One eats, two eat, three eat, we all eat ....

We had an interesting conversation the other day after D. came home from getting groceries.  Walter had picked out Spiderman "fruit bits" (you know, the ones that contain lots of ingredients and hardly any fruit) as a snack for Kindergarten.  I rolled my eyes a bit--mainly because I'm such a fanatic about fruit-like things actually having to have fruit in them--but scanned the label and was about to put them in the cupboard when I saw the labelling change.  The only allergen warning for the "fruit bits" (and, no, I can't seem to make myself take the scare quotes away) was for SULPHITES.  *meh*

William was rather miffed, as he knew right away he couldn't have them, and I was a bit upset with D. for not having read the label in the store.

Then we stopped and talked for a minute.  It wasn't fair to Walter that he couldn't have the "fruit bits" just because William couldn't have them, but I didn't think it fair if Walter ate them in front of William, either (more because of the Spiderman thing than anything else).

So, the "fruit bits" are living in the cupboard over the stove (safely out of reach, as even I need a stool), and can only be eaten at school.  While I won't buy them again, D. may well as a treat for Walter, and that's okay, so long as William gets a treat he can eat, too.

I've thought about this for a while since, and I think that the moral is that, as a family, we'll make reasonable changes to our way of eating to eliminate sulphites (and to protect William from exposure to them), but that doesn't preclude us from eating things that contain sulphites ... and, you know, I don't think we should feel guilty about that.