A Red Dye 40 Free Halloween

A little over a year ago, our oldest daughter, who was then three, was exhibiting some behavior that was very atypical for her, she was angry and downright aggressive. I'm not talking about typical toddler meltdowns, it went beyond that and was shocking to us. My husband and I spent hours talking about behavioral strategies and tried several without much success. One night he told me about an article he read about children exhibiting these behaviors when they have eaten foods with Red Dye #40. After doing my own research I learned that Red Dye #40 is derived from petroleum or coal tar and research shows it can cause hyperactivity in children. We decided then to give it a try and cut it out of her diet for two weeks and see if there was any difference. After about three weeks (the first week or so we accidentally fed her lots of things with red dye) we noticed a huge difference in her behavior. She was still a three year old, she'd still throw fits from time to time and had tons of energy, but nothing like her behavior before. We decided it was worth it to cut Red Dye #40 out of her diet and out of our house. I'm not saying your family needs to raid the pantry tonight and purge all your "toxic" food, but it's the decision that was best for our family and I share our story in hopes that someone else may find it helpful.

It isn't easy. A common misconception is that if a food isn't red, it must not contain red dye. There are lots of foods that contain the dye that one wouldn't expect, that is problematic, we have to become vigilant label readers. The hardest part of this transition is carrying on with this diet when we are not at home. Parties and events are especially challenging because our daughter is often surrounded by peers eating things she cannot (and we aren't always there to police it, which also makes it tricky). Because she has an intolerance to Red #40 (it is not a true "allergy" by definition), it is also often not understood by others. We are navigating our way through it, most days we manage to steer clear of Red 40, but it does take some vigilance and planning.  
On Halloween Eve, Trick or Treating is the latest challenge I am prepping for.  Tomorrow we will accompany her, and her friends, around the neighborhood where she will continually be given the sweets she loves, at least half of which she will not be able to eat. We have done as much eduction as you can with a (now) four year old, she knows a few main candies to steer clear of when given the option, but I won't have the rude kid Trick-or-Treating so she will smile and politely say, "Thank you," and I will sort through it all when we get home. As soon as we walk in the door she will ask that I check her candy while she stands there in anticipation. "Can I eat this? How about this? Does this have red dye?" 
I started going through her loot from school today and there was only one thing she could eat in the very large treat bag. Going through the bag I realized I needed to streamline the process, I also realized that I am not the only parent with a child intolerant to Red 40, so below you will find a list of popular Halloween candies, those listed in red contain Red #40. Feel free to use this to choose what candies you will purchase for your trick or treaters, or use it to give your kid's candy a quick sort. 

Halloween 2015 Treats Red Dye Round-Up

1. 5th Avenue
2. 100 Grand
3. Air Heads (Xtremes and Regular)
4. Almond Joy (and Mounds)
5. Altoids
6. Andes Mints
7. Angry Birds Gummies
8. Atomic Fireballs
9. Baby Ruth
10. Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks/Fruit Roll-ups*
11. Bit-O-Honeys
12. Blow Pops
13. Boston Baked Beans Candy
14. Bottlecaps
15. Brach's Classic Candy Corn
16. Bubble Yum Gum
17. Butterfinger
18. Butterfinger PB Cups
19. Butterscoth Candies
20. Caramel Apple Pops
21. Charleston Chews
22. Cheetos
23. Chupa Chup Lollipops
24. Chick-O-Sticks
25. Cinnamon Candies
26. Clark Bar
27. Cookies & Creme (Hershey's)
28. Cow Tales
29. Cracker Jacks
30. Crunch Bar
31. Disney Star Wars Galactic Candy Mix
32. DOTS Gumdrops
33. Dove Milk Chocolate
34. Dubble Bubble Gum
35. Dum Dums*
36. Fun Dip*
37. Gobstoppers
38. Goldfish (Cheddar, Pretzel, S'More, or Rainbow Varieties)
39. Goobers
40. Good & Plenty
41. Haribo Gold Gummy Bears
42. Heath
43. Hershey’s Chocolate Bar
44. Hot Tamales
45. Jawbreakers
46. Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
47. Jolly Rancher (Original, Crunch ’n’ Chew, & Lollipops)
48. Junior Mints
49. Krackel
50. Kraft Caramels
51. Kit Kat
52. Laffy Taffy*
53. Lemonheads
54. Lemonheads (Chewy, Fruit, & Tropical Varieties)
55. Life Savers
56. Life Savers Gummies (Sour & Regular Varieties)
57. M&Ms (any variety) Note: this one is interesting to me, apparently the red dye is in the actual chocolate of the candy according to an associate at M&M World, so even a white M&M contains red dye- Bummer.
58. Mallo Cups
59. Mary Janes
60. Mike & Ikes
61. Milk Duds
62. Milky Way
63. Mr. Goodbar
64. Necco Wafers
65. Nik L Nips
66. Now & Laters
67. Oreos
68. Pay Day 
69. Peanut Butter Bars
70. Peanut Butter Kisses
71. Peeps*
72. Pez
73. Pixy Sticks
74. Pop Rocks*
75. Pretzels (Snyder's & Utz)
76. Raisinets
77. Razzles
78. Red Hots
79. Red Vines
80. Reese's
81. Reese’s Pieces
82. Rice Krispie Treats
83. Ring Pops*
84. Rolos
85. Rootbeer Barrels
86. Runts
87. Saf-t-pops*
88. Sixlets
89. Skittles
90. Smarties
91. Snickers (& PB Squared Variety)
92. Sour Patch Kids
93. Sour Punch Straws/Twists
94. Sprees
95. Starbursts
96. Starlight Mints
97. Swedish Fish
98. Sweetarts
99. Sugar Babies
100. Sugar Daddy
101. Tootsie Pops
102. Tootsie Rolls
103. Tootsie Roll Fruit Flavors
104. Trolli Gummies
105. Twix
106. Vanilla Cupcake Goldfish
107. Warheads Sour Candy
108. Wax Fangs/Lips/Mustaches
109. Werther's Originals
110. Whatchamacallit
111. Whoppers
112. Wonka Nerds
113. York Peppermint Patty
114. Zero bar

*= There are numerous varieties, some have Red #40, some do not. It is in your best interest to look up particular varieties of interest. 

This list is accurate to the best of my knowledge and was compiled with the help of Amazon, my husband, and several bulk candy websites. Feel free to comment below with any changes or candies you'd like to see added to the list. It's also worth noting that several major companies in the U.S. are working on removing red dye from their products, so I have high hopes that the "red #40" list will be much shorter in 2016! 

I hope this list is helpful!

Tips from a Disney novice

A year and a half ago, my husband and I took our girls (then 3 years old and 6 months old) to Disney World for the first time. We scheduled the trip a few months in advance, stayed off property and had a pretty good time. Although we had a nice time, I don't think we even tapped in to 10% of what Disney has to offer. Since then we've gone two more times and are planning for our fourth trip- yep, we are those crazy people addicted to Disney. Sometimes we stay on property, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we fly, sometimes we drive. There's no wrong way to do Disney, but I just thought I'd share my thoughts on what we've done, how we saved, and what works best for us.

The most important tip I have is to plan for the most successful trip. Think about what interests your family, what priorities you will set for your trip. Having two small girls means we are looking for family-friendly thrills and anything Princess. That may be different for you, but the process is still the same. Disney is a busy place with lots to offer, there's no way to do it all in one trip, but planning can make sure you hit the highlights for your family.  

When to go?
The first thing we do is look at the crowd calendars and try and decide when we will go. Sometimes that is dictated by my hubby's work schedule, sometimes we have some wiggle room. Either way we check out the crowd calendars (our favorite site), even if it is just to determine what day we will go to which park. For example, unless its a holiday or special event, the Magic Kingdom is almost always more crowded on a Monday. 

Where to stay?
Now we decide where we will stay. We've stayed on and off property in the past, and I see benefits to both, so for us it really comes down to what's the cheapest option at the time. If we can get a condo at a resort off property for super cheap, it's often our best bet to stay there. We have found this useful because it gives us some room to spread out and cook our own breakfast before heading to the park, cons being driving and paying for parking ($17 a day). On the other hand, we've stayed on property before and it has been very convenient to hop on the monorail or a bus and not stress about driving. During select (non-peak) times Disney has also been known to offer incentives like a free Disney Dining plan (I'll review that after we use it on our next trip!) which when you do some math makes it more economical to stay on property. 

What to eat? 
From there we go ahead and book our dining reservations. Dining reservations and appointments (Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique) can be made as much as 180 days in advance, and popular restaurants, like Be Our Guest, can fill up very quickly. With that said if you are planning a last minute trip, it doesn't hurt to look often to see if reservations become available, sometimes you can get lucky! The majority of the time we do breakfast on our own before entering the park, pack snacks and drinks, then just worry about lunch and dinner. We don't eat table service every meal, but most days we book one. The day we visit the Magic Kingdom, however, we don't typically do a table service because not having a reservation gives you more wiggle room when there are a lot of attractions you want to visit. 

FastPasses 
FastPasses are the next thing we plan. If you are staying on property you can get your FastPasses 60 days before the first day of your trip, 30 days prior if you aren't staying on property. Selections become available at midnight, so we usually stay up late to try and maximize our options. We also try and get our FastPasses as early in the day as we can because once you use your three, you can refill them with whatever FastPasses haven't already been used up for the day (no, it isn't likely you'll get popular attractions like Anna & Elsa or the Mine Train, but it's a nice way to get on some other rides you may want to try but don't want to wait in line for... think Jungle Cruise).When choosing your FastPasses, its also a good idea to get them when possible for more popular attractions that usually have longer waits... no one wants to wait 90+ minutes in a line if they don't have to.  

The Other Nitty Gritty Details of Planning
I could write pages and pages of tips and tricks I've learned from fellow Disney fanatics and blogs, but I'll keep this list fairly short and add more posts about Disney soon. If I could go back to the planning stages of our first Disney trip, here's what I'd want to know:
1.) If you have a Target Red Card, you can purchase Disney Gift Cards for 5% off. While this might not seem like much, Disney is expensive, and any savings can be helpful. We've gotten in the habit of buying diapers and other necessities when there is a gift card deal going on, then after collecting a bunch, using them to buy Disney Gift Cards. This has allowed us to essentially prepay for large portions of our trip.
2.) Souveniers are expensive. "Tinkerbell" sometimes leaves small treats and souvenirs for our girls while on vacation for them to wake up to... This gives them something new to be excited about as they head into the park for the day and seems to curb the "I want thats." For example, prior to visiting Animal Kingdom, Tinkerbell brought our girls binoculars to use to find the animals on the Safari. They still play with them and they cost us $2 a piece instead of the $14.99 toy binoculars in the park. We do splurge on some souvenirs, but this definitely saves us some money. Tinkerbell seams to pick up a lot of her treasures from Wal-Mart, Target, the Dollar Tree, Toys R Us, and Amazon. Also check out the clearance and sales at the Disney Store!
3.) Bring in snacks and drinks. Even if you are on the Disney Dining Plan, you don't want to lose a snack credit on a bottle of water. We put a cooler bag in the bottom of our stroller filled with water and some snacks for our girls (Applesauce pouches, fruit snacks, granola bars, etc.). A small snack can also make the wait in line more tolerable for little ones.
4.) Disney is an awesome place that is incredibly well thought out, but one thing I don't recommend to folks who are traveling with littles is renting a Disney stroller. They are hard plastic and you have to turn them in as you leave the park, that means you'll be carrying all your loot and likely a sleeping child alllll the way back to the car. Nope, not my idea of fun! We sometimes bring our stroller from home, but when we don't, we like renting from Kingdom Strollers. They deliver the stroller to wherever we are staying, we leave it with the concierge when we are done, and they pick it back up- easy! 
5.) Ask questions! If you have questions while planning you are welcome to post them here, I"ll do my best to answer them, but also consider your social circle, chances are you know someone who is a Disney addict who'd love to tell you about their favorite place! Once on property, any cast member can answer your questions as well. Cast members aren't allowed to say "I don't know," so at minimum they can point you in the direction of someone who can help you. 
6.) Download the My Disney Experience app if you haven't already. It'll make it easier to keep up with your itinerary, add dining reservations if you need to, see pictures taken by Disney photographers, get up to the minute wait times, and the best part is there's free wifi at all the parks (although it can be spotty at Animal Kingdom). 
7.) Plan, but relax. This one sounds confusing, I know. You have to plan your trip to maximize your time, but don't get so caught up in planning that you miss out on the fun and Disney magic! So you don't get the perfect spot for the parade, or maybe you miss your fastpass window... That's ok, go with the flow and be in the moment with your family-- make those memories!

One of the moments from our first trip I'll never forget!