processes..." versus "Manufactured in a plant that also processes..." means.

That said, I have managed to find a number of convenience foods that are, in fact, Bryan-safe. In this case, I am not referring to the wonderful specialty items that are designed specifically to be milk-, egg-, and peanut-free. (Thank you Divvies Bakery!) I'm talking about regular snack foods that you find at the grocery store. Pretzels are generally safe, as well as saltine crackers. The list below, however, has foods that are "Surprisingly Bryan-Safe"- you don't expect them to be safe because, well, they taste too good. =) Based on e-mails and conversations with the manufacturers, I have found that Pillsbury, Kraft, and Nabisco are very good about their labeling procedures. As always, please check ingredient labels before eating- manufacturers do change their formulas from time to time!