A whole new world of popcorn

Being on a restricted diet is really hard. I've never dieted before in my life and having cut foods for baby girl's allergies for 18 months now I can 100% say I'd never be able to stick to a diet for myself. The only reason I've stuck to my restrictions this long is because it's for my child and seeing her pain free is worth all the inconvenience I'm going through with limited food options.

However there is an unexpected upside, you value food much much more when you can't freely have it. Even better than that, when you can add a food back into your diet, it's like winning the lotto. Thankfully over the last few months we've had a few small wins and we can both now eat rice and corn. Hallelujah 

I know what you're thinking, it's rice and corn calm down, not like it's chocolate Toni. I can assure you after basically living off pasta, meat, restricted veggies and salad for more than 12 months, rice and corn are amazing. They open up a whole new variety of foods and not just stirfry with actual rice {although that's been pretty good too}. Initially I went nuts eating sushi as often as possible, simply because I could, and now I've started a new love affair... with popcorn!

It's funny over the last few months I've become so accustomed to eating the same meals day in and day out I'd forgotten about so many of the foods I loved eating before. Popcorn totally slipped my mind for over a year. I stopped noticing it in the supermarket because I walked straight past that section in the aisle. Now it's permanently back on our shopping list and the girls are super excited for movie nights {well movie days because they go to bed too early at night}. We set up our own home cinema the other day complete with cushion chair aisles, popcorn and {fake} ice-cream.

The other awesome benefit is we now have another snack option for baby girl who's well and truly reached the fussy eating stage. A food refusing toddler who has limited options to begin with = a super stressed out mum. I've spent so many hours over the last few weeks pleading with her to eat her meals or snacks it's not funny. Right now popcorn is one of the only things she always says yes to and eats without a drama. It's surreal to think that last year it would of caused her so much pain and now it's one of her favourite foods. I'm so thankful we've been able to overcome her corn allergy.

What's really cool too is that Cobs popcorn have a new multipack with 10 x 13g snack size packets of popcorn {3 x Cheddar Cheese, 3 x Sea Salt and 4 x Lightly Salted, Slightly Sweet flavours}. After watching her sister eat chips and biscuits {that she can't eat} out of packets for the last year, and begging to have them every single time, she's so excited she can eat something out of her own mini packet. Pretty sure she feels like a bonafide big kid now. The snack packs have been great when we're out and about and they'll be a great lunch box size for when bub starts school next year too.

I only recently discovered there's so many different popcorn flavours available. I naively thought popcorn was just popcorn and maybe you add a bit of butter {not me because I still can't eat it} or salt and that's it. Apparently I've been living under a rock and there's a whole other world of popcorn out there I've been missing out on! I'm making up for it now of course.

We're all split over which are our favourite flavours though. Bub's favourite is Best Ever Butter, because "it tastes just like at the movies" {you can't really go wrong with a classic butter and salt combination}. Their dad keeps swinging between Cheddar Cheese and Best Ever Butter depending which day you ask him {I'm pretty certain he'd eat any popcorn you gave him though}. Baby girl & I are loving Lightly Salted, Slightly Sweet, it's got the savoury goodness of salt then a slightly sweet kick at the end, yum!

Do you love popcorn too?
Could you survive 18 months without it?

Toni x

Disclosure - I was kindly gifted some packs of Cobs popcorn in exchange for this post. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post and all opinions expressed are my own based on our experience with the product. Cobs new Best Ever Butter is available from Woolworths and multipacks are available from Coles.

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