Friday, March 4, 2011

Dried Fruit - peanut free, tree nut free, dairy free, sesame free

Dried fruit has been great for special occasions and other emergencies. Our son loves all of these and it's handy to keep in the bag, and especially if we go out to a cafe and need a special treat to keep him sitting still a little bit longer. Here's a list of dried fruit that we've tried and had reasonable success with:

Raisins and sultanas are often the first dried fruit you try. Coles Australian Sultanas come in handy snack packs and don't have traces of any of those nasties. Our son absolutely loves them, but they don't seem to digest fully and I often get some coming out the other end. That probably is also because our son swallows them so quickly and forgets to chew!

Golden Days Fruit Poles - Two fruits (apple and pear) - these get gobbled up a little too quickly, but they are yummy.

Brothers All Natural Fruit Crisps - I've tried strawberry and banana. These are actually nice and crunchy, rather than chewy. They are freeze-dried, retaining more taste and texture. These are so nice, I'm currently using them as my toilet-training treat. I'm sure some of the other flavours would also be good.

An interesting article I read the other day suggested that stonefruit such as apricots, peaches etc are related to tree nuts (which is essentially the seed). This actually does make sense to me and reinforces my stance so far that our boy will probably be allergic if not anaphylactic to these fruits. The positive side? More cherries for me!

One warning post too - don't eat too much dried fruit at one sitting followed by a lot of liquid. The fruit will swell up in your belly creating considerable pain (so my inlaws tell me after their own experience).

2 comments:

  1. Have you thought about getting a dehydrator? I love mine - although it obviously doesn't replaced freeze-drying. But you'll be able to experiment with fruits you can't purchase dried, and you can make your own fruit roll-ups.

    I've been drying salad greens to make a healthy, crunchy, alternative to potato chips.

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  2. That is a very novel idea Joy. I've never heard of dried green veg - you might be onto something!

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