Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy Home Free Giveaway: Allergen-Free Cookies!

Link to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy

Home Free Giveaway: Allergen-Free Cookies!

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:06 PM PST

Thank you for subscribing to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy! Treat yourself this Christmas to sweet little healthy goodies. Click here now for your free copy of Healthy Holidays, Slightly Indulgent Sweet Treats!

Maybe you have a child with food allergies, and the thought of baking them special Christmas treats is a daunting prospect right now.

Maybe you are a teacher with a food-allergic child in your class, and you want to be sure they can enjoy special treats at your annual Christmas party.

Maybe your niece is allergic to everything under the sun, and you’re scared to bake anything for her; but when her family comes to visit at Christmas, you want to have something special available for her to eat.

Maybe you are the one with allergies or sensitivities and you want to make sure there’s some food for you at the office Christmas party but you don’t have time to make it yourself.

I have the answer to all these dilemmas (yes, I know, I’m smart like that):

Home Free cookies and treats.

Home Free is a company started by Jill Robbins, a mom and clinical psychologist who began making delicious, allergen-free snacks for her daughter who has multiple food allergies. Jill goes to great lengths to ensure that all of Home Free’s products are not made with or cross-contaminated by any of the major food allergens:

They use wheat-free oats for some cookie varieties. They do not use any wheat ingredients in any products.
There are no dairy products or eggs in their facility at all.
They also avoid sesame and other seeds (a huge plus to me because of my son’s sesame allergy!).
The employees even use non-latex gloves!
The only soy they use is occasional small amounts of soy lecithin (which my Certain Little Someone, like most soy-allergy sufferers, can tolerate).
It goes without saying that there are no peanuts or tree nuts, and of course, no fish or shellfish products.
They also avoid using corn in their recipes, although there are small amounts of corn in the baking powder and vanilla. However, they offer two varieties of cookies that are completely free of corn.
The delivery area is separate from the kitchen and every delivery is wiped down before bringing it into the kitchen to avoid cross contamination.
Employees wear clean clothes in the kitchen to avoid cross-contamination.

Knowing all of this makes me feel very secure about feeding my food-allergic child these cookies and treats!

But beyond knowing that they are safe in terms of food allergies, I also like to know that my child’s snacks are at least relatively healthy. Home Free has these bases covered, too!

They only use all natural products.
Several of their products are certified organic or 70% organic.
Their products are made with whole grains (like barley flour or oat flour).
They use raw sugar and other natural sweeteners, like pear juice concentrate.
Real spices and extracts are used to flavor the cookies.

The final test, of course, is the taste test. And I wasn’t surprised that they passed with flying colors! My Certain Little Someone gobbled up our samples with pleasure and asked for more! (Side benefit: I had been wanting to experiment with buckwheat flour, but didn’t want to purchase a whole package of it just to have to throw it away if it didn’t work out. One of their cookies contained a small amount of buckwheat, so I tested it on him and yay! He’s not allergic to it! So now I’m able to bake with buckwheat flour for him, which is pretty thrilling, actually. Food allergy moms will understand!)

You can purchase any of their products at their website, Home Free Treats, or you can find out which local grocery stores carry their products. (Several stores near me carry them.)

Or, you can win some right here on my blog!

One lucky winner will receive:

1 box of gluten-free vanilla mini crunchy cookies
1 single serve gluten free mini crunchy chocolate chip cookies pack

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. I’d love to hear your food allergy story if you want to share it!

For additional entries, you can like Home Free on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter. Please leave a comment for each of those entries. That’s a total of 3 entries per person.

This giveaway will end next Friday, December 16, 2011 at midnight. I will notify the winner that weekend by email.