Beware: it's an allergy-related posting. But oh, I'm feeling thankful!!

Little B and Miss C cannot have dairy products. There are about 2 different margarines that I can find in a typical grocery store that are safe for them - UNsalted Fleishmann's Margarine (sticks) and some Smart Balance Margarines (tubs) - I have to be very careful to get the right one with this. One way is to look for the word "parve" on the package. I believe there is one other more costly choice, Earth Balance, but this keeps it simple - the sticks for baking, the tub for a spread on bagels, etc.

Baby J cannot have soy. Let's keep this simple: all margarine has soy. That means it's virtually impossible to make baked goods safe for all three kids. Fun, I tell you.

Enter Spectrum's shortening made of palm oil only. No dairy. No soy. Not even cross contaminated with any of the other allergies. Sounds like it solves the problem, right? I should be so thankful. Right?? NOT.

It took two tries - using it in some icing on a cake (gluten free for hubs and baby) and attempting some Chex Muddy Buddies (modified w/sunbutter versus peanut butter, etc) to discover that John apparently had some issues with palm oil. So....not a good substitute after all.

I was feeling forlorn trying to figure how to solve this dilemma. I have a completely allergy safe pumpkin pie recipe and dug for a gluten free/safe crust. BUT could not figure what to use to replace the need for a butter/margarine/shortening ingredient. Forlorn, indeed....

Then, at the grocery store I ran across coconut oil. To be fair, I'd seen it by Spectrum but theirs was cross-contaminated, so could not be used for my family. But this one does not seem to have any hindering factors. It just has coconut oil. AND, since this whole crew of mine can easily and often drink coconut milk, I simply cannot foresee a problem.

Woohoo! Yeah, very thankful. 8-)