The Cupboard Was Bare (or so you thought)

based on a list provided by Victoria DeLano

I probably should have posted this the very *second* Victoria shared it but, well, you know...time got away from me once again. ;)

I think the most intimidating thing about going top 8-free is: What can you eat?? You start looking through your pantry and realize that there's almost nothing in there that you can have anymore! You still have lots of options, of course. Like fruits & veggies. But--let's be realistic--that's not always practical, or even feasible. I can almost promise you that my preschooler would actually starve if all he had to eat was fruits & veggies.

Here's a list of foods that should be safe to have in your pantry. (And I will update this as I learn of new products...so if you subscribe to posts, expect to see this one pop up from time to time.) Please, as always, check ingredients labels carefully every time you purchase these or any other products. Ingredient lists can (and do) change without warning. Please help me keep this list current! :)

Meats
Ball Park brand all beef hot dogs
Hillshire Farm Beef Summer Sausage
Ian's Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Patties, Mac & Meat Sauce, Mac & No Cheese, Popcorn Turkey Corn Dogs
Jennie-O turkey - tenderloins, ground turkey, turkey sausage
Oscar Meyer Deli Fresh lunch meat
Market Pantry (Target) pork sausage patties-fully cooked

Pasta & Sides
Ancient Harvest corn-quinoa pastas
Eden Foods Rye Spirals pasta
Food Merchants Polenta
Ian's Alphatots
McCain Home Style Baby Cakes potato cakes (Target)
Mrs. Leeper's rice pasta
Tinkyada rice pasta
Asian rice noodles
Asian rice paper wraps (Asian markets or Whole Foods)

Chips, Crackers, Snacks
Edward and Son Rice Snaps Crackers
Frito's Original
Garden of Eatin' Vegetable Chips
Glutino Gluten Free Breadsticks (crackers)
Glutino Gluten Free pretzel sticks
Good Health Veggie Chips (the Stix have wheat)
Lay's Classic potato chips
Market Pantry (Target) tortilla chips
Mission tortilla chips
Terra Chips - some flavors
Trader Joe's Lite Kettle Corn popcorn

Desserts
Betty Crocker Gluten free baking mixes
Enjoy Life products
Kinnikinnick's Animal Cookies (has a 'may contain' statement on the box)
Kinnikinnick's S'moreables graham crackers (has a 'may contain' statement on the box)
Let's Do Gluten Free Ice Cream Cones
Namaste cake & cookie mixes
Newman's Own= Newman-O's Wheat free, Dairy free creme filled chocolate cookies (contains soy lecithin)
Newman's Own Fig Newmans (contains soy lecithin)
Rice Dream frozen dessert
marshmallows

Fruit Snacks
Archer Farms (Target) fruit strips & bars
Brother's All-Natural Fruit Crisps
Clif Kid Organic Twisted Fruit real fruit rope
Florida's Natural Nuggets fruit snacks
Stretch Island Fruit Co. fruit strips
apple sauce
dates
raisins (many other dried fruits will also be safe, but watch for 'may contain' warnings)

Cereals/Breakfast
Cocoa Pebbles
Corn Chex
Honey Comb
Ian's French Toast Sticks
Kix Cereal
Rice Chex
Rice Krispies

Bread
Ener-G Foods (shared ovens--not pans--with egg)
Outside the Breadbox Imagine Egg-Free Oat Bread

Condiments
Kraft Original BBQ sauce


Victoria also suggests the top 8-free cookbook "8 Degrees of Ingredients" saying, 'I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this cookbook!!!!!!!' (Yup, direct quote.)