8 Peanut-Free Snacks Your Kids Will Love

You’re filling up a virtual shopping cart with your supermarket haul for the week, on the lookout for snacks for junior—and there it is: peanut butter filled pretzels. Alas, your little one is among the 2 percent of American kids who suffer from peanut allergies, so it’s on to the next aisle. But wait! What’s that you see? An almond butter and pretzel snack pack? Hallelujah. Yes, welcome to a world where many retailers are now selling peanut-free versions of the mainstays you remember from childhood.

“These allergen-friendly brands do a fantastic job at using innovative ingredients, like sesame seeds or sunflower seeds, to create a seriously delicious and healthy product,” says Stefani Sassos, M.S., R.D.N., the registered dietitian for the Good Housekeeping Institute. All of these sweet and savory snacks, which Sassos helped select, are made in peanut-free facilities and are ideal for kiddos with peanut allergies. “While these items don’t taste exactly like peanuts or peanut butter, they have a unique nutty flavor that is just as tasty as traditional nut products.” Happy snacking!

Remember: just because an item doesn’t have peanuts in the ingredients list doesn’t mean it’s safe for your little—it might be made on production lines where cross-contamination can occur. So, in addition to evaluating ingredient lists for “peanuts,” you’ll also want to be on the lookout for other phrases on the packaging like “may contain tree nuts or peanuts” or “produced on shared equipment with tree nuts or peanuts.”