Another one completed!

"Make dairy-free food guides for the cars and for Noni, Grandma, and older girls - include restaurants, brand names, and meal info."

I'm making a lot of progress today! I think I'll settle in and read as my reward. lol The dairy-free guides are ready to go into notebooks and be handed off to their new owners... grandmothers and big sisters. With a little planning this will give more options for those times that we would like to have dinner out or on the run. Of course, this doesn't take into account that we don't eat other things such as high-fructose corn syrup, but it's a start. ;) Now, if we find out at her follow up appointment Monday that the doctor wants to try to eliminate gluten as well I'll have to redo them.

Maybe I should have put it on my calendar for Tuesday. :snort:

Each guide includes a section of potential cross-contamination red flags, a list of hidden dairy and their key words, substitutions for home-made items, etc. I'm really happy with how they turned out. They could have a bit more refinement but who's looking! If you happen to have a dairy or cassein allergy and would like a copy just drop me a note! And, make sure you check out www.godairyfree.org.

As a side note, if you have allergies of any sort Red Robin is a fabulous restaurant to visit! They have a special allergy menu that you can request, and they really try hard to offer special things for the kids when they can. I've also recently read that O'Charley's is just as accommodating but we haven't tried it out yet. Outback Steakhouse was great when we visited a few weeks ago as well. Their website has great information, and the staff were highly educated in the components of their menu items making sure that they limited cross contamination as much as they could.

In this journey I also was lucky enough to locate several vegetarian and vegan restaurants locally. I can't wait to try them out!

It's so nice to see that so many places are working to identify potential allergens and provide alternatives to their guests. We can only hope that it will continue across the board.