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Sunday, May 17, 2015

Pack Your Own Movie Theatre Snacks for Allergy-Friendly Fun!

We all went to see the Sensory Friendly Films showing of Planes: Fire and Rescue. Since movie theatre popcorn and candy options are full of petroleum-derived food additives (artificial color, artificial flavors, and artificial preservatives too!) the girls and I needed to bring our own safe snacks to eat. So I packed up some EasyLunchboxes!

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The Sensory Friendly Films showings allow you to bring outside foods due to the high rate of dietary restrictions among kids on the spectrum.

Movie Snacks for the Girls
The girls both had pretty much identical snack trays. Organic salted popcorn, a dye-free rock candy stick, some dairy-free natural flavored lemon chocolates and chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds, and organic champagne grapes and apple slices. Z got a few more apples than Little Sis.

Movie Snacks for the Mama
I got organic salted popcorn like the girls, plus organic blueberries and some dairy-free caramels and chocolate-covered caramels. Nom!

This time we ended up bringing nut-free snacks too! (Unless you count coconut, which is classified as a "tree nut" by the FDA for allergen warning statements, but isn't actually a tree nut, nor is there a correlation between having coconut allergies and having other tree nut allergies, and virtually no cross-contamination risk, since they're almost always processed and sorted in completely different ways in completely different facilities.)

We have never had an issue or been prohibited from bringing our snacks into a theatre, despite their signs telling you not to. They've always been very understanding, and we always buy a few of their $5 bottled waters to add our own safe drink flavorings to (Stur and Flavrz being favorites,) so they are making some concessions money off of us. Plus bringing liquids is a much bigger issue than bringing food, since they can't risk anyone smuggling in alcohol. So if you choose to bring your own food, be sure to respect that restriction. 

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4 comments:

  1. I love this!!! Where can I find that rock candy!?

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    1. I found it at Trader Joe's... as a tea stirrer or something. I've also seen them individually wrapped in assorted colors at candy stores, and just buy the plain un-dyed ones.

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  2. Make sure to hold on to any trash you bring, too - there are places out there that will straight-up fire employees if evidence of outside food is found!

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    Replies
    1. That is good information, thank you! For the Sensory Friendly Film showings, outside food is allowed, since so many kids on the spectrum have dietary issues, but we do bring our own snacks for other showings too, so I'll be more vigilant about collecting my wrappers!

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