help me with my 6 yo

[karika]

I am positive that her behavior is affected by what she ingests. She has fits, mood swings, sugar crashes... I try to feed her only organic or natural foods, avoiding HFCS. it seems dairy is a trigger, but cold tea made with white sugar isnt (it seems). My thoughts are red food coloring, dairy, HFCS, chocolate... but I receive no backing from her father... I am really tired of all the drama though. and it is just like i can feel her energy when she comes in the room. i am empathic and it is just deafening iykwim. It is like the energy coming from her is chaotic and unnatural. I have no money as I havent been able to work in years (so i cant purchase some system). I am in charge of what is purchased at the grocery store and the cooking however. I read one thread that says cut out corn (is this because of gmo corn or just all corn in general?), dairy and chocolate. That sounds like a good place to start. are there any threads or websites that outline a before and after to convince her father how important this is? he just does not believe me. he may allow me to change her diet for 2 weeks if that would be long enough tho. i am a huge sugar freak tho, so how do you do that while you are eating candy yourself? or am i the only one? i have also tried to give up soda recently and am so far unsuccessful. i have been caffeine free for many years, but apparently there is still something very addictive in the caffeine free pepsi because i turned into a major b---- when i stopped it cold turkey. i started buying it again to tame the beast. but i dont give the children soda, anyway... i just need some help knowing what to do to find out what is affecting her, and maybe a thread or website to show her dad to make him understand how important this is. tia nak

[Addy's Mom]

I don't know much about diet and behavior connections, although I "do" know sugar crashes can make someone irritable and weak, because it does it to me. I do better with less sugar thoughout the day and more protein in regular intervals. So instead of a frozen yogurt for a midday snack, for example, I feel much better if I have a hard boiled egg or some cheese, and apples. I always make sure I've got good protein at meals now. So never just cereal in the mornings. I might do greek yogurt and fruit, or eggs and fruit, or peanut butter and bananas on whole grain toast, etc. I know that doesn't help much if you are avoiding dairy though.

[mum06]

Good eating and nutrition starts with you. You are the shopper and the cook. You choose what comes into your home.

You are going to have to cut out your own sugar. Diet Pepsi and candy is not a good example of health and nutrition for your daughter. Why should she have to change the way she eats when her mother doesn't? The money you save by not buying these two things will pay for any additional costs of healthy eating.

Cutting out cereal is a great place to start cutting costs, crazy additives, refined grains and sugars, and adding nutrition. Once I figured out I could feed my entire family of eight organic oatmeal with organic blueberries for cheaper than cereal, well, it was worth the extra work of boiling a pan of water in the morning. My older kids complained at first, but they eat when they get hungry. And if cereal isn't in the house, they can't eat it. Another plus, if you want to cut down dairy but not completely cut it out (if this is an issue for your husband), is oatmeal uses just a splash of milk instead of a whole bowl...again cutting food costs

The library is an excellent free resource for health and nutrition information. Two weeks ago I was interested in vegan baking even though my home is not a vegan home. I found tons of vegan cookbooks at the library and didn't have to pay a dime.

You can do it!

[karika]

Originally Posted by mum06

Good eating and nutrition starts with you. You are the shopper and the cook. You choose what comes into your home.

You are going to have to cut out your own sugar. Diet Pepsi and candy is not a good example of health and nutrition for your daughter. Why should she have to change the way she eats when her mother doesn't? The money you save by not buying these two things will pay for any additional costs of healthy eating.

Cutting out cereal is a great place to start cutting costs, crazy additives, refined grains and sugars, and adding nutrition. Once I figured out I could feed my entire family of eight organic oatmeal with organic blueberries for cheaper than cereal, well, it was worth the extra work of boiling a pan of water in the morning. My older kids complained at first, but they eat when they get hungry. And if cereal isn't in the house, they can't eat it. Another plus, if you want to cut down dairy but not completely cut it out (if this is an issue for your husband), is oatmeal uses just a splash of milk instead of a whole bowl...again cutting food costs

The library is an excellent free resource for health and nutrition information. Two weeks ago I was interested in vegan baking even though my home is not a vegan home. I found tons of vegan cookbooks at the library and didn't have to pay a dime.

You can do it!

I do not use diet pepsi. It has aspartame in it which is deadly. I appreciate your input but if a person is an alcoholic, does that mean no one in the home can have alcohol? If someone in the house is allergic to peanuts do you have to eat peanut free as well? I do not have these insane reactions that she has. I have seen this debate on here and on the TCC forum a lot in the past. Do we have to give up the things our children cannot have? I am just not sure how I feel about it now that she is 6(and a very advanced 6 at that). When she was small and I first encountered this (when she started eating solids at 10 mo and in the toddler years), I took the side that we shouldn't have anything in the home that they couldn't have, or keep it hidden. I could even take her to the grocery store and she had no concept of what was candy. We could walk down that aisle and she didn't know at all. But now that she is so much older... I mean I would let her eat these things if it didn't create these horrible mood swings. She will be very active, running around, then after about 3 or 4 hrs, a severe let down where something will set her off and she will be crying uncontrollably and no amount of logic can reach her. I have not had regular store bought cereal in the home for a very long time. I have been eating organic since 99. We eat mostly fresh fruits and vegetables and meat. Our favorite drink has been chocolate soy milk but since it contains chocolate... I am just not sure where to start to find out what is affecting her. We put vanilla soy milk in her oatmeal ( a frequent morning meal here, with nuts and fruit in it) this morning instead of dairy. I have Christina Cooks cookbook, but lack most of the basic ingredients she has listed. I have been purchasing one thing a week to get stocked up, for instance, last week I bought brown rice syrup. I am mostly interested in hearing from someone that has BTDT and can direct me to a thread or website about elimination diets for children.

[karika]

Hfcs

yes I know I need to give up corn syrup because it is all from GMO. I did not buy any more soda at the store today. I went a whole month without any last month. I am trying with my daughter to cut out dairy, corn syrup, most chocolate (she has never had much of that anyway) and red 40. I am participating in a boycott of all products that contain GMOs also. I will drink hot tea again or decaf. I am thinking I should have posted this in allergies maybe, but will post again in a few weeks about how she is doing without those things in case anyone is listening.

[writteninkursive]

Dairy is a huge thing for my oldest DD. She has always been a dairy-obsessed disaster, starting from formula at birth (we had issues with breastfeeding; she had health problems and I had depression issues that prevented us from having a healthy breastfeeding situation). She had horrendous stomach problems from birth - constant liquid, explosive diarrhea. I thought it was normal, since she was my first baby and I was young. When she was a bit older, I would come downstairs in the morning to find her already up, with a gallon of milk, cheese, and yogurt on the couch just feasting. She's obsessed with it. She would sweat profusely and her sweat would just reek. I suspect a vaccine injury from infanthood.
I pulled dairy. DF was not so supportive of that since he loves his dairy. But I told him that it was important that we not have cow milk in the house because that was her main obsession and she was not healthy as a result. She is only allowed to have natural cheese and yogurt now and rice milk. We did soy for awhile, but the more I found out about it (and Monsanto's control over it), the less impressed I was. She is so much healthier now! She doesn't sweat constantly anymore. No more diarrhea. She doesn't stink when she does sweat. She's much better-behaved and her once very lacking speech has improved drastically.
Before we started her diet overhaul, we saw a holistic pediatrician who did metals tests on her and did basic chiropractic therapy. Her metals were pretty askew (she even had off-the-charts levels of ARSENIC!!!). We did some vitamin therapy chelation with her and introduced probiotics into her diet. She is sooo improved today! She's still the moody little girl that her personality dictates she be, but it's a 180 degree improvement over where she was a couple years ago.

Oh, and btw, she does still eat sugar in her diet. We try to stay away from processed foods, but DF is a baker, so she gets homemade cookies and breads, but it doesn't seem to phase her the way dairy did.