Anyone doing Feingold?

[Pattyla]

I'm not paying for the program (yet) but I am noticing that many of the foods on the no no list are ones my dd has reactions to. I'm trying to figure out what else is an issue and just get some support and ideas.

My DD is also GF, CF, Egg F, corn free and can only handle low GI sugars (palm and agave).

We recently went CF for her mostly to protect my dairy intolerant younger dd who was getting into her food but when her behavior dramatically improved we realized that some other things (strawberries) were triggering some bad episodes

[MyLittleWonders]

We are Feingold, stage 2. We have been for over 2 1/2 years now. We would probably benefit from low sal's, but I did not notice enough of a difference to keep them pulled. We are also GF (and probably be CF, but again, the differences were not enough to keep dairy out - I'm a food elimination wimp! ). Along with Feingold and GF, we do Brainchild Nutritionals for the boys to help heal their gut and improve their liver functions (not being able to handle food additives is a liver thing).

Depending on how much processed food you buy (and guessing that being GF, CF, egg free and corn free, I'm thinking probably not a bunch), you may not need to buy the program. We do not use the shopping list as we don't buy any mainstream products (and I know now basically everything that is safe and not). You can start by eliminating all dyes, all flavorings (vanillin is in a lot of things), all artificial sweeteners (including things like Splenda), and all known preservatives (BHT, etc). Most of that you can find by reading the labels of what you buy. You can also find a list of high sal foods online. Here is one list. That is basically stage 1 of Feingold (remove all high salicylate foods and all food additives). Then after 4-6 weeks, you trial salicylates and if they pass, you become a stage 2 Feingold family - just eliminating all food additives.

Some have also found great success with FailSafe program. It eliminates, IIRC, many other naturally occuring food chemicals (amines are one that come to mind). Hope that helps!

[Pattyla]

Thanks,
We pretty much make everything from scratch and look for all additives already. The avoiding high Sal foods is new but I decided to take it seriously when dd told me "eating strawberries gives me crazy energy". I've seen her "crazy energy" and I'm not a real fan of it. I could tell that she enjoys the sensation though. I questioned her about other foods that give her crazy energy and they pretty much all are on the avoid list.

Good point about the liver being the detox. Hmmm... I had been giving her liver life but quit to save us some money. Perhaps it would be cheaper to give her that and expand her diet....

[Heba]

If you're considering an exclusion diet for food intolerances, I would second the suggestion to check out Failsafe, for information even if not further action. It goes further than Feingold (as the PP says, it eliminates amines as well as salicylates - and takes into account glutamates and sulphites although not as strictly - and I think it's stricter than Feingold wrt salicylates although Feingold may have been updated so I'm not sure there).

Good luck, and hope you get the results you need! Finding out about Failsafe was a real Godsend for me, and has enabled us to identify the cause of our son's behaviour issues:.

[mamafish9]

We're probably feingold-like - GFCF and low sals (and no additives because with all the other sensitivities, we buy nothing packaged).

However, I'm pretty committed to the idea of healing to get a lot of those foods back. Whenever I read about special diets, I get the sense most of them think you "should" eat this way forever - I was on a low sals forum the other day, and they were making the case that we were "meant" to eat old bland foods with very few fruits and veggies, we should eat white rice/sugar/flour instead of whole grain varieties, etc. Uh, no thanks.

[MyLittleWonders]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

We're probably feingold-like - GFCF and low sals (and no additives because with all the other sensitivities, we buy nothing packaged).

However, I'm pretty committed to the idea of healing to get a lot of those foods back. Whenever I read about special diets, I get the sense most of them think you "should" eat this way forever - I was on a low sals forum the other day, and they were making the case that we were "meant" to eat old bland foods with very few fruits and veggies, we should eat white rice/sugar/flour instead of whole grain varieties, etc. Uh, no thanks.

I am so right there with you. I tell my boys that if they listen to me (take their supplements) and we work on this, we can heal. I'm not sure if we'll ever get to where gluten is not an issue (I'm currently trying to work on adrenals, thyroids, and livers, but hope to one day really tackle gut and inflammation), but I do believe we can get to where I don't have to worry if something is "safe" or not (not that I ever want to purposely eat food additives but I do believe it's possible to heal and be able to properly detox them without them first acting as a neurotoxin).