Ice Cream

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EmilyAnn:
My son is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. Someone mentioned in another post that Frosties from Wendys are safe. What about the hot fudge sundaes at McDonalds? The soft serve at Krispy Kreme? What other kinds of ice cream are safe? Any brands I can buy at the grocery store?

CMdeux:
There are some people here who trust Breyer's vanilla and some who trust Blue BELL (not "Bunny") vanilla...

but you should probably be aware that no US manufacturer runs dedicated lines-- so any ice cream that you can buy in a store will be run on shared lines with tree nuts and peanuts.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really help in terms of decision-making. Sorry about that. We, personally, do not trust manufacturers to be able to deliver a low-enough-risk product under those conditions, no matter how good their intent. Examine recalls for a few months back, and it becomes pretty obvious that ice cream is a VERY high risk item.

Soft serve from Wendy's is generally safe. Soft serve in other establishments may or may not be, depending upon how other products (mix-ins, etc) are handled and whether or not there is contamination occurring. (Does the spout touch mix-ins-- ever?)

Macabre:
We let DS have soft serve from McD's. He is PA. On accession if we are inside a Mc's and we can talk to them he will have a hot fudge/caramel sundae. BUT--the staff has to wash first and NOT pick up that little packet of peanuts. If they do that, the deal is off.

Other places that just have a soft serve machine we generally trust (like at Dickey's BBQ).

We trust Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. IMMV. But it is run 24/7 and so most of the time is on dedicated equipment--but not truly dedicated. But practically so. We've not had a problem, but I cannot say that we won't or you won't. But we trust it (and we've seen them take apart a fair amount of the equipment)

We've bought Breyer's. About two or three years ago someone in our community posted about a reaction. But to my knowledge they did not send the rest of it to FAARP, a lab that will test for the presence of an allergen for free.

Many here have the Cuisinart ice cream maker. It is easy and fast! It's about $50 and worth every penny.

Jessica:
We don't trust McD's for anything. The one here has reese's flurries and when I asked them what they do to avoid cross contamination, they had no idea what I was talking about. DD has has Wendy's frosties with no problems, and also BK Shakes (according to the worker they use the same "mix" for the shakes and the soft serve). From the store, we buy Ben & Jerry's and Breyer's plain vanilla (lactose free-my two NKA kids are lactose intolerant). PA/TNA DD mostly eats the Ben & Jerry's-otherwise I would probably buy blue bell for her. I hate that blue bell has HFCS though. It's always something.

becca:
I did not know that Ben and Jerry's is considered safe by some. Is it only the vanilla you use, Jessica?

I think we have a looser comfort zone wrt ice creams than many here. Yet, the Ben and Jerry's makes me twitchy because of all the variety of mix ins. We use Breyers, and we use Edys, sometimes Hood vanilla. Try to stick to pretty plain flavors. Ice cream is really one of those things you need to call and decide. Dd has never reacted and eats ice cream almost daily. She is PA/TNA.