Please help--I need a fifth rotation day

[sbgrace]

I need to add a day to our four day rotation to try to pinpoint why I'm seeing GI reactions on a particular day.

I just can't think of anything to eat that fifth day. Any sugestions?

Our current four day rotation has (so these foods/families are out):

teff (excludes millet both as family and also because I can't find a millet free of cross with his allergies)
spelt
buckwheat
sorghum
rice
oats
(I use coconut oil so coconut flour is out. I am suspicious he's wheat allergic so avoiding that).

green beans
broccoli
asparagus
peppers
potato
squash
pumpkin
carrot

apple
pear
peach
grapes
berries
pineapple
banana
(and oranges, cantaloupe are out due to allergies)

turkey
chicken, egg
dairy
ham/sausage
(beef is out otherwise, he's a horrible meat eater and we've tried lamb and buffalo and he gags). Mostly he'll eat very lean ham/sausage, chicken breast or thigh and turkey breast meat wise.

honey
agave
rice syrup
brown sugar
(maple syrup allergy)

olive oil
ghee
coconut
(I use ghee again/I'm not worried about ghee as he tolerated it w/ a dairy allergy when younger).

Nuts and seeds are allergies for him and out.

What can I do for that fifth day food wise? I guess I can split out teff and spelt but that's one of the days I'm worried about reaction wise. Still splitting might tell me something I guess if my GI reactions move with the split. I do rice and oats on the same day and it's my other reaction concern day. What would you do?

It's kind of weird. My instinct is he's reacting to grain stuff but given he's never had a grain allergy maybe I'm suspecting the wrong things.
I'm seeing consistent GI reactions on Day 3 of my rotation and occasionally on day 1 as well. I've tried to figure it out and I see no pattern in timing and removing high suspects (like dairy) hasn't changed anything. I'm not rotating spices because it was just too overwhelming. Maybe I need to see about that. I feel, though, I still don't know what day is actually causing the GI symptoms on Day 3. I felt if I added a day 5 I would know whether it's Day 3 foods or something else. Is my thinking correct?

[tanyalynn]

Quinoa's not listed yet, is it not ok?

How do you feel about legumes? Black beans, lentils, things like that for a protein. Have you ever made, or considered making, idlis? It's rice too, half rice, half lentils, so I'm not sure how you'd feel about doubling up on rice, but it's bread-like, which is nice. I've wondered if idlis could be made with half quinoa, half lentil (usually it's urad dal, a split lentil that has had the dark skin removed), just haven't tried it yet.

Have you looked into grapeseed oil? Or is that an actual seed, I have no idea what food it actually is, just that people use it as a fat.

The other way to do this is start swapping things: move a suspicious food from day 3 to day 4 and see what happens. If nothing, move it back and then try swapping a different food.

Or instead of a full 5th day, maybe remove the day 3 grain(s) and put in quinoa (if it's ok), or double up on, say, the day 1 grain. If the reaction goes away, then it was the food you removed. I don't know if that would be easier or harder than adding in a full 5th day.

[kjbrown92]

My gut says spelt. Is that on one of the questionable days?

Do you not want to add new foods while you're trying to figure out what is already giving you issues? If that's the case, then split things up.

You've got 6 grains. Spread them over 5 days instead of 4. Same thing with the veggies. At least you'll narrow it down that way. On coconut day, use coconut oil, coconut flour, coconut.

Have you tried fish (tested fish?) for a meat option?

[tanyalynn]

If you need another meat, do you have halal markets around? I think ours carry goat pretty regularly, but I've never eaten goat. Would it be too beef-like?

[sbgrace]

Spelt is a day 1 food and my consistent GI is almost always day 3. However, I've occasionally seen GI on day 1 as well. It could be spelt. Maybe I should just drop the spelt that day and see what happens. I've got teff on that day too. Would you drop something like that completely from rotation for a couple of cycles or would it be smarter to go ahead and add a day 5 instead so it stays? I don't want him to sensitize to something because I dropped it temporarily. Is that a reasonable concern? If spelt isn't my issue I'd hate to lose it. I can get sprouted and sourdough bread via the internet and it's the one thing he's eating that isn't something I make that I feel good about. It's also the only commercial sesame free bread.

I forgot about beans! I think I was thinking high phytate and so I didn't want them as a staple but beans as protein, duh! Quinoa is a protein too and I could do that I think. I just never called about cross on quinoa and so forgot about it.

I think splitting up my doubles on grains, veggies, fruits, and doing beans and quinoa as my protein that day is probably the easiest way to figure this out unless you two think it's smarter to just drop the suspect completely.

The other wrinkle is up until this last four days we went 8 days without any GI reaction and I hadn't pulled anything. That makes me wonder about cross but I absolutely know nothing he's eating is cross contaminated with his known allergens.

I just realized. I don't know that the oats aren't wheat contaminated.
The only reason I suspect wheat is I took him shopping and picked up (nut/sesame safe) wheat to use to make playdough. Some "puffed" out and he began sneezing and broke out in hive like things on his face and neck. I took him out of the isle thinking maybe there was nut or sesame there. He was better within 10 minutes, except some skin remaining. When we went to check out I pulled that wheat flour out and he had the exact same reaction. So maybe it's wheat cross in the oats but I know he had a GI one day when I didn't do oats because we were out. This is so confusing.

[tanyalynn]

The easiest choice would be to swap out those oats with GF ones, or just pull oats out of the lineup entirely. May want to do it at a different time, but I think I'd be concerned that spelt is so similar to wheat--and I have no idea on spelt/wheat x-con, I know diddly squat about how spelt is grown and processed compared to wheat. But those seem the most questionable to me.

Since you've been having low-level, intermittent reactions for a while now, it seems, to me it seems easiest and most effective to pull out the things you're suspicious of one at a time. If you get rid of the problem, do you think it's reasonable to expect that everything else will stabilize? I'd really hope that that would be the case, it seems reasonable to me.

As an aside, have you ever had French green lentils? I really did not enjoy lentils until I found those, they aren't lentil-y. If your kids would enjoy soup, there are really nice lentil soup recipes out there.