I'll preface with...this teacher was assigned Team leader of 504 plan since she has Celiac. During the meeting I mentioned several times that managing celiac and managing a peanut allergy is not the same. At one point I objected to her being the leader because they kept introducing her as "the expert" about food allergies.
She told me there was a couple things they would do with simple ingredients such as flour (remember she has celiac and is okay with having flour in her classroom. Why? because celiac and food allergies are not the same.
So, here's her email. I was miffed. Partly because it now means more "work" for me and mostly because she told me beginning of year there was nothing except the flour project and no tasting. And I like how she tells me the cocoa nibs are free of peanuts.
I am willing to help a little to make a project "doable", but in this case, I've never seen safe white chocolate in the store. I have no idea about cocoa nibs.
Here's the email:
Friday of this week, we will begin an exploration of the chemistry of
chocolate related to solutions, suspensions, and emulsions.
The first activity is a tasting of the following chocolate products:
Ghiradelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate premium baking chips
Ghiradelli classic white baking chocolate chips
Nestle milk chocolate morsels
ShopRite semi-sweet chocolate chips
The chocolates contain soy and milk products. None contain peanuts or
peanut oil, but the packages carry the warning that foods are manufactured
in a facility that makes peanut and tree nut products.
Students will be using the information from the tasting to develop
background information for experiments with melting point and solubility.
Later lessons will use cocoa butter, lecithin, and cocoa powder, but will
not involve tasting.
If you have concerns about the tasting brands, please let me know. I
wasn't able to find chocolate at ShopRite that didn't carry the
manufacturing site warning. If you have a chocolate brand you would be
willing to send in with DS for him to evaluate it would be helpful.
Over the break, I will be shopping at Whole Food for cocoa nibs. We may
taste those since they are the roasted fermented cocoa without sugar,
milk, or flavoring. Those come from Costa Rica and do not contain nuts of
any type.