Salicylate free diet...Feingold...same thing?

[baby-makes-3]

I see that you have to pay for the Feingold diet specifics, i.e. products list, etc.

Feingold seems to mainly focus on artificial additives, that's stage 1, right? Then stage 2 is natural salicylates?

I notice certain foods are high in sals on one list and low on another list. It's quite confusing. Is it worth it to do Feingold and just do what they recommend or try to assess each food we prepare at home on my own?

Does that make sense? Any ideas? Thanks!

[mamafish9]

We did low sals on our own. Even the perfect sals list would probably not be 100% accurate - salicylate content for the same food can vary a lot by growing region, whether it was picked/harvested ripe, etc. And not everyone reacts to the same foods in the same order - some sals sensitive people react strongly to coconut, that one was OK for us. Some sals sensitive people are OK with certain kinds of apples, we're not.

For us, Feingold wasn't worth it, because DS was reactive to so many other things (dairy, gluten, etc) that we were making everything at home from scratch anyhow, so nothing had additives, preservatives, or colorings. But I know lots of people really appreciate the homework the Feingold folks have done on those things.

[baby-makes-3]

I like the fact that they are concerned about the sals, but a lot of the stuff is high in sugar and otherwise not really health-oriented, but just low in sals. In some respects the Feingold list would be a little backwards for us since we try to eat a lot better than much of the stuff that I see is "allowed".

There are so many great blogs of food sensitive mamas that I think I can stick to their recipes and lists and be okay....

[baby-makes-3]

I'm eating my words -- exactly 24 hours of trying to really figure out what in our house is salicylate free was enough to drive me nuts. I joined FG and it's actually very helpful, with lots of info I could never have figured out on my own. We haven't gotten all the info in the mail yet, but even the member site is incredibly helpful.