Where has all the rice milk gone?

[BubsMaw]

Hi, I've been struggling to buy rice milk with added calcium, on my last 6 or so supermarket shops the shelves were empty, and I've tried Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose two or three times each. I managed to get a couple of v. overpriced cartons from the health food shop, but now it's been over 3 weeks since I've seen any at any supermarket. What's going on?! Am I just unlucky, or is there a supply problem - anyone else having problems?

We have enough to see us through 'til tomorrow morning, but from then we'll have a problem. DD will be on water and calcium supplements at this rate [panics]!

[singarainbow]

Still available at our Tescos. Have you called the stores to see if there is a problem?

[Louii]

Holland and Barretts?

[greenbananas]

My local Asda hasn't had any for weeks. It's £1.99 a litre in Holland & Barratt but they still have some where I am.

[BubsMaw]

I finally found a whole box at Sainsburys, but not in the usual place. The normal shelf (free from aisle) was bare as usual, but over by long life cows milk I found this one box, which may have been mis-filed on the shelves as there wasn't a correct price label there, so I had them all. I did notice that chocolate rice milk has added calcium, there was some of that available, DD would be delighted if that was her fall-back option!

Wonder what's going on....

[cece]

soya milk?

My dietician told me not to give under 5s rice milk. (not sure how old your DD is...)

[MegBusset]

I haven't had any problem with getting it from Tesco.

Why does your DD need rice milk, can she have soya/oat/goats' milk instead (I'm assuming she's allergic to cows' milk?). Does she need milk at all? Lots of food has calcium in it too.

[BubsMaw]

Thanks for the tips. DD is nearly 5 and has been on rice milk for prob 3yrs, I'm a bit worried about the change in food standards advice, when she was a toddler it was recommended by her dietician. We had a few good attempts at getting her onto soya milk or oat milk when we realised there was maybe a problem with rice milk (she'd initially been allergic to soya as well but outgrew this allergy quite early), she really isn't up for drinking anything different.

Will do some further research. If rice milk is truly that bad I maybe need to be tougher on this. Hadn't heard of Kara.

Recent good news - baby DS is not allergic to cows milk, wooohoooo!! We actually opened a bottle of champagne when we realised this.

[hellymelly]

I did read that rice milk is naturally high in arsenic,and so not suitable for small children.Could this be the reason?

[MegBusset]

Hmm, could you try to wean her off rice milk and onto oat/soya by mixing them together to start with then gradually decreasing the amount of rice milk? Though the only report I can see on the FSA website says it's not advised for children 4 and under, so I'm guessing little risk of harm in her continuing to drink it at this age, but would check with dietician if at all possible.

We have an allergic first-born (egg amongst other things) and non-allergic second-born, it's a big relief isn't it?

[greenbananas]

DS is allergic to cow's milk and when he was only about 13 months old the hospital dietitian recommended rice milk instead. Two weeks later, we got a letter from the hospital saying that rice milk was no longer recommended as a main drink because of concerns about levels of arsenic.

A year later, I buy rice milk to cook with - I use it occasionally in cakes, porridge and weetabix because I figure that the arsenic build-up from that will be negligible.