Food allergies and sensitivities, health reasons and personal preference. These are just some of the reasons why different members of a family may be eating different foods. My family has included several different diets for many years now. First, it was my youngest son and his food allergies. Then my husband tried low carb for a while. At the time, I had no idea what that meant or how to cook that way. Then I became primarily healthy plant-based, and my oldest son changed his diet to match his weightlifting. While I will be the first to admit that this has been and continues to be challenging at times, it is doable. You just have to go about it strategically. If you’re trying to cook for a “mixed house” for whatever reason and are getting frustrated, I’m sharing my tips for cooking for different diets without going crazy or broke. 

**Note: As with anything with this site, the word diet is used to refer to the general way that someone eats, not restrictive eating. 

Agree to Eat Together as Much as Possible

If everyone is eating something different, it may be tempting to just let each person do their own thing when it comes to meals. In my book though, eating together as a family is one of the most important things that you can do. If everyone is eating something different, this is especially true. Meals are a shared experience that you can still have even if the food that you’re eating isn’t the same. That’s why making a concerted effort and agreeing to eat together as much as possible is so important. You may not be able to bond over the food that you’re eating, but you can still bond through the time spent together. 

Agree to be Supportive of Each Other

If one person has to eat differently because of health reasons, that’s easier to understand. If someone decides to eat differently for another reason, it can easily become a source of misunderstanding and conflict. This can be especially true as children become teenagers and start to develop their own identity. Assuming that eating differently than the rest of the family is grounded in rational reasoning rather than just being picky, I believe that diet exploration should be encouraged and supported. 

I also think that as adults, we should be continuing to grow and change. If that includes someone changing how they eat and think about food, I believe that should be respected and supported – as long as that person does the same for those who may not have changed how they’re eating. We can’t force others to change, nor should they necessarily need to. We also can’t force people to stay the same. 

Everyone Has to Pitch In

This is a critical concept when it comes to cooking for different diets. No one should feel like a short-order cook unless that’s their paid job and is what they want to do. Otherwise, everyone in the family needs to pitch in to help with meal planning and preparation – especially if they’re going to eat differently than everyone else. When dividing up the responsibilities in the kitchen, I think it’s not only perfectly fine but important to have people doing tasks that may or may not contribute specifically to what they’re going to eat.  Caring about, contributing to and experiencing the food that someone else is going to eat in that way is a vital part of being a family. 

Learn About Each Type of Diet

I mentioned earlier that when my husband decided to try going low carb before I had changed my diet, I didn’t at all understand what he was doing. This was frustrating for both of us. While I had researched everything that I could get my hands on having to do with food allergies to get my son’s health back on track, I didn’t understand that I needed to do the same for the way my husband wanted to eat. That’s why I would get my feelings hurt when he wouldn’t eat some of the food that I had fixed or would look for something different. 

On the other hand, when my oldest son started eating a high protein, no dairy, and very little sugar diet, I got him to share with me what he was reading and learning about. Even though I was much more educated about nutrition overall and various nutritional theories by that point, it was important for me to understand exactly what he was trying to do. Needless to say, it went much more smoothly. 

Figure Out Staples 

If you figure out which staples are needed and always have those on hand, options will be available to everyone – no matter what their diet. Many staples can also be bought in bulk, which helps to keep prices down.

Determine staples that would work for everyone. Here’s my list along with some additions from Harvard Medical School. 

• Beans and other legumes
• Olive oil and avocado oil
• Broths or soup stock – such as chicken or vegetable
• Vegetables – frozen and fresh
• Herbs, spices and other seasonings such as lemon juice
• Fruit – frozen and fresh
• Whole grains – oatmeal, brown rice and quinoa 

Determine staples needed for individual diets. In my house this includes the following:

• Variety of flours – brown and white rice, whole wheat and coconut
• Variety of starches – tapioca and potato
• Xanthan gum
• Variety of pasta – Lentil and other gluten-free and whole grain 
• Variety of lean meats
• Nut and seed butters – peanut, almond or sunflower seed butter
• Tempeh and tofu
• Plant-based milk alternatives
• Variety of sweeteners – honey, maple syrup, agave and white and brown sugar
• Variety of seeds – hemp, flax, pumpkin and sunflower

Meal Planning

If you’re a regular on here, you know that I believe that meal planning is essential to healthy eating. That’s especially true for cooking for different diets. Planning out the week’s meals and other food needed will make sure that all needs and some wants are met. It will also cut down on the frustration factor involved with having to make multiple trips to the store because essential ingredients are missing, or you’re stuck at the last minute trying to figure out what’s for dinner. 

Stick with the Basics

While elaborate, complicated meals are fun to fix every now and then, if you’re cooking for different diets, you’re going to want to stick with the basics for the most part. Keep it simple and use spices, herbs and other seasonings to add flavor. This will keep you from becoming so overwhelmed with fixing one person’s meal that you forget to leave time to fix the rest of what you need. Again, if you keep the staples mentioned above on hand, there should always be plenty of options available to everyone. 

Find Meals with Things in Common

Finding meals with things in common will keep you from having to start from scratch for each individual diet. It’s also crucial for keeping costs under control. If you try to prepare meals that use entirely different ingredients, the price tag will quickly go up. 

Good examples of finding meals with things in common include:

• Brown rice and vegetables for sides
• Have a base of pasta and tomato-based sauce and add different types of protein for each person
• Bowls – Rice, beans and corn provide the base for everyone and then different toppings and sources of protein are added
• Fajitas – If someone is plant-based and everyone else eats meat, cook up the peppers and onions with seasoning mix and then remove some from the pan. You can then add chicken or steak to the rest for the meat eaters and cook up tofu with some of the seasoning for the person who is plant-based. Brown rice and black beans can round out the meal for everyone. 

Meal Prep

Meal prepping means to prepare individual ingredients or entire meals ahead of time. This is another concept that I think is critical to healthy eating in any case, but it’s especially true for cooking for different diets. When it comes down to cooking on a busy weeknight or after a day of activities, you want things to be as simple and easy as possible. Meal prepping will make that happen because everything will be ready to go, and everyone can just build their own meal. 

There are two strategies that I highly recommend for this. 

1. Prepare as much as possible (with everyone helping) on the weekend or days off. 
2. Try to have a set time for meal prepping so that everyone can be involved.

Have Designated Utensils and Bakeware for Food Allergies

This doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy completely different utensils, dishes or pots and pans for foods being prepared for those with allergies. It does mean though that while you’re cooking, if there are foods being prepared that someone else is allergic to, you should have designated cooking utensils and pots and pans that are only used to prepare the food for that person. 

When it comes to washing the items in a standard home kitchen, the simplest thing to do is to wash everything in the dishwasher so that they can be sterilized. Putting everything into a sink full of hot, soapy water isn’t necessarily safe because unless you wash each item thoroughly before you put it in the sink, the remaining food particles come off and stay in the water. That means that you’re washing dishes for an allergic person in the same water potentially containing remnants of the foods that they’re allergic to. 

Bottom Line on Cooking for Different Diets

While the idea of cooking for people with different diets can seem overwhelming, following these strategies will make it very manageable as well as help to keep costs lower. 

If you have experience with this and have additional suggestions, feel free to leave those in the comments below. 

The post Cooking for Different Diets appeared first on Peppermint Tea.

Let me start with a disclaimer. This post is not about healthy Halloween candy. It all has some type of added sugar in it, so none of it can be classified as healthy. But come on, it’s Halloween! I’m definitely of the enjoy in moderation mindset. That aside, what this post is about is helping you kind souls who can’t stand when a child comes to your door and says they can’t have any of your candy because of food allergies. As the mother of a child who used to be allergic to six of the eight major food allergens and who still has several major food allergies, I’ve been asked many times over the years about what’s the best allergy-friendly candy for Halloween. This post is to answer that and to give you some healthier and not-so-healthy options to make yours the favorite house on the street.

Please Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through some of the links included in this post. You can read my disclosure policy here.

Important Note About Allergy-Friendly Candy and Halloween

Before I get to the treats, it’s important to point out the tricky part of Halloween with food allergies. I strongly believe that it is not your responsibility to make sure that someone else’s child doesn’t eat something that they’re allergic to. That is the job of the child’s parents. They know everything that their child can and can’t have, and they’re the ones that have to read every ingredient label whether it’s the first time their child has had a food or the one hundredth. Ingredients change all the time, and you can’t be expected to be a professional label reader if allergies aren’t a regular concern for you. 

Along those same lines, the candy listed here is based on manufacturer and ingredient label research for items sold in the U.S. as of October 2021. Those ingredients may change tomorrow, but I can tell you that the candy listed here has fairly reliably stayed the same as far as allergens go over the past 13 years. Still, it’s up to parents of children with allergies to check the ingredient label of every piece of candy their child eats. All you can do is to make an effort to accommodate them if that’s what you would like to do, the rest is up to their parents. 

If you do try to accommodate children with allergies, I strongly advise against assuring parents that you have candy that their child can definitely eat. If you know a child has allergies, you can certainly let the parents know that you tried to include candy that their child can have but remind them that they’ll still need to check the ingredient labels to be sure. 

Okay, enough with the spooky stuff, now on to the treats! 

Peanut and Tree Nut-Free Allergy-Friendly Candy

While peanuts are not nuts, it’s often easier to group them with tree nuts in terms of talking generally about food allergies. The allergy-friendly candy included in this list should be safe for either. 

• Tootsie Rolls 
• Milk Duds
• Skittles Original Bite Size Candies
• Dove bars
• Fun Dip
• Whoppers Malted Milk Balls
• Smarties
• Starburst Fruit Chews
• Jolly Rancher
• Nerds
• Dum Dums

Dairy and Egg-Free Candy

Dairy is a tough one for Halloween. If the candy is made of chocolate, it probably has dairy in it. That’s why the sugary, hard candies are best for this allergy. The allergy-friendly candy included in this list should be safe for both dairy and egg allergies. 

• Skittles Original Bite Size Candies
• Smarties
• Fun Dip 
• Starburst Fruit Chews
• Jolly Rancher
• Nerds **Dairy-free but may contain eggs
• Dum Dums

Wheat/Gluten-Free Allergy-Friendly Candy

Wheat and gluten-free options are probably more numerous than you might think. Since some of these overlap with other categories, you should be able to find at least several options that accommodate more than one type of allergy or sensitivity. The allergy-friendly candy included in this list should be safe for both wheat allergies and gluten sensitivities.

• Tootsie Rolls 
• Regular M&M’s Fun Size 
• Milk Duds 
• Milky Way Minis
• 3 Musketeer Bar
• Skittles Original Bite Size Candies
• Dove bars
• Snickers Minis
• Heath Bar
• Fun Dip
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar
• Butterfinger
• Baby Ruth
• Smarties
• Starburst Fruit Chews
• Jolly Rancher
• Nerds
• Dum Dums

Soy-Free Candy

• Smarties
• Fun Dip 
• Starburst Fruit Chews
• Jolly Rancher
• Nerds
• Dum Dums
• Skittles Original Bite Size Candies

Peanut, Tree Nut, Eggs, Dairy, Soy, Wheat/Gluten and Red Dye Free Allergy-Friendly Candy

Since many kids have more than one thing that they’re allergic to, these options are for the kids allergic to seemingly everything. Hello my youngest at 3 years old! I’m specifying red dye here because that’s one of the most common dye allergies and that’s the one that I have experience with. The allergy-friendly candy included in this list should be safe for peanut, tree nut, egg, dairy, soy, wheat/gluten, and red dye allergies. **Yes, some of the Smarties do have red dye, but you can take them out. The colors don’t bleed like they do with Skittles, so we’ve always found this candy to be a safe option.

• Smarties **Yes, some of the Smarties do have red dye, but you can take them out. The colors don’t bleed like they do with Skittles, so we’ve always found this candy to be a safe option. 
• RazApple Magic Fun Dip (it’s blue and comes in a box with packages of Like-M-Aid Fun Dip Cherry Yum Diddly)
• Starburst Fruit Chews **Some do have red dye, but those are easy to avoid since they’re individually wrapped
• Dum Dums **You have to look carefully to find the ones that don’t have red dye

Healthier Options for Allergy-Friendly Candy

As I mentioned earlier, there is no such thing as healthy store-bought Halloween candy. If you want to get “healthier” versions though that are safe for most allergies, there are options. These take a little more planning because they’re not available at many stores. Here are some options and links to where you can find them. 

• Candy Corn from Yum Earth (Free of fish, milk, peanuts, shellfish, tree nuts, soy, artificial food dyes, high fructose corn syrup and wheat.) – Target carries
• Organic Lollipops, Assorted Flavors from Yum Earth (Free of soy, egg, dairy, fish, shellfish, peanuts or tree nuts, artificial dyes, wheat/gluten, and high fructose corn syrup) – Amazon (Affiliate link) and Vitacost carry 
• Organic Fruit Snacks & Organic Vitamin C Lollipops from Yum Earth (Free of soy, egg, dairy, fish, shellfish, peanuts or tree nuts, artificial dyes, wheat/gluten, and high fructose corn syrup) – Amazon (Affiliate link) and Vitacost carry 

Bottom Line on Allergy-Friendly Candy for Halloween

Given the options on this list, accommodating children with food allergies is not as hard as you may think. The main thing to remember is that if you do want to do this, all you can do is try. Since many children are allergic to more than one thing, there is absolutely no way for you to be able to fit the needs of everyone. If there are specific children that you really want to make sure have something, contact their parents and ask what some safe candy is for them. Then you can put it in a baggie and set it aside. 

As the mother of a child who loved simply getting to go trick-or-treating with the rest of the kids, I always appreciated the friends and neighbors who tried to accommodate him, but I certainly didn’t expect it. We had our own system worked out so that he always had more than enough even if it was limited in variety. So, thank you on behalf of allergy parents, if this is something that you’re even considering. 

Lean on Your Community

If you know of parents who are just starting out with food allergies and aren’t sure how to handle Halloween, feel free to have them get in touch with me. I’m happy to share the tips and tricks I’ve learned over the last 15 years of navigating the world of food allergies. 

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