Wednesday, August 22, 2012

zero, hidden playrooms, Fooducate app

One of the teachers at preschool was trying to ascertain if Princess knew the numbers 0-10 yet, and gave her a pop quiz.  She knew 1-10, but was stumped by zero.

Teacher: What number do you have if you don't have any?
Princess:  ....uh....
Teacher: If I gave Peter some pancakes, but you didn't get any, how many would you have?
Princess: I'd want to know who ate all my pancakes.

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One of the houses we toured last weekend had a split-level layout of the kitchen, dining room, living room and master bedroom upstairs, and three bedrooms downstairs centered around a family room. Initially, upon walking into the house, I was not excited about it, because I'd prefer a traditional bedroom upstairs/living downstairs.  However, as I was standing in the downstairs den and looking at how the entire lower level was basically Kid Central, I thought it was actually a fabulous idea.

And then we discovered this:


That is a teeny tiny playroom, accessed through the back of a closet in the den, and its less than four feet high.  My kids would LOVE this.  (It is the week of secret passages for kids, check out the cool passageway in the closet Tiffany just put in her daughter's room.)

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I came across this fabulous app for people with food allergies.  Fooducate has a number of apps, but the Allergy & Gluten app is fantastic.  (I am not being compensated in any way for this, I just really like it.)  This app is $4.99 in the Apple app store.

You can pick up to three allergies to scan for:


You then scan the bar code on the product you want to buy, and it will tell you if the product has (or may have) your specific allergen in it.


As you can see, if it "may contain" your allergen, the warning is orange.  If it DOES contain your allergen, the warning is red.

Sometimes it is obvious from the label that something may contain your allergen (like Bob's Red Mill Oats actually says that it is manufactured in a facility with tree nuts, hence the warning), but other times its not that obvious.  After buying the app I scanned everything in my pantry, and I am a pretty careful label reader, but I still managed to get rid of six boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix (dude I like cake), a bag of pretzels and a bag of potato chips.

The Mister and I are now scanning everything we put in our grocery cart (in addition to reading the labels).  If it is a major brand and it comes in a box, my experience is that is probably included in their database.  They are less likely to have the store brand.  So if you are buying Kraft mac'n'cheese, you'll find it, but if you're buying the ShopRite brand, they might not.

The only con so far is the review function. I would expect that a food allergen app would have reviews from people with allergies regarding that product, but in general the review of the product are dozens of "love this stuff" or "u shuld totally try this" variety.  I would be most interested in a review function that included comments on the "may contain" category, such as what other products are produced in that factory, etc.  There are plenty of webboards that will discuss those topics for you, but it would be nice to see in this kind of app.

If you know of other allergen food apps, I'd love to hear about them.

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Decorating stuff....uh...right.  Not at the moment, although I am William Morris-ing up a storm.

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Greg's birthday party has been scheduled, paid for, the invites have gone out this evening...nervous breakdown to commence in T-17 days.









6 comments:

  1. If it makes you feel any better, I am planning kate's first birthday party and have agita daily. It is in our backyard and mostly kids, some family. Tent or no tent? What if it rains? What kind of food to have? What can the toddler kids do during the party? (Kates theme is cupcakes, so I'm going to do decorate your own cupcakes as one toddler fun thing). But man am I stressing.
    Sara o.

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  2. That playroom is awesome! I love house hunting. I should have been a real estate agent.

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  3. LOVE that little play space- as a a child (and as an adult) I have always had an affinity for cubbies!!

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  4. I love everything in this post!

    Your daughter is hilarious, a hidden playroom would be SO MUCH FUN, that allergen app sounds fantastic for your family [I will totally take any allergen-containing baking products or pantry treats off your hands!] and birthday parties are awesome!

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  5. Thanks for the shout out! So glad you like the Allergy and Gluten Free Scanner app!
    -Rachel & the Fooducate Team

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  6. THAT is a fabulous App! I would have gladly acquired an iphone and spent $5 on it when I was doing an elimination diet for the allergist. I was pulling my hair out over that stupid diet.

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