Chicken, Cereal and the Dreaded Milk Monster

Okay, so one of the first things we started doing was researching what blogs and resources we could find that would help our family.  Fortunately for us, there’s a lot of them out there.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of them out there.  So I’m culling through them, seeing what sticks, weeding out what doesn’t, and creating a blog roll that we can have as a go-to-resource for awesome information and recipes.

One of the other weird things we’re finding out is just HOW MANY PRODUCTS on the shelves of our local store have milk in them.  I knew when this started that we would have trouble going to restaurants, as you can’t control what they make their food with.  That problem was easy enough,  I just use my outgoing superpowers and go talk to the managers to find out what doesn’t have milk/butter/cheese/lactose/satan in it.  But worse is going to your local supermarket expecting to find products that are clearly marked, only to find out that there are exactly 1,856,934 ways to say “milk products.”

Let’s play a little game.  Which of the following products has milk in it?

Milk

Ice Cream

Fresh Chicken

Breakfast Sausage

Canned Tuna Fish

Ice cream

Eggo Waffles

NutriGrain Bars

Is it: a) none of the above
        b) less than half
        c) more than half
        d) ALL OF THE ABOVE

If you answered anything other than D, you’re wrong.  Every single item that I listed there has milk in it, in some form or fashion.  Sure, you can buy versions of those products that don’t have milk in them, but it’s still shocking to think that typical brands of these products sitting on store shelves today use milk or milk products to make their items “creamier,” “more plump,” “fresher-looking,” “longer-lasting,” or, my personal favorite, “tastier.”

Really?  Do we really think that adding milk to tuna fish is going to make it better or tastier?  What, does it cut the taste of the fish out of the can of fish?  Do we honestly think that adding a cow to a fish is somehow going to get us something other than a fish dish?  Really, great marketing, guys.  Way to go.

Shopping takes three times longer when you have a food allergy in the house, but it’s totally worth it to make sure my boys act like little boys again.  God bless their sweet little hearts.  I’m finding that I feel better, too.

I thought it was strange a few years ago when I felt like God was telling me to go “paleo.”  It seemed odd at the time, and I adopted the bathing portion of the paleo idea.  Little did I know he was trying to tell me to change how we ate as well.

Oh, yeah, the cereal part of the post title.  So, obviously, we changed milk brands to drinking almond milk.  It’s wonderful.  But I have to say my favorite change so far has to be the vanilla flavored almond milk with breakfast cereal.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  Definitely the best change so far.  Definitely, definitely.  It makes the cereal explode with flavor in your mouth.  Try it, definitely try it.