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Sure, Halloween is meant to be a bit scary. However, there’s a difference between the make-up and mask-created frights and the real fear the holiday can trigger in food allergic families. While the Teal Pumpkin Project can assuage some of those fears, it’s not a fix-all. Here’s a few more steps to making allergic-Halloween more “treat” than “trick.” Dry Run The bite-sized candy that ends up in your bucket may not have all the nutritional info (including allergy labeling) on the wrapper of each individual piece. That info will appear on the bulk package your neighbor purchased. This can present...

Dressing up as a beloved character or a spooky creature and hitting the streets with a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket on Halloween is a childhood tradition. The fun and excitement start as you and your child search for the perfect costume. It builds as you get closer to the day she’ll pull that costume on and head out for trick-or-treat. Unless, of course, your child has food allergies. For the food-allergic child, the scary parts of Halloween have less to do with spooky music and animatronic ghost and goblin decorations, and more to do with candy bars and other sweet treats.  ...

Hurricanes, wild fires, earthquakes, volcanic activity, blizzards; if you’ve been near a screen at any point in the last year, you’ve heard news stories about such natural disasters. When there’s notice ahead of time, the media produces stories about how to prepare for such events: Building emergency preparedness kits and stocking up on water, food, batteries, and gas for your car. When the event comes unannounced, those stories emerge days later as the dust settles, and the talk focuses on how to be ready for the next time. The advice offered in those stories is excellent. For families that also...

If the school bus hasn’t already started making its rounds through your neighborhood, it will soon. It’s time to dust off the lunchboxes and make a game plan of what portable, allergy-friendly meals you’re going to fill them with this year. Let’s face it, finding lunch-box ready meals your kids want to eat can be challenging enough. Finding meals that are also allergy-friendly is daunting. Finding meals that are safe and also easy to pull together because your jam-packed schedule demands convenient, fast options can feel downright intimidating. I hear you, and I think some of these ideas might help....