I started checking the labels for sugar and I'm shocked by how much of it is in things like cereal, juice drinks and cookies. I'd like to get them to eat healthier, but it's nice to give them a treat once in a while, too.

If I am making something I try to avoid plain sugar since it is processed and try to stick to natural sweetners like honey or pure maple syrup.

The one down side is that I haven't discovered a cheaper way of doing this. My daughter has a llot of food allergies and getting away from all the processed stuff and labels filled with words I can't pronounce has brought her a long ways.

Hopefully that helped a little bit but sweets have been my biggest challenge.

Is it me or does it seem like kids are having more food allergies these days? When my kids were little, it was practically unheard of, and now, everytime you turn around, there's a news story about a child with some sort of food allergy.

The most common allergies seem to be peanuts and dairy. I've also heard of wheat gluten and chocolate allergies.

I suppose it helps to cook everything from scratch, but I also think it's high time the food manufacturers step up to the plate and start catering to people with food allergies. Their labels need to list everything, even if it's in minute amounts, as well as the machinery it's processed on, like machines that process peanut and non-peanut products.

It's tough on both the kids and the parents, so if more products that can help improve the quality of life for people with food allergies were available at the grocery stores and restaurants, that would be excellent!

 I have my own theories about all of the allergies now days that I feel very strongly about but can be a little controversial. When she was young she never had a reaction to anything. She could eat anything that she wanted including the items above and never had problems around pets. When she was 15 months she got the MMR vaccine and a week later became very sick and was in and out of the hospital for several months. The allergies were the instantanious change that came over her after the vaccine. My wife does a lot of research on the subject and we have spoken with numerous doctors and it is scary how many doctors would tell us that this vaccine isn't nescessary or avoid that one but it's always under their breath or behind closed doors and only after they have learned about what we have been through.

Okay I better stop because it is hard to talk about this without getting long winded. On a side note my son is almost 2 1/2, never had a vaccine and is doing amazing. We've only had to take him to the hospital once and that was for a mild ear infection  last month that cleard in 1 day.

Getting back to the original post about sweets. There is a company called enjoy life that makes a lot of allergen free foods. We have bought their cookies a few times and they are pretty good. Not to mention way healthier than most other cookies out there.

http://www.enjoylifefoods.com

I'm glad your son is healthy, but has he started school yet? I remember my daughter's first year of school was full of sickness - for both of us. I do agree that the MMR vaccine may not be necessary, but others, like polio, pertussis and chicken pox may be important to get. My daughter nearly died with the chicken pox, her fever was so high and she got asthma so bad, it was very scary.

According to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center:

Vaccines have literally transformed the landscape of medicine over the course of the 20th century.

Before vaccines, parents in the United States could expect that every year:

• Polio would paralyze 10,000 children.
• Rubella (German measles) would cause birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns.
• Measles would infect about 4 million children, killing 3,000.
• Diphtheria would be one of the most common causes of death in school-aged children.
• A bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) would cause meningitis in 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage.
• Pertussis (whooping cough) would kill thousands of infants.

Vaccines have reduced and, in some cases, eliminated many diseases that killed or severely disabled people just a few generations before. For most Americans today, vaccines are a routine part of healthcare.

However, the disappearance of many childhood diseases has led some parents to question whether vaccines are still necessary. Further, a growing number of parents are concerned that vaccines may actually be the cause of diseases such as autism, hyperactivity, developmental delay, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) among others. These concerns have caused some parents to delay vaccines or withhold them altogether from their children.

They have an unbiased page that has more information on common vaccine concerns, as well as educational materials for parents here.