Discontinued AGAIN!

If you've ever wondered what it's like to live with food allergies.  Let me assure you it is not fun!  Never mind the fact that you're going to suffer if you unknowingly consume those foods. And going out to eat is next to impossible!   But there are other considerations that go with food allergies.  Having food allergies is time and money consuming. 



Here is the list that Shayla and I have to avoid:   corn, gluten, yeast, milk and dairy (including cow and goat), soy (can tolerate very little), sugar (if not organic), strawberries, cinnamon, avocados.  I'm sure there is probably more, but that's all I can think of now.



While the new green movement is in and many people have went to organic foods, the cost of these foods are still high.  Not to mention we haven't found that ideal One Stop Shop for all the food products we use.



The biggest problem we have with our hypoallergenic foods is that we find something that we can tolerate and the company for one reason or another discontinues the product. 

The GF/CF, yeast free sour dough bread used to be at Whole Foods, we bought all they had in the store and was even special ordering it by the case until suddenly they couldn't do this anymore.  Now this product was not actually discontinued.  I called Food for Life, the manufacturer.  They could ship it to me direct (as a consumer), but the shipping would be more than the cost of the bread.  UGH!  Luckily, we found a small, independent local health food store that was willing to place the order for us.  That way we only have to pay just over $100 for a dozen small loaves of bread.


Another time, we used to buy Kroger's Naturally Preferred line of rice milk.  Discontinued for an undisclosed reason.  We pleaded to the management online and at several stores.  To no avail.  It was discontinued at the production source because they couldn't keep up with the demand.  Is that bad business sense or what?!? 


After we depleted our supply of rice milk in the tetra bricks.  I bought them when ever I could find them so I had a little wiggle room to find another source.  I found a powdered organic white rice milk powder.  We have used this stuff for almost four years.  Once again, when I went to place my annual order, I found out it was discontinued. 


Why this time? 


Unsafe ARSENIC levels in the rice growing process!  The company reassured me that it was within acceptable levels, and that it was probably fine for adults, BUT, HE didn't think it was safe for children and was pulling it from their catalog. 


Funny, I had read about arsenic in the rice growing process.  In fact, after I learned about this, I panicked and called every supplier of the many rice products we used to make sure that our products were safe.  We were reassured by all that our rice was safe, it was organic.


So here we are, not only wondering if the rice milk we drank and used for cooking exposed our family to toxic levels of arsenic.  And, we have to find another product to use.  Today I bought coconut milk, almond milk, and hemp milk.  I have samples of Vance's Dari Free en route to me.  The problem we usually have is the synthetic vitamins that enrich these products are made from corn.  UGH! 

Anyone have any ideas?  Any encouragement would be welcome.