Theresa -

We've found that pure cocoa and pure chocolate are ok for our
dairy/nut/egg-allergic son. Unfortunately, he had an anaphylactic reaction
to Newman's Own Chocolate that we've yet to understand. Our best guess is
peanut contamination, although the folks at Newman's Own can't figure out
how.

We've been sticking with chocolates that are labeled "pareve", meaning that
they are about as milk-free as anybody can certify. (The whole question
about the difference between the religious/kosher definition of dairy-free
and the notion of "absolutely guaranteed to be 100% dairy-free" has been
discussed in prior postings and was covered in a recent FAN newsletter).

We've found the store brands of chocolate chips to be the ones most likely
to be labeled pareve, but there are others. Note that Hershey's Dark
Chocolate used to be dairy-free, but they've changed their ingredients to
add milk fat :-(  There are still some of the old ones on the shelf. We
just bought out the supply at two of our local CVS stores (and now we have
10 huge bars of the stuff!).

There are several kinds that are labeled Kosher Dairy  (a "U" in an "O"
with a "D" for dairy, or another kosher symbol with a "DE"), but have no
listed dairy ingredients (note that cocoa butter is Not a dairy
ingredient). With these chocolates, you take some chances, since the
chocolates have been processed in equipment that has been used for milk
chocolates and have not been "de-dairied" according to the laws of kashrut
(in other words, not considered to be kosher-pareve). Even so, we've found
many of these to be free enough of dairy to be ok for us. If your child can
tolerate trace amounts, these may be ok.

But if you really want to be sure, you can either use pareve chocolates or
use cocoa powder.

Mark
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Mark Feblowitz