WIN-It-Wednesday: Navan Foods – The Allergy Free Food Shop
For those of you looking to find an allergen free food shop, that has personal and c
ustomized food options, look no further. Navan Foods is the place to find one-on-one individual service that is a friendly resource and one-stop shop.
Navan Foods has helped me, and BeFreeForMe members find those hard-to-find allergen free items. Two weeks ago, Jill, a BeFreeForMe member contacted me wondering if I knew of any corn free confectionary sugars, and where she could buy it. Jill needed the sugar to make the frosting for her wedding cake.
Without ado, I contacted Jennifer Elizondo, the owner of Navan Foods, and asked her to assist in helping this corn-free-frosting-seeking bride. Within 12 hours, Jennifer had contacted Jill and hooked her up with a corn-free confectionary sugar.
How’s that for frosting on the cake customer service?
Another reason I like Navan Foods is the icon guide that effortlessly navigates you through the site. The icons make shopping for special diets easier. Navan does the hard work and determines what products are free of what allergens by contacting the manufacturer and asking them a series of questions about their products ingredients and their manufacturing facilities.
The icons represent products that are free of certain allergens (gluten, egg, soy, dairy, corn, etc.), specialty diets (vegan, organic, kosher, diabetic friendly, etc.) as well as icons representing healthy options (low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium and sugar free).
Navan Foods is sponsoring this week’s WIN-It-Wednesday and is offering TWO Lucky BeFreeForMe members a $20 gift certificate, PLUS free shipping!
How can you win?
Easy!
Reply to this blog and tell us the one thing that you are glad you found that is gluten / allergen free (Me? Glutino gluten free pretzels!) or wish you could find (Me? Gluten free red licorice).
Entries must be received by Sunday, September 6, 2009 at 12:00 midnight EST.
Good Luck… and as always…
Be Free!
Tags: Navan Foods, Win-It-Wednesday
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:39 am
I love Navan Foods. Jennifer is great. Her knowledge and willingness to solve complex food allergy dilemmas have made my life easier. I have eight food allergies. As you can imagine, that makes eating complicated.
I don’t know how I would cope without Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips, 123 Gluten Free Pan Bars, Namaste Brownies and Blondies, and Chebe Breads. And finding a snack with real crunch (Mary’s Gone Crackers Sticks and Twigs) has added texture to my diet. You don’t realize how much you miss a real snack crunch when you eat until you go without it for a year. I found all these items at Navan Foods.
I recently discovered Goya Marshmallows. They are corn-free! I ate three bags in a week when I found them. Again, I missed the chewy texture of foods like rice crispy bars. I used Erewhon Rice Twice and sometimes added Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips.
Now, if only I could find a dairy-free, corn-free, soy-free, coconut-free butter substitute. Oh, how I miss butter.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:06 am
I love Michael Season’s baked cheese curls and puffs. Also Glutino’s english muffins. I wish I could find a really good cinnamon roll. 🙂
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 am
I’m glad I found Schar Classic White Rolls. Yummy gluten free breads and rolls are so hard to find. I’ve tried so many different kinds and these are fabulous.
Thanks for telling me about Navan Foods.
Robyn
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 am
I am happy that I found the Mary’s Gone Crackers line of snacks…and I wish I could find GF phylo dough! There is a Moroccan dish that I used to make that I miss terribly…
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
I have found a new gluten free product at Costco that I LOVE. It is a Tappas potato, egg and onion omelette. It is delicious, easy (can microwave it) and reasonably priced.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:10 am
what a great site. I have never heard of Navan Foods before-thank you kathleen! I found quit a few things I could introduce to my daughter(snacks). I would still love to find a cheez-it cracker or goldfish type of snack for her. I will definately be ordering some items from this site in the near future.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:17 am
What I am most thankful for in recent months is the great variety of Chex cereals. Instead of candy/chips (unhealthy foods) I can grab the bag of Chex Mix I have prepared. While my GF grandson picks out the peanuts and M&M’s and raisins (and he eats one at a time!!), I mostly eat the cereals…it’s great to have a variety of them in the mix instead of just rice.
What I would most like to find is also red licorice. When I was diagnosed with CD 9 years ago, my comfort food was red licorice. When I was tense or didn’t feel well, I turned to red licorice. And that was bad, because I sometimes could eat a bag when I really felt bad, and of course the wheat just made me feel worse. But I still craved it. In the first year or two it was really tough to deal with the loss…sometimes I bought a pack and put it in my dresser drawer and took one out occasionally, but I haven’t had it for years. Yet every time I pass a display I long for some and I still remember how it tasted. I have seen black licorice over the years which is GF, but it just isn’t the same as red licorice. For whatever reason, my mother ate red licorice (probably not the quantity I did), and my celiac daughter also misses it.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:04 am
I was thrilled to find Glutino pretzels, too! They’re a great accompaniment to peanut butter, hummus, and many other dips. I just wish they weren’t so expensive!
I keep waiting for a convincing gluten-free pie crust. I’ve tried a few that just aren’t flaky or light enough!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
I love your website! It has valuable information. My favorite gluten-free product is the Glutino gluten free pretzels! It’s my “habit” that I have to have weekly! For a snack, I eat it with peanut butter! Thanks for sharing so much good stuff!
God Bless,
Sherall Cornwell
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:14 am
One gluten-free, dairy free item I found that I love is French Meadow Bakery’s cinnamon-raisin bread which is available online @: http://www.frenchmeadow.com It makes an amazing french toast and sandwich bread too!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’m a little new to this, so I’m still finding things that are gluten free. So far I love Tinkyada pasta (especially the spinach spaghetti), Mary’s Gone Crackers and Glutino crackers, and Pamela’s baking mix (perfect for my Xmas cookies).
I just wish Brach’s would come around and make their candies in a dedicated facility. The candy pumpkins make me so happy in the fall, but they may be contaminated (says so on package) so I avoid them.
The site (Navon Foods) is great, I love the icons, and they have a great selection. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
I am SO thankful for Vans Wheat Free Blueberry Waffles and Wheat Free Cinnamon French Toast!
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’ve seen gluten free red licorice! Haven’t tried it, but it’s kind of ironic you mention it, because the other day I was craving a box of Good ‘n Plenty. And saltine crackers. As much as I enjoy the GF crackers out there, I can’t think of one that is just like a saltine.
There are so many things that have become gluten free for which I am thankful for, so it’s hard to choose. Back in the day when I was first diagnosed, there was nothing, so pretty much every cookie, cracker, and bread that has come along has been a treat. I may have to go out on the line and say gluten free pizza crust would have to be my favorite. Nothing beats a nice slice of pizza!
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
One thing I found out yesterday that is gluten free is SPAM! I know it may not be the healthiest but it something easy to have on hand that doesn’t take long to make!
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:18 am
I am so glad that so much is being offered gluten free. When I first became gluten free I had sacrifice taste but not any longer. I can have pretzels, great flours, great mixes. But my favorite is having pizza again. I think I missed that the most. Now I can buy a mix and make pizza. I freeze the individual slices on a cookie sheet and place in a bag in the freezer and can pull out to nuke when I want a piece. I am so thankful that now so much is available.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Gluten-free cookie dough ice cream
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
First off, I’m an avid fan and shopper @ Navan Foods. Jennifer has been a great resource of allergen-free foods for me as I navigated the first weeks/months of a gluten, casein, citrus and a few other things free diet for my older son Ashton, who is a 10yo autistic boy.
His FAVORITE gluten-free product is by far, Ian’s Mac & Cheese! He asks for it all the time and I’m SO GLAD that there is this product that I can feed him and know that it’s safe from his allergens.
Something that I would LOVE to find would be a gluten, dairy and (preferably) soy free M&M-like candy. Or even a gluten, dairy and (preferably) soy free Reeses cup-like candy.
Thanks for bringing Jennifer’s wonderful business some well deserved attention!
Jennifer
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
The one thing I am glad to have found GF is the Food For Life whole grain brown rice tortillas….they aren’t dry or crumbly and make the best roll ups and are great for a last minute lunch or snack!
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
kinnikinnick donuts ~ dairy free
enjoy life snickerdoodles ~ dairy free
rice dream vanilla enriched ~ dairy free
zevia cola ~ natural soda
glee gum ~ sweetener free and natural
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
My favorite GF finds are:
Gluten-Free Creations chocolate chip cookies
Gluten-Free Creations Italian Herb bread
Gluten-Free Creations Mulit-seed, multi-grain bread
Gluten-Free Creations Cheddar Cheese bread
Gluten-Free Creations Everything bagels
If you want to try any of these fresh baked goods or more of their products, check them out at glutenfreecreations.com or call them at 602-522-0659.
They are the only certified GF bakery facility located in Phoenix, AZ and will ship nationwide. Yummo!
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I really am glad to have found a bakery in PA (Tanya’s) sold at Gluten Free Source, she makes soft pretzels that are to die for!! Just like the real thing!
About finding red licorcie, did you try Candy’s Tree licorcie, they have black, cherry, raspberry, and I think strawberry. It is the closet to Twizzlers that I have found.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I wish I could find gluten free puff pastry and crepes. I watch a lot of cooking shows that make the most wonderful things with convenience foods that we just don’t have access to. I am going right over to that site to see if there is such a thing! I always dream about starting a business with gluten free convenience foods! But I don’t have the background for such a thing!
Oh – and I love the gluten free CHEX!
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
There is a GF red licorice available made by Candy Tree. Here’s the link to it: https://www.navanfoods.com/Candy+Tree+Organic+Strawberry+Vines
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I am glad that Chex cereal is now gluten free. I love to make a snack mix with Glutino pretzels and M&Ms or milk chocolate chips. I still would like to find really good gf french bread and my daughter would love more gf cracker choices like the Goldfish crackers!
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Envirokids crispy rice cereal
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 pm
I Love that some products are now becoming mainstream – Uno’s has a gluten free pizza, Betty Crocker has gluten free cakes, cookies and brownies right on the same shelf with regular products, Legal Sea food GF menu and to-die-for GF rolls….GF is really getting out there. I wish wish wish that Dunkin Donuts had a GF bagel or muffin or donut – anything! I’m there two times a day getting my coffee. The girls that take the order always ask “would you like a muffin or donut”? Somedays I just was to scream YES – give them all to me 🙂
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 am
I love Mary’s Gone Crackers in the caraway version. A handful of these (with a little butter on each) is like having rye bread for breakfast. Not real fattening either. I really miss Rye bread!
A good find is Kinnikinnick frozen pizza dough. Also their cranberry lemon cookies are good.
Bread from Anna is moist and resembles real bread – not that starchy, tasteless stuff you find in some GF bread.
Tinkyada elbows and fettucine is really close in taste to wheat based pasta.
For tortillas, I use La Banderita corn tortillas. They don’t have flour added (which some commercial brands have) and have a really good texture and are soft.
Also, for the lady looking for confectioners sugar, you can take regular granulated sugar and grind it into powder. Use something like a clean (not used) coffee grinder or if you have a really high speed blender, that might work. You just need to pulverize the regular sugar. Nothing special about confectioners sugar except they use the corn starch to keep it from sticking together.
I just visited the Navan store for the first time. Very nice. Glad I found another (maybe better?) place to get the products I need. Thanks
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
I too love glutino pretzels. I love saltine crackers and this is my new substitute for saltines.
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
I’m thankful for Namaste Sugar free muffin mix! No cane sugar!!!!! or many other common allergens. I am also so thankful for So Delicious Conconut Milk Ice Cream and Yogurt, they are truly Godsends. Another one of my fave finds is the Kinnickinick Multi Grain Yeast Free Candidi Bread. I can’t do yeast so this bread is wonderful!!!!
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 am
I am glad I found Authentic Foods’ Multi-Blend flour. You can do ANYTHING with that stuff!
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
I’m so happy we found GFCFSF coconut milk ice cream! My boys love it! They also love the wylde soy-free pretzles. I wish we could find a gluten, soy, dairy, and corn free cruncy pretzle though because I limit the amount of corn my oldest eats. I would also love to find a GFCFSF grahm cracker! Right now I make my own. I can’t wait to see if Naavan Foods has any products we can’t get here!
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I L-O-V-E the new Diamond Almond thins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to marry them.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I love the Glutino Pretzels too, in fact I love most of Glutino’s products, especially their Brown Rice Crust Three Cheese Pizza. And the other company I love basically hands down is Kinnikinnick. Their Tapioca Rice English Muffins don’t necessarily work for me as English Muffins, but as a small “sub roll” they work great!
And I’m dying to know who makes the Gluten-Free Cookie Dough Ice Cream that Vinnie mentioned above…
Thanks for this blog, it’s such a wonderful resource!
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I always have on hand Larry & Luna’s Coconut Ice Cream (Gluten, Dairy, Soy Free) – the Chocolate Hazelnut is to die for! Also love Food For Life Brown Rice Tortillas, Namaste Muffin Mix, and Turtle Mountain’s Coconut Yogurt.
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I am glad I just found good GF chicken nuggets. My favorite gluten free find are WOW Banking Company cookies – the oatmeal is BETTER than gluten-cookies I had pre CD. I would still like to find a really good bread for eating plain (without having to toast it to death) or a good fast food item 🙂
September 4th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I like the Betty Crocker GF Brownies. YUM!!!! I wish i could find better GF crackers. Everything I have found is too crumbly to eat with soup. And a nice French Bread.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I am so thankful for Pamela’s peanut butter chocolate cookies. They hit the spot when I need something sweet. I wish I could find good biscuits and bread.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I am sooo glad to have found Sammi’s millet and flax gf bread. I love love love it.
I would kill to get a can of gf condensed cream of mushroom soup.
Licorice (black and red) is available from Candy Tree. I found it in Minnesota and none of my retailers use the distributor for them. My daugheter got me great licorice gf from Amazon. It was a birthday treat and loved it.
September 4th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I am so thankful for the Ener G foods wheat free crackers. My son has numerous food allergies and my husbands family serves crackers all the time. With the Ener G foods wheat free crackers my son gets to have crackers with the rest of the family! I also cannot do without Sunbutter! My husband and I both love peanut butter, but with my son’s allergies I haven’t had pb in 3 years! Sunbutter is a great substitute!
I wish I could find a really good tasting, melting dairy free cheese!
September 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
My favorite gluten free foods are Van’s Cinnamon French Toast, Pamela’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (they taste like Chips A’hoy), Glutino Pretzels, Kinnikinnick Pizza Dough, Smoreables Graham Style Crackers, and best of all is Bell and Evan’s Chicken Tenders. When I first found out I could not eat gluten I became worried, because gluten free bread and crackers just do not taste the same. However, I have now found Gillian’s Dinner Rolls and Sandwich Bread and Dr. Schar’s Crackers and Barkat’s Crackers and now my mind is at ease. The only problem is the expense of gluten free food, why does it have to be so expensive? Although, I do wish gluten free foods were more convenient it seems like everything has to be cooked and I don’t mean microwaved.
September 5th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I love Gutino duo cheese pizza and the pizza flavor breadsticks
September 7th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Navan is AWESOME!! We visit every time we are in Virginia visiting my family. We live in Seattle–and are lucky to enjoy a good handful of restaurants/natural food stores/GF bakeries and pizzerias–before Navan we were always sending big boxes of allergy-friendly foods to VA before our visits. Now I can save the postage and find everything we are used to having at home and MORE 🙂 Our son is GFCFSF and egg, nut/peanut free (we also try for organic, artificial flavor-free and color-free whenever possible).
A couple of foods that my son LOVES that we found through Navan include Allergaroo Spaghetti (SO convenient when travelling–shelf stable, just microwave and you are good to go!) and his all-time favourite snack, the Organic Toddler Num Num Strawberry Rice Crackers by Hot Kid. (Ironically, the distributor is in Bellingham, WA but we have YET to find them in the Seattle area, so we order them from Jennifer and have them shipped by the case–Navan always comes through!!)
As to Cara’s request for a good cinnamon roll–while I don’t know what your elimination list is, Ener-G does make cinnamon rolls that are GFCF and egg, nut and soy free. They aren’t exactly cinnabon, but they are the best we have found. I know that Navan has carried other Ener-g items, so I imagine that Jennifer can get them for you, or if not you can order online at http://www.ener-g.com. Also, they are the ones that make the FABULOUS tapioca rolls (I think the very ones that the Disney World restaurants serve) and our son loves their Wylde pretzels.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I love Schar bread – whole grain, white, rolls; all of it! It is the best tasting bread I have found so far. Cinnamon sugar toast is now back in our house. I also like the icons – it makes shopping so much easier and faster. I wish I could find a good sugar cookie – or maybe one with M & Ms – yum.
September 8th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I found the best Gluten free products; by Schar; OMG; they are from England; been around for 25 years making Gluten free; and have been coming to the US; you have to try their pasta, the best ever vanilla waffers; finally a bread a like; their bread out of this world; all their snacks. I liked Enjoy life; but they have them beat by far!!!!
September 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I would have to say my WHOLE day consisted of ALL gluten free foods…English muffin (Kinnikick ??) w/ Earth Balance butter and jelly, gf Turkey Breast and Roast Beef (Inspirations from Hannaford) Chicken Nuggets (Bell & Evans), yummy Rice Spiral pasta (Tinkyada) and some GREAT gf double chocolate brownies (Enjoy LIFE!!)…
I have to say that I’m VERY, VERY, VERY proud of myself for not eating anything that wasn’t Gluten FREE.
Again, it was a such a PLEASURE meeting you today, Kathy.
Have a WONDERFUL week and see you soon. :o)
September 11th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Tammie-
I KNEW you could do it! I hope you are still feeling well and sticking with the gluten-free way!
I am sure that you will start to feel so much better being gluten-free 100% for a week or two. It was a pleasure to have met you too, Tammy!
Be Free… 100% !
Kathleen =)