Talk About Curing Autism Now Family Picnic

Yesterday we attended the TACA family picnic. As usual it is one of our MOST favorite days of the years. The kids had fun, the parents had fun, and over all it gets 2 thumbs up from everyone who attended with us.

I want to take a moment to thank all the volunteers and TACA office staff. You once again out did yourselves. It’s nice to be able to go to a picnic where everything is safe for Austin to eat and also delish!!!

If you were not able to attend you missed some really really really good food. I want to take a moment to also thank all the food venders and give their companies a plug. I think my most favorite food was a new item that thankfully Susan Kristie came and found me and told me I had to try. Thanks Susan!!!

That item was the NuLife foods (which all their foods are Gluten Free, Casein Free and Soy Free) Chicken Burger Patties, these are also egg free. It got two thumbs up from everyone in our party. It was so good that Austin and another child in our group chose to eat the chicken burger instead of the much preferred Fritos. That in of itself is just about amazing, but to top that my anti-chicken husband also loved it. When they had extra boxes of uncooked patties, they offered them to Picnic Guests to take home. Eddie Garcia said that he turned to look and Carissa and I were a puff of smoke!!! (Guess what hubby asked to have for dinner tonight?) I went and checked out their website and they have a lot of other great items like Chicken Pancakes that I want to now try. They also have some exciting new products coming out like Breakfast Empanada, Apple Pie Empanada, and Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Their website also offers you the ability to search by Allergen beyond GFCFSF. (Oh and the company rep I met yesterday, swears this is not even their most popular product, I guess they better send me some so I can taste test their other products, lol)

Update *7/3/10* you can get a NuLife trial pack for on $10, with special discount code Enter TRYME01 in the Promotion Code box in your cart (good for only 1 use per customer)!!! (Basically its like getting shipping for free. And for the price of shipping you can add one more item to try)

Includes:

8 chicken nuggets
2 chicken burgers
8 beefy veggy meatballs
2 slices of ultimate cheese pizza
2 pieces of French toast
4 chocolate chip cookies

Newport Rib Company was also their with splendid pulled pork and beef sandwiches. As always these were a favorite amongst the entire group. It’s hard to believe that the BBQ sauce is GFCF. The have an excellent GFCF menu offered at their local Orange County, California restaurants.

In-N-Out burger was also in the house. For those of you who do not know you can safely eat GFCF at In-N-Out if you just let the cashier know. They have a separate grill where they grill GF hamburgers and will wrap them up protein style and the fries are always safe since only fries are friend in their fryers.

La Rancherita was also at the picnic serving up the cutest little tacos. I did not personally try these after being stuffed with a chicken burger and pull pork sandwich, but many PITA families ate them and enjoyed them.

For snacks there were also plenty to choose from. An old favorite was back, Green Cupcakes. The first year they attended the picnic, about the 8th mini cupcake Austin ate, Ed turned to me and said, “Are you going to let him eat another one?” I looked at him as was like “hell yes”. We had just become egg free and here was a soft, delicious cupcake that GFCFEF. They did not fail to please again this year. I am sure Austin and our friend Julie ate at least 8 each.

Other great snacks included Lucy’s Gluten Free Cookies (made without milk, eggs, peanuts or tree nuts), Pamela's Cookies (produced to be wheat-free and gluten-free, products are produced in a facility which also makes products containing: peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs and soy), EnerG Pretzels (free of gluten, wheat, dairy, casein, soy, egg, nut, low protein. May contain Sesame and Poppy seed.)& Cinnamon Crackers (free of gluten, wheat, casein, dairy, yeast, egg, soy, nut, rice, low protein). If I missed any of the other vendor please let me know because I am more then happy to give them a shout out also!!!

As always please PITAup and check out the awesome sponsors of TACA. Gluten Free Casein free has come a long way since we started June 16, 2004 and the Primer family is most appreciative of the opportunity to have a fun family day with good food, great friends and an awesome Autism Charity!!! Thanks to everyone who helped make it a perfect day!!!