• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

Michelle's blog

Food allergy and food intolerance, freefrom foods, electrosensitivity, this and that...

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music

FreeFrom Food Awards Children’s category…

01/02/2014 //  by Michelle Berridale Johnson//  7 Comments

EthanOur Children’s category judging is organised each year for us by the wonderful Christine Bailey who gathers together a group of food allergic / intolerant or coeliac children and teens from among her patients. They all come to her house and we pile down with the products and all the judging paraphernalia. And very serious and conscientious judges they are too – as you can see. (This is Ethan tasting a chocolate entry.)

Our judges ranged from six years old to 15 and while they have a range of sensitivities between them, they are all either coeliac or wheat intolerant.

We follow exactly the same protocol as for the adult judging sessions: they have to taste all the products in silence and make their own notes about them including a mark out of ten. Then we add up all the marks and discuss whether the marks really reflect who they think should win.

Charlotte and EleanorChristine is very insistent that parents are banished to another room so that they cannot influence the children, and that the latter should say and write exactly what they want. And they do!! ‘WOW!!!!!!!!!!’  ‘I HATE that….’  ‘YUUM! YUUUUM! YUUUUMMM!!’

(This is Charlotte and Eleanor, by the way, also considering that bit of chocolate.)

They are also very polarised in their likes and dislikes.The majority of the products they either LOVED or HATED with relatively few getting middling marks. Maybe surprisingly, they do not have particularly sweet teeth either with the savoury products getting as high a ranking as the sweet ones.

Oscar And they do take the tasting very serious. Here is Oscar, for example, first tasting the sample and then thinking hard about what he is actually going to write and deciding on a mark.

BenEven the littlest of our judges, Ben, here seen tasting a freefrom fish finger, came up with some great comments and was not at all phased by being asked to give a mark out of ten.

However, today’s judging session was not all about sitting round tasting and giving marks as one of the entries was a ‘freefrom’ cake mix especially designed for quite young children to make up themselves.

So before we got down to any serious tasting, everyone piled into Christine’s kitchen where they were divided into three groups; the two 15-year olds, Christine’s coeliac son, Nathan and his mate Josh taking charge of two younger boys each and the two girls, Charlotte and Eleanor managing the third group.

Josh, Isaac and Luke

Here is Josh with Isaac and Luke adding the oil to the mix.

Ben, Ethan and Nathan

And here are Ben, Ethan and Nathan breaking the egg to go in.

Eleanor, Charlotte, Simeon and Oscar

And here are Eleanor, Charlotte, Simeon and Oscar making up their mix down the other end of the table.

Once the mixes were mixed they were, somewhat messily, spooned into the muffin cases and popped into the oven while everyone went and tasted the other entries. Then, once the muffins were cooked, they had to be iced! A gloriously messy business in which everyone got involved, including Christine!

Everyone making icing

Charlotte and EleanorAfter which, of course, the bowl needed to be licked………

Then it was back into the judging room, everyone with a cup cake of course, to decide on the winners, the highly commendeds and the commendeds – and wouldn’t you all like to know who they were…

But of course, like the children, I am sworn to secrecy until March 25th! Although you will get some inkling when the shortlist is published on February 12th.

SimeonMeanwhile, many thanks to all of the children, to their parents for letting them take part and to Christine for organising it all.

And I will leave you with a picture of Simeon writing up his comments (I wonder if he is that focused when it comes to homework….)  and one of him and Oscar watching the icing going on to those cupcakes and imagining them slipping down their throats….

Simeon and Oscar

Category: Allergies, Coeliac/celiac disease, Cooking/kitchen equipment, Dairy-free, Food, FreeFrom Food, Gluten-free, NutritionTag: Advance Nutrition, Christine Bailey, coeliac disease, FreeFrom Food Awards, FreeFrom Food Awards Children's category, gluten-free cake mix for children, gluten-free chicken bites, gluten-free fish fingers, shortlist for FreeFrom food Awards, wheat intolerance

Previous Post: « Successful peanut allergy trials
Next Post: Alpro – ongoing… »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Christine Bailey

    02/02/2014 at 10:31

    It was an absolutely brilliant day. The children loved being involved in the judging and felt very important! It is great we get their opinions on these products too and as Michelle mentioned they are not afraid to say what they think. A big thanks to Cressida too who took charge getting all the products on the table for the children to sample.
    Christine

  2. Ruth Holroyd

    02/02/2014 at 13:09

    Loving the photos. That looked like so much fun. well done kids and Christine

  3. Nicola

    03/02/2014 at 10:25

    What a great post. I think it is great that the food is judged by children. They are the most tricky to please, but our most important audience. What makes it better is that these children, who for various have to eat differently to others, feel included and important. Lovely.

  4. Michelle

    03/02/2014 at 10:31

    So right, Nicola. And, as you can see – they all felt really ’empowered’!! But now, of course, they want judging sessions every week!!!

  5. Vicki

    12/02/2014 at 13:31

    This looks like a lot of fun! My daughter (6) loves reviewing products for my website so I bet all the kids had a great day!

  6. Michelle

    12/02/2014 at 15:23

    It was – they had a ball!! In fact, Christine has about ten other kids all wanting to be judges but more than ten and you risk descending into chaos!!

Trackbacks

  1. FFFood Awards 2014 – the party, the buffet, the winners – the kiss… says:
    30/03/2014 at 16:31

    […] on the whole, to keep the younger members under control! (For more on the children judging see my blog back in […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Colliding with a new reality – the hazards of low vision
  • Call for adult allergy sufferers
  • The vegan/allergy labelling issue
  • A gluten free Christmas just could be delicious – not a penance!
  • A food fad won’t kill you – an allergy will

Search this blog

ARCHIVES

Blogroll

  • Allergy Insight
  • Better brains, naturally
  • For Ever FreeFrom
  • Free From (gluten)
  • Freefrom Food Awards
  • Gluten-free Mrs D
  • Natural Health Worldwide
  • Pure Health Clinic
  • Skins Matter
  • The Helminthic Therapy Wiki
  • Truly Gluten Free
  • What Allergy?

TOPICS

A food fad won’t kill you – an allergy will

There has been a predictable outcry in the allergy world this week’s in response to Rachel Johnson’s piece in Thursday’s Evening Standard on ‘dietary requirements’ and food fads. Being charitable, I am assuming that she has never suffered from or lived with someone with a food allergy. However, I do have some sympathy with her …

Bioplastics – a solution or part of the problem?

Everyday Plastic is a social enterprise group using accessible learning and publicity campaigns to reduce the amount of plastics used daily in our society. It was founded by its current director Daniel Webb who, having moved to Margate in Kent in 2016, was horrified to discover that there were no plastic recycling options on offer.  …

FreeFrom Christmas Awards – the Winners

Since they were launched two years ago the FreeFrom Christmas Awards have been a great success. And how lucky are ‘freefrom-ers’ these days!  From Advent calendars to gifts, party food to Christmas dinner, there is no longer any need for them to miss out. Indeed, the whole family can happily eat freefrom and never know …

Do not extradite Julian Assange to the US

Julian Assange is being sought by the current US administration for publishing US government documents which exposed war crimes and human rights abuses. The politically motivated charges represent an unprecedented attack on press freedom and the public’s right to know – seeking to criminalise basic journalistic activity. Assange is facing a 175-year sentence for publishing …

What to believe – applying critical thought

For the average citizen evaluating the claims made for cure all – or even improve all – health products and procedures has always been difficult. Not only is it an area in which we have minimal expertise but most of us have a vested interest in finding a miracle intervention that will solve our health …

Could wireless monitoring devices be killing racehorses?

Regular readers may remember that back in August last year I alerted you to a posting on Arthur Firstenberg’s Cellphone Task Force site about phone masts and bird flu. Could there be a connection between the fact that the two wildlife sites in Holland and Northern France which had suffered catastrophic bird flu deaths were …

Site Footer

Copyright © 2025 · Michelle's Blog · Michelle Berridale Johnson · Site design by DigitalJen·