[ASusan]

This may be a frivolous question, but what do those of you with food allergic babes do about play foods? Do you make sure that all the play foods you have are safe foods? Do you not worry about it? (Is this related to how you keep your pantry - is your pantry totally safe or do you allow allergic foods for other family members?)

I'm in LOVE with felted and other crafted play foods, and I want to start acquiring them for DS's play kitchen. But many of them are allergic. Do I worry about this? Do I ask for a custom breakfast on Etsy (e.g., breakfast with buckwheat pancakes and no eggs).

Other mamas focus on healthy foods for their play kitchens, which is great, but what to do about the allergic foods among the healthy (e.g., eggs). Should I just go ahead and let DS feed the fried eggs to Dad?

 

[tanyalynn]

We have play foods that we cannot eat, like cheese. Sometimes the kids say the play bread is gluten-free and sometimes it's not--sometimes it's almost like rebellion that they are _eating_ the gluten bread! But I think it's part of dealing with their reality and it's healthy. And I think it helps them understand that there are foods we can't eat, and slowly (very slowly) my son, he's 2y7m now, is figuring out that he has to ask me if someone offers him food, so I actually think it's good to have it (not allowed foods) around to talk about occasionally.

 

[lastrid]

We've made our play food and only made stuff that DS is familiar with, but that is mostly because I don't know if he'd know what to do with something he'd never eaten. I would probably allow "unsafe" foods when he is older if he wants them. We don't really keep much around the house that isn't safe for him so he doesn't really have a lot of exposure to it right now.