Another learning experience: Cobs Bread

Geoff and I went to Cobs Bread on Wednesday, when Andrew was in preschool, and picked up a bunch of different treats for us.

I was totally assured by the young woman at the front counter that everything I bought was dairy- and nut-free, so I went ahead and bought a lot of different things -- a blueberry cobbler, a box of lemon tarts, date bun, fruit bun, and whole wheat baguette.

And I let Andrew try them when he got home from preschool. He quite liked the blueberry cobbler, but his favourite was the lemon tart, which he got on Thursday. He ate two of those, one after breakfast and another one after dinner. He did go and play with the neighbourhood kids in the street after that, so I'm sure he burned off all that sugar.

And then this morning, I decided to check on the ingredients when I was writing up this blog post. (All of Cob's nutrition info is available online, so if you've got one near you, you can do your research before you get to the store.)

Well, everything I'd fed to Andrew contains whey powder! It seems that Cob's needs to teach its front counter staff about the other names for dairy, including whey and casein.

Thank goodness nothing happened. I think that Andrew didn't eat much of the blueberry cobbler. And with the lemon tart, he was digging out the lemon filling, but didn't eat the crust.

On the bright side, I did want to test whether his lower dairy allergy scores were for real or not. I guess they are.

Moral of this story: don't trust anything that the front counter clerk tells you about ingredients. Make sure to read it for yourself, despite the "no dairy" signs plastered throughout the store.

And yes, I will be letting Cob's Bread know about my experience.