Good Gluten Free Dessert Mixes

As any one on a gluten free diet knows, it can be a pain trying to find a good gluten free dessert that resembles the yummy cakes, cookies, and brownies that everyone else gets to enjoy from time to time. Gluten free dieting has become more and more prevalent, and luckily there have been some advances in good food and dessert mixes due to increasing demand. Betty Crocker has come out with a great line of Gluten Free brownies, cakes and cookies, and I have tried them all for my kids. Both my son and daughter cannot ingest gluten without becoming hyperactive, ornery and sick. So Betty Crocker's gluten free mixes have been a lifesaver when it comes to our family being able to continue to enjoy the desserts we love without neglecting our children. In the past, I have not been able to eat the gluten free kind myself because I couldn't stomach it, but Betty Crocker Gluten Free mixes are good enough to simply make one cake or pan of brownies for the whole family.

Gluten Free banana bread. Delish!!

Now that they have come out with an all purpose flour its really great, because I can easily whip up my kids some pancakes, with just an egg, some milk, sugar, baking powder and oil, that are much better than the ones made with my old wheat flour pancake mix in a bag. I feel like I am making them normal foods for the first time in their life, and they don't have to just eat fruits and veggies all day anymore.

If your favorite grocery store has not picked up the Betty Crocker Gluten Free line yet, be sure to ask the manager to add it to their inventory for you. Or simply order it online.

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Disclosure: Though all thoughts and opinions on the post are mine, I have been recompensed in the form of free items from Betty Crocker and MyBlogSpark for writing and posting this blog post.

Free BeechNut Baby Food Any One Baby Food Item Free

Free BeechNut Baby Food Any One Item Free 

Sign up for the BeechNut Toddler Welcome Kit and get a coupon for a free product of your choice in the mail! The coupon is good for any of their stage 4 or 5 products up to 3 dollars in value. I got a box of graham cookies for my youngest. What will you get with yours?

Go here to sign up and get your free BeechNut baby food!

Quick Tip: Self Feeding Food For Babies

Babies love to feed themselves once they learn how to pick up little bits and put them in their mouths, and its great to have your hands free to do other things while they are busy chowing down. It can be a little difficult to find a nice variety of foods they might eat in your kitchen though.

I discovered that if you soak Quaker Life cereal in a bit of warm formula or milk, so they are softened and baby can't choke on them, its bound to be an instant favorite. For people who get WIC, and are able to get Life cereal with WIC, this is a great way to use up that bland cereal your other kids don't really like.

Buy These 12 Items Organically and Reduce Your Pesticide Consumption by 80%!

You may be thinking of switching to organic to start avoiding all the yucky things that you have heard can be on the regular produce offered at your grocery store. What stops most people is the extra price and the extra time it can take to find the organic versions of what you need.

Did you know that it is more important to buy certain items organically than it is for others? The Environmental Working Group releases a list every year of that year's top produce with the largest amount of trace pesticides and chemicals on it. They call the list the Dirty Dozen, and if you buy these 12 items organically you can reduce your family's pesticide and chemical consumption by up to 80%!

Opposed to Drinking Milk but Can't Breastfeed?

The other day I read about a lady who had quite the dilemma. She was a vegan, and wouldn't drink cows milk because of all the stuff in it that was bad. She included a list of hormones, one of which was a growth hormone associated with rapid cell growth and cancer, and then she went on to say bacteria, viruses, feces, and blood are also in milk and therefore its unfit to drink.

Do Infants Need Vitamin Supplements?

I wondered this myself when I had my first child, and set about find out why there are vitamins for infants and if I should be giving them to my own baby. I learned that a baby usually runs out of his or her stocked up supply of iron from when they were born at about 6 months old, and begins to need a source of iron to keep up their iron content in their blood.

Government Help for Your Family

Government Food and Medical Help by State

Find Your States Welfare Department for Food and Medical Benefits

Someone requested to know where I have this information, and I realized as I looked through my posts that though I mention it in a couple posts, I have not dedicated a whole post to government help yet. Its such a big need for so many families lately, with all the layoffs and pay cuts most of us have had to endure in the last year or two.

Finger Foods for Baby

Is your baby just getting to the age where he or she wants to eat by themselves but doesn't know how to use a spoon yet? Do you buy her pre cut baby snacks from the grocery store that she picks up by herself to eat?
How about using the regular food you already have at home? Here are some great ideas of things you probably have in your cupboards!

Frozen Peas: warm up a few of these and let them pick them up one at a time.

Canned Green Beans: right from the can or warmed a little, you may need to cut these into smaller bits but they are soft enough for baby to mush up in their mouth or swallow whole if they happen to.

Canned Garbanzo Beans: you can warm these and serve with the peas or green beans. You may want to pop the husks off the individual beans and discard them, as they might be a difficulty for inexperienced eaters.

Bananas: Peel a ripe one and break off an inch or two, then slice the chunk into tiny bite size pieces.

Macaroni Pasta: even if baby is too young for the milk cheese and butter in Mac and Cheese, you can still cook up the pasta, cooking it longer for extra smooshiness, and let them eat it plain.

Natural Wheat Bread: find a whole wheat bread that contains no funny stuff or nuts, and cut off the edges then slice into little bites. You can even toast it before you slice, for new snack experience for baby.

Canned Fruit: Slice up canned peaches and pears into tiny bites. The kind that come already in little chunks may be too big for little baby, but you can use them also if you inspect the size of each chunk baby gets.

I DO NOT suggest cutting up deli lunch meat or hot dogs for baby, even though this is a common food people feed their children. Simply because studies have shown processed meats containing Sodium Nitrate or Potassium Nitrate (preservatives) may significantly increase risk for cancer in children.
Instead I suggest going to your local deli and requesting sliced All-Natural Turkey, Chicken or Ham. All natural deli meats will not have any preservatives in them. This also means less salt and other icky stuff baby does not need. It means it will need to be used quicker though, probably within the week.

Most anything in its natural form can be fed to baby as long as you follow diet restrictions based on age (such as no milk, peanut butter, eggs or honey before the age of one) and make sure it is soft enough and small enough not to choke on.

Baby should ALWAYS be supervised while eating, even if you are sure there is no choking hazard.