I never knew I would almost cry over a French Fry

Up until today, four year old J had never had a fast food french fry. This is not because I am anti fast food, but because I know that every fast food fry that I have looked into contains at least one of the allergens that he is allergic to, which is usually milk. However, last night while I was researching restaurants I found out that Burger Kings French Fries do not contain any of the allergens that my children are allergic to! Up until three years ago this would not have been anything that was exciting to me, but now that I have to scrutinze everything that my children put into their mouths this has become a big deal. Unless you deal with food allergies you take foregranted how important this can be.

Once I found out that he could have the french fries from Burger King I decided that I was going to go out and buy J a burger and fries for lunch. At lunchtime I told J that were going to get food from Burger King. He has never been there and kept asking me questions about the restaurant. We got back home and I gave him his burger and dumped some fries next to the burger. He tried one and then would not stop. He loves hamburgers, but did not touch it until all the fries were gone. I was so excited because even with his food allergy he still had this small oppotunity to enjoy one of the fun things in life. I think that J is well beyond his years when it comes to his food allergies. He knows there are a lot of things that he cannot eat that most other people can. He knows that he has special food that his sister does not eat and my husband and I don't eat. He will not take food unless he knows that it is okay for him to eat, so just seeing him enjoy the french fries along wit everyone else was really a special moment for me.

Here are some of the places that I have found that have allergy information on their sites and have some choices that they state are free of milk, eggs, nuts and soy (Please keep in mind that to be safe you should check their site everytime you choose to dine out, since suppliers and ingredients can change).

Chipolte (they state that soybean oil is used in their foods, but is safe for most people) (http://www.chipolte.com/en-US/menu/special_diet_information.aspx)

Qdoba (http://www.qdoba.com/Allergen.aspx#)

Applebees (http://www.applebees.com/downloads/allergen_info.html)

Ruby Tuesdays (http://rubytuesday.com/assets/menu/pdf/informational/allergen.pdf)

Wendys (http://wendys.com/food/pdf/us/nutrition.pdf)

Burger King (http://redesign.bk.com/en/us/menu-nutrition/index.html)

Fazolis (http://fazolis.com/images/upoads/documents/ingredients/-listings9.9_.09_pdf)

California Pizza Kitchen (http://www.cpk.com/menu/pdfs/allergen.pdf)