I don’t know if you’ve discovered this already or not, but a lot of products are marked “kosher” with a variety of symbols (K, circle K, circle U, etc.) Often they also have the words “dairy, “pareve”, or (on rare occasions!) “meat” next to the symbol. If it’s marked “pareve” or “meat” there will not only be absolutely NO dairy in the product, but it also will not have been prepared on any equipment that touched dairy in any way. This is certified by a person called a “mashgiach” who checks the facilities and awards the kosher symbol (called a “hecksher”). So it is safe for your daughter to eat.

Pareve means that it’s neither dairy nor meat–grains, vegetables,fruit, fish, and eggs are all pareve. That’s what your daughter should look for.

I can relate to your story. We don’t eat pork or shellfish, even though we don’t keep kosher. We lived in Hawaii for a couple of years, and something called “plate lunch” is popular there. It consists of two scoops of rice, macaraoni salad, and some sort of barbequed meat–chicken, fish, beef, or pork (a million calories–but only half a million if shared!). Often when we ordered it we’d ask what the meat was and the response we got was “meat”. Locals there just don’t distinguish between types of meat!

I’ve told day care providers that my children don’t eat shellfish or pork and both kids were fed ham sandwiches when the other kids got tunafish because what the daycare providers heard was “no fish or pork” and they don’t think through to realize that ham IS pork and tunafish is not shellfish. Sheesh!

Looks like you had so much fun. Maybe next year for me!

Pam