Summer Fun with a Treasure Hunt

Round up some pirates booty and get the kiddos outdoors for some summer fun with a sandbox treasure hunt. Argh!

My kids both went to a pirate themed birthday party recently so I happened to have a pile of gold plastic coins, or "golden blooms" as we call them, and beaded "pirates treasure" necklaces. So when my husband picked up some new bags of sand for the sandbox, we decided to do a treasure hunt.

We tossed in the golden blooms and pirate treasures as we dumped in the bags of sand. Then the kids dug away filling their buckets with the treasures they uncovered. It was a great way to keep them outside and busy, especially if your like me and forget to count your golden blooms and necklaces. Oops! Just keep digging, I'm sure there's more. ;)

In fact, my five year old had so much fun, I have had to re-bury his bucket of treasures three times now. Then I just sit back, watch, maybe enjoy a glass of Yellow Tail and enjoy the sunshine and quiet while he digs till his little hearts content. Now that's what I call success!

Trader Joe's - Another reason not to trust a label

This is so frustrating to me! I have been looking for raw pepitas that are safe for my sons tree nut allergy to use in granola with little success. It seems as if every seed is processed with peanuts and/or tree nuts, so I was really excited when I found some at Trader Joe's with no advisory label. However, just because there was no allergy warning, I was still a bit hesitant about giving them to my son. Many of you, including myself,  have experienced issues with Trader Joe's products and there poor allergy labeling. This is why I rarely shop at Trader Joe's for anything other then bread (believe it or not, they're one of the only places I can find safe 100% whole wheat bread).

Luckily, I decided to contact Trader Joe's corporate office for confirmation about the safety of their raw pepitas and sunflower seeds in regards to my sons tree nut allergy and here was their reply:

Hello Trista,

Thank you for contacting us, and we do truly appreciate your comments. In response, our Raw Pepitas are packaged/processed on equipment with tree nuts. Of course all of our suppliers do observe Good Manufacturing Practices, which would entail segregating any of these ingredients and cleaning between each production run. However, to ensure your son's complete health and safety, we would not recommend consumption of this product. However, you will be pleased to know that our Sunflower Seeds are not processed in a facility with tree nuts.

We also want to assure you that we are indeed deeply concerned with the complete health, well-being and safety of all of our customers and crewmembers alike. This is exactly why we do voluntarily disclose any of the top 8 known allergens and ingredients in our products on our labeling for our customer review where other suppliers may not. However, as sensitivities may also tend to vary greatly, consulting with your healthcare professional is also the best rule of thumb in this regard. We also invite you to review additional information regarding our Allergen Labeling Standards via our website here:
http://www.traderjoes.com/about/product-faq.asp (see Item No. 8)

We do hope this information helps, and we thank you for shopping with us at Trader Joe's.

Sincerely,

Hazel
Trader Joe's
Customer Relations
Ugh! Don't try and take credit for looking after the well-being of your customers, and especially don't praise yourself for voluntarily disclosing the top 8 allergens and ingredients on your products unless you plan on disclosing this information on all your products! Their logic unfortunately just doesn't make much sense to me. Just another reminder to never trust a label!