Friday, May 14, 2010

Travel to Mexico with food allergies

Thought I would post what I learned about traveling to Mexico with a milk and egg allergic toddler. It was easier than you would think, but here is what I have learned.
Prior to Leaving:
  1.  I contacted the manufacturer of Silk to see where the distributed in Puerto Vallarta, and they never got back to me (boo hiss....)
  2. We bought a bunch of the shelf-stable 8 oz cartons of Silk for the flights. Although they exceed the 3oz liquid we usually have no trouble with airport security treating them like formula when you explain that she cannot drink milk from the airport or the plane. (although you can always buy soy milk in the airport at coffee stands like Starbucks). I put 4 milks in her diaper bag to carry on (enough for the airport, flight, customs in Mexico, and until we are checked into the hotel. I put the remaining 6 milks in a heavy duty ziploc in my checked bag-  I'll use them for the trip home and for out-and-about in mexico.
  3. I got some powder soy formula- yes she is 17 months and doesn't drink formula anymore, but in a pinch we can mix it up with water and it will provide her with good nutrition. I split this into 2 heavy duty zip-locs and put one with the scoop in her diaper bag and the remainder in her checked luggage.
  4. I thought about buying some larger quarts of shelf-stable Silk to pack in my luggage, but I was worried about it leaking or adding too much weight to my bag.
Trip Day:
  1. No problems with the trip, we packed lots of safe snacks for the flight and airports.
  2. We settled in to the condo and decided to hit the store for some groceries (we have a kitchen). The little grocery store in town does not have any soy milk (leche de soya). I even ask the manager- they just have almond milk in the "import" section and it is over $5 per half-liter and Lauren wont drink almond milk. Reading the labels on margarine and things isn't too hard- we just look for "leche" for milk and "huevos" for eggs.  There are tons of fresh fruits and veggies, and cereal and crackers that we find for her.
  3. That night at dinner we ask the waitor for tips on finding soy milk- the major brand is Ades and he suggests we take a taxi to the resort area (we are in the old town) and hit a big grocery store or the super wal-mart.
  4. The next day we hop in a cab and ask where he thinks we can find Ades leche de soya- he also suggests wal-mart, I am a bit skeptical- really? It turns out the super wal-mart in PV is HUGE and has an enormous grocery section with tons of shelf-stable soy milk, mainly the brand Ades.  They did have Silk, but it was about 460 pesos per 0.5 liter and the Ades was 160 pesos per 0.5 liter and we bought 8 of them for the week, so we went with the Ades. Of note- they did not have any refrigerated soy milk, only in the shelf-stable section.
  5. The Ades worked OK- it was really sweet and she isn't used to that- so the Silk might have been a better purchase, but we just made her 8 oz of formula each night and thought that made up for bad milk drinking during the day.
  6. Eating out was a breeze- we ate lots of fresh seafood and fruits and veggies, and I just mentioned "no juevos, no queso" and we didn't have any trouble. The whole thing actually was pretty simple- the only change  I would make it to probably pack a larger amount of Silk in my checked bag next time.

2 comments:

Joe said...

Loved the pictures. Looks like you had an amazing time! Glad you were able to get away and have some fun.

Laurie said...

Great Job Mom! You are an amazing Mommy to such a cutie!