Getting too comfortable...

So, the other day, we decided to make some Mandarin Country Style Ribs for dinner. Sounded simple enough. A handful of ingredients thrown into a crockpot and voila, dinner! It smelled so good while it was cooking and when it was finally done, we sat down to eat. It tasted just as good as it smelled... maybe even better. It was delicious! So, we're eating. I'm feeding Zachary and munching away on salad and ribs and rice. And Andrew is eating and helping Xander cut up his meat.

We're practically finished with dinner and I look at Xander and he has a couple of red dots on his face. Great. What could be causing that? (Side note: for those who don't know, Xander has severe food allergies.) We mentally go through the ingredient list for the ribs trying to figure out if the red dots are just coincidences or if Xander is reacting to something he's eating. It couldn't possibly be the ribs. We have been trying to make Xander-friendly meals so that we wouldn't have to cook him a separate meal every night. Let's see... the ingredients: soy sauce, but we substituted with Bragg's Liquid Aminos since Xander can't have soy sauce, ribs, ketchup, orange marmalade... did someone check the label for the marmalade? Sounds dumb, I mean, it's orange marmalade! Surely there couldn't be any dairy, eggs, wheat, or nuts in orange marmalade?!?!? So, I go to check the jar and there it is.

"Produced in a facility that also produces items containing wheat, dairy, and nuts."

Fabulous.

I guess Andrew and I were getting too comfortable. We need to remember to read ALL labels, even for foods that were previously safe. You just never know when a company might decide to "improve" the recipe. I really hope and pray that Xander outgrows all of his food allergies.