Chocolate! Allergy Friendly! FREE!

If that headline got your attention, you’re probably a chocoholic like I am.

Did you also say this mantra when being tested for food allergies? Please don’t let me be allergic to chocolate. Please don’t let me be allergic to chocolate. Please don’t let me be allergic to chocolate.

Ha! You ARE a chocoholic like me!

Fortunately, to my great relief, I am NOT allergic to chocolate!

Unfortunately, I AM allergic to dairy, eggs, soy, gluten, corn and vanilla–all ingredients that are typically found in most chocolate.

For a long time, I was sad. Very, very sad. Especially during Valentines Day and my birthday. And maybe also Thanksgiving and Easter . . . and all the days in between.

But now I’ve recently discovered Amanda’s Own Confections. Actually they discovered me (thank you! thank you!), and it just so happens the month of April is both my celiac college son’s and my birthday month. Yes, I know the lemon in the sunglasses looks way too young to have a kid in college (or perhaps that’s why An Allergic Foodie uses a lemon for a Gravatar! LOL!).

Chocolate Bar Giveaway.
Enter to win by Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 5 PM EST

Anyway, back to chocolate. To celebrate our birthdays,  Amanda’s Own Confections wants to give one lucky person a present–a box of chocolate bars! That’s right! An entire box. TWELVE BARS OF GLORIOUS CHOCOLATE.

These chocolate bars make me close my eyes and moan–maybe that’s too much info?–and there are only three ingredients: Cane sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter. So this makes them free of dairy, nuts, gluten, eggs, sesame, and fish/shellfish. (Why any fish would be in any chocolate is incomprehensible, but I’m told it happens.)

Here’s what you need to do to enter (you only have to do one, but if you do all I will do a happy dance and post it on You Tube*).

• Write a comment below telling me how much you love chocolate (and my blog, of course).
• Follow @anallergicfoodie on Instagram and like one of the pictures of Amanda’s chocolate bars. I’ll be posting several.
• Follow me on Twitter–that 2,000 rule is killing me!–and tweet this blog post  with hashtag #amandasown
• Like my Facebook Page and give a thumb’s up to one of my posts mentioning Amanda’s Own Confections.
• Pin this blog post on Pinterest.

The contest will end on Tuesday, April 22, 8 PM EST. Must live in the U.S. to enter.

Ready. Set. Go!

I hope you win!

*I won’t really do a happy dance on You Tube because my sons, and maybe my husband, would be mortified.

Chocolate! Allergy Friendly! Free! first appeared at Adventures of An Allergic Foodie.

Check it twice: A list of gifts NOT to buy for the gluten-free folks you love this Christmas

What NOT to get an Allergic Foodie for Christmas! Love Molly’s funny and truthful list.
If you want some gift ideas for the allergic foodie in your life–hint, hint–check out my GIFTS FOR AN ALLERGIC FOODIE on Pinterest.
Five shopping days left!

Based on a Sprue Story

It’s December! Snow is falling, friends are calling, and ’tis the season for every blogging boy and girl to post their personal Christmas wish lists, disguised as suggestions of what totally unrelated people might want to buy for some other person who happens to be extremely similar to them.

Look around, and you’ll see gift suggestions for fitness freaks (compiled by fitness freaks), tech geeks (compiled by tech geeks), book lovers (compiled by book lovers), home cooks (compiled by home cooks), and the one who has everything (compiled by people who wish they had everything).

And, of course, you’ll see them for the gluten-free, by the gluten-free. Here are just a few sites with intriguing lists of these-are-not-hints for gluten-free kids like me:

• Celiac and the Beast
• The Examiner
• Gluten Is My B*tch
• The Gluten-Free RD
• Gluten-Free Girl MS
• My Gluten-Free Kitchen(you missed out on the Cyber Monday deals…

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I’m Obsessed with Food!

I’m always thinking about food.

In fact, you could say I’m obsessed with food.

For a woman who’s struggled with weight issues all her life, this doesn’t seem like a good thing. But when your body reacts negatively to wheat and soy and corn and dairy products, you can’t help but think about every morsel that passes through your lips.

My health depends on it.

A recent week-long trip alerted me to how food obsessed I’ve become.  Before I could even step through the airport doors, I planned what to pack in my lunchbox that would pass TSA inspection. (Last trip, they confiscated my almond yogurt and peanut butter!)  Then, the entire time I was away from home, I had to constantly think about what the host was serving and how she was preparing the food.

No, I can’t eat a croissant with butter or that sausage that isn’t labeled gluten free.  And by the way, could you not serve the fruit on the same plate as the rolls?

I didn’t look this happy when I was grocery shopping for food allergy food!

Before I finished breakfast, I was already planning lunch and dinner. If we were eating out, I jumped online and researched the restaurants through apps like AllergyEats. I followed up with a call to the staff to review my allergies. Sometimes plans were changed. If eating in, I had to negotiate a meal that included something allergy free for me to eat.

Of course, it isn’t just when I’m travelling that I’m thinking about food.  My desk is covered with books and magazines and articles related to food and health and cooking.

I can never just read one book at a time.

Every morning I read blogs and tweets about celiac disease and food allergies. I belong to multiple support groups and organizations.  I try to stay up on the latest news about CD, leaky gut, and eosinophilic esophagitis. I keep this blog and associated Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest accounts. I write reviews of cookbooks and restaurants and test food and products designed for allergic foodies like me.

I guess you could say food has become my passion as well as obsession.

I love meeting other allergic foodies! Please “friend” me on Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter–I’ll reciprocate!