Feeling totally defeated-Help!!!

[eternamariposa]

I am a nursing mama with a 9 month old and a 4 year old. I think that we are all struggling with leaky guts and I am on a mission-one my family seems to be all together fed up with-to heal us. I found the heal thyself website and we are trying to follow the healing protocol. The problem I am having is trying to figure out what you are supposed to replace eliminated foods with. We got rid of dairy because it was our biggest offender, it gives us all great amounts of intestinal upset and yeast overgrowth issues. It has been really good. I switched us to almond milk and earth balance and we use use daiya cheese if we are really craving cheese, coconunt ice cream/yogurt/kefir, etc. But I am pretty sure that soy and wheat have to go as well and I am just like hitting a wall.

The only thing that we eat that has soy in it is our earth balance and I really don't know how to give that up because finding a suitable replacement for butter was really hard. And wheat is in like freakin' everything! And when I look at the gluten free flours available I just don't feel good about the ingredients. How can combining potato flours and bean flours with sandwich stuff like my kids PB&J be healthy food combining? You would never naturally eat those things together. It just seems weird.

And the amount of information to sort through on things like this is just massive. When I found that we couldn't readily leave wheat behind I found info on Phytates and soaking grains and naturally leavening your bread, but when tried that I produced an extremely sour brick. I settled on using organic white flour for now as the milling process strips away most of the phytates and we have actually seen a pretty significant improvement. But how do you ever know if it is enough? It just seems like every time I think I have finally worked it all out, something else comes up.

And now it seems like what little support I had before has dried up all together. People act like I am creating problems and making things difficult when " we've always eaten this way and we're fine", but we're not and it seems so obvious to me.

[kjbrown92]

I'm sorry that you're feeling both alone and frustrated. It is definitely a difficult task to figure out foods, and with no support, it's that much harder. We're here to support you!!

We've done gluten, dairy, soy, corn free (and more) for over 2 years and we're not starving yet. It does take some practice though. Think outside the box of what you have been eating. Look for things that don't rely on those main things. And keep a food journal!

So if you're still doing corn, make a peanut butter and jelly wrap with a corn tortilla instead of bread. For dinner, do meat, potato, vegetable, fruit. No need for sauces, etc. Soups. We use Spectrum palm shortening as a "butter" replacement mostly for cooking, since it has no taste. Though we were spreading it on rolls the other day, and it was good on zucchini bread too. We didn't put butter on a lot of things before though.

If you have confidence that you are helping your family and have a game plan, then others will see your confidence.

[eternamariposa]

Thanks for the encouragement, I really appreciate it!

I have what may be a stupid question, but what type of format do you follow for keeping a food journal? I feel like everytime I have tried I always end up being inconsistent and quitting because it is just such a pain in the butt. But I have always tried to just keep a notebook somewhere or a few sheets of paper in a folder. Maybe I should be more organized?

[puffingirl]

When I did a food journal, I did it in a small calendar--like a day planner thing. I think I got a really inexpensive one at Staples.

Good luck with your mission--it is definitely a worthy one! DD is gluten-free, so the whole family is mostly GF, and while it can be a challenge at times, it's actually easier than I thought it would be. One thing that helped us was realizing that we didn't need to replace our usual diet with a GF one (GF pasta for regular, GF bread for sandwiches, etc) but that going outside that was actually easier. We rarely eat sandwiches anymore and just found other things instead.

[kjbrown92]

For my kids, I did a spreadsheet so that everything could be checked off (different symptoms) and then printed out a bunch and stuck them on the kitchen counter. So for mine I had
date
nap time: 10am-11am, 1pm-3pm comments
sleep time: 9pm-6am comments: woke up 15 times
Breakfast: Jones sausage, hard boiled egg; rooibas tea
Lunch: chicken broth (homemade), rice noodles, peas, banana
Dinner: salad with olive oil and red wine vinegar, sea salt, pepper, baked potato, pork chop fried in olive oil

then I would have check marks for red ring around anus, rash, eczema, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive crying, etc. so I could just mark those off.

Also if you're good with excel, you could make a list of all the foods you eat, then just check them off each day if you ate them (but you'd need something else to record symptoms.

It's hard to be organized with a little one and little sleep. I've been there!!

[eternamariposa]

What a great idea to use a day planner for the food journal! It has the right format and everything would stay together making it totally portable. Thanks!

What subs do you guys use? We tried Udis bread and he was not into it at all. And he is a bread fiend so when Daddy brings his regular bread into the house or his cousins have it I really need something that can be competitive. And the only pasta's we have tried that are pretty good have been quinoa and corn but I would really prefer to keep corn, particularly conventional corn, out of our diets. I always feel like trying to get rid of one allergen leads us to consume more of another. (from milk to soy or from wheat to corn)

[JaneS]

Earth Balance makes a soy free margarine but palm shortening is much more healthful b/c it isn't high in omega 6 inflammatory fatty acids.

I like using a 3 ring binder b/c I could replace or add pages as needed, have different labeled sections, and keep our dietician's reports there as well.

[puffingirl]

Bionature makes a good GF pasta that we all enjoy---though I don't recall if it has any corn in it. I find it quite similar to "regular" pasta, if you undercook it just a tiny bit. Most of the breads we've tried haven't been stellar, except the French bread baguettes from Against the Grain (in the freezer section). Totally delicious. The English muffins from Food By George (freezer section at Whole Foods) are really tasty--esp. the cinnamon currant ones. Bagels from Kinnichinik (or something like that) are ok--DD will eat them but we won't. They also make cake-style donuts. DD loves the cinnamon sugar ones. Cinnamon rolls from Chebe (it's a dry mix) were decent--we made them for Xmas last year but will do homemade GF crepes this year instead. Whole Foods' GF Bakehouse pie crust (frozen GF section) is good for sweet or savory pies--spanakopita, quiche, dessert pies. Glutino crackers are good and the pretzels are awesome (though pricey). Hope this helps.

[RabbitMoonMama]

Ghee might work for a new butter - it's made from cow's milk, but the casein is supposedly completely boiled out of it. I haven't tried it yet because I thought I was fine with goat's milk (turns out I'm not) but I'm planning to once I can afford it. It's really expensive!

[eternamariposa]

I tried it but after using it a couple times over a few days the thrush started so that is a no go, and yeah super expensive. You know I found this blog that is pretty awesome for gluten free recipes yesterday.