Concerns about nutrition and removing foods

[DevaMajka]

I just want to get your thoughts about removing foods that cause mild, non-bothersome symptoms for you or your child. I'm thinking something like ds's possible reaction to bananas- his eczema gets mildly worse- just a few, light pink bumps. It doesn't seem (at this point) to affect him in any other way or to bother him at all.

At what point do you decide that the nutritional benefit of eating a food outweighs the reaction?

I've read in a bunch of (mainstream) places, lots of warnings to be very careful about removing foods, and not to remove foods unless a doctor tells you to.

Stuff like the following, from here

5.2.4. Testing in infants and children with persistent atopic dermatitis 

Quote:

 Care should be taken to ensure these children are clinically allergic to a food prior to removing it completely from their diet.

Quote:

 

The question of what to recommend for children with delayed food-induced reactions also was considered by the EP. Although a history of a possible delayed reaction to a food is clinically important, it is not diagnostic of FA, and a proper evaluation (medical history and diagnostic testing) should be completed.

So it seems to me that mainstream allopathic thought is that it's best to keep foods and deal with minor (or worse?) non-IgE reactions. Or maybe even minor IgE reactions? Not that I believe everything doctors say, but it does make the whole thing more confusing for me.

[kjbrown92]

My kids don't have many symptoms that don't bother them. And for me, I think it's more likely that they'll heal if they're not irritating their intestines all the time, so that's my view on it. I mean, I guess I could say that it's no big deal if my dd2 wets the bed every night because she's eating beef. But if in the long run, it bothers her psychologically that she's wetting the bed, and she doesn't heal because of it, then I don't want to keep giving it to her. I think it's a sign of inflammation. Also, once DS and DD2 got off their food intolerances, they lost the symptoms of most of their seasonal allergies, because perhaps their buckets were more empty and their immune system was able to function better. I think if they get off the offending food, and give their bodies a chance to heal, they're more likely to get the food back later, with no symptoms, than if they keep consuming it. Again, that's just my opinion. And both our allopathic pediatrician and our osteopath know their diets and are okay with it. Of course the allergist we saw wasn't....

[changingseasons]

Yes, exactly what Kathy said. Letting the body be in a constant state of inflammation can lead to far greater problems. If you're only removing a few foods, I don't think you're going to get any major nutritional deficiencies. You can always use an online program to calculate how much of what your child is getting in an average day, and add foods where you're missing things.

DD has the exact same reaction to bananas- nothing really major, but if she eats them for a few days in a row she'll get a little eczema and maybe sleep worse than usual. But, since we've found out that she has a number of eosinophilic disorders, we know that any sort of reaction is increasing the number of eosinophils in her body, which are causing inflammation and damage. (Any allergic reaction will increase your eosinophils... hers just happen to be places where they should be.)

[DevaMajka]

Originally Posted by kjbrown92 

 I think if they get off the offending food, and give their bodies a chance to heal, they're more likely to get the food back later, with no symptoms, than if they keep consuming it.

 I hadn't considered that, but now that you mention it...yeah, that makes sense. And I think it even mentions that in that document. I wonder why they seem so opposed to removing foods without proven allergies (which seems to me from reading that, includes a reaction AND a positive test. But I could be understanding it wrong.)

The foods we have out now, we can nutritionally work around. Though if we discover citrus and/or nightshades are a problem (we already highly suspect orange and potato), I have no idea how I'll cook. lol

[ASusan]

You know, I think North Americans probably have access to the most widely varied diet in the world - or close to it. I cannot imagine that any one or two or even 6 or 7 foods you take out of a diet are going to result in that diet being nutritionally deficient, unless you are removing whole categories of foods, wholesale. Like, remove all proteins or all fats. I think the current recommendation (the most recently updated one), where doctors are warned about having patients remove foods from their diets are not helpful, for reasons posters above write about.

Think about the diets of other cultures/time periods. They didn't ever eat a banana their whole lives.

In addition, if things get really bad, you can usually (baring a corn allergy, I suppose) add in a supplement to help fill in the gaps.

It seems the problem is in the food system, where corn and/or soy are added into everything, so most everything that is processed in the slightest becomes off limits. but if you're removing single foods, and otherwise cooking with whole foods, I don't see that you're going to run into problems. There are almost always substitutes available - either in whole food form, or in some sort of supplement if you're truly missing a specific nutrient.

[ASusan]

Ya know, the other thing I forgot to mention that I always think about when I see those mainstream recommendations is what the typical SAD is like. More specifically, the typical SAtoddlerD. (the typical standard American toddler-young-child diet). Chicken nuggets, french fries, ketchup, pb&j, and sugared cereal. And soda. maybe sugared yo-go tubes. The typical diet we're all dealing with here on this forum is much more varied and whole-foods based. If you take potato out of the diet above, yeah, you're going to be missing a nutrient or 2 out of a diet that's already not very nutrient dense. But most of the foods we all try to offer our children are pretty nutrient dense in comparison.

Just look at a the conveyor belt of the person ahead of you the next time you're standing in line at the grocery store. White bread, soda, chips, ring dings, bananas, frozen dinners, soda, boxed cereals, soda. It's ALREADY deficient. Of course doctors can't recommend taking a banana out of that diet. It's about the only whole food the kid is eating all week.

But taking bananas out of YOUR child's diet? Probably not a problem.

Yes, I'm an MDC snob.

[bodhitree]

Sometimes I have had the thought that maybe it isn't worth the trouble to figure out and then avoid foods that cause only "minor" reactions. But I'm sure that if I'm seeing a minor reaction, chances are good that there are other things going on that I can't see. That's another reason that I keep a food journal too--so that I can reassure myself and anyone else who's worried that we are eating a wide variety of foods that are likely to meet all of our nutritional needs.

[changingseasons]

Of course doctors can't recommend taking a banana out of that diet. It's about the only whole food the kid is eating all week.

But taking bananas out of YOUR child's diet? Probably not a problem.

Yes, I'm an MDC snob.

I love it. And it's so true.

[Koalamom]

Yup just take the bananas out.  My ds is allergic to bananas and I missed them sooooooo much as I ate them every day.  But now it doesnt even bother me.

[kjbrown92]

Originally Posted by ASusan 

Ya know, the other thing I forgot to mention that I always think about when I see those mainstream recommendations is what the typical SAD is like. More specifically, the typical SAtoddlerD. (the typical standard American toddler-young-child diet). Chicken nuggets, french fries, ketchup, pb&j, and sugared cereal. And soda. maybe sugared yo-go tubes. The typical diet we're all dealing with here on this forum is much more varied and whole-foods based. If you take potato out of the diet above, yeah, you're going to be missing a nutrient or 2 out of a diet that's already not very nutrient dense. But most of the foods we all try to offer our children are pretty nutrient dense in comparison.

Just look at a the conveyor belt of the person ahead of you the next time you're standing in line at the grocery store. White bread, soda, chips, ring dings, bananas, frozen dinners, soda, boxed cereals, soda. It's ALREADY deficient. Of course doctors can't recommend taking a banana out of that diet. It's about the only whole food the kid is eating all week.

But taking bananas out of YOUR child's diet? Probably not a problem.

Yes, I'm an MDC snob.

Where's the LIKE button? I used www.fitday.com to see if my kids and I were missing anything important nutritionally. On the potato question, DS can't have white potatoes, but he has sweet potatoes, and white sweet potatoes, so no I don't think he's missing anything. My DS does have a bunch of foods out and some of the "major" ones (gluten, dairy, corn, soy) but he does eat a lot of things that a lot of other kids don't. I mean, my kids fight over the broccoli.
 

[fruitfulmomma]

I am in agreement with the pps. If you are concerned about a specific nutrient try checking this list http://www.whfoods.com/nutrientstoc.php to see what you can replace it with, but yeah I would remove bananas now. In our experience, by the time the reaction hit the skin the food had already wreaked havoc inside the body.

DD4, who just turned 2, has been on an extremely restricted diet since shortly after she was born due to multiple food intolerances including gluten, latex-cross reactives (bananas, avocados, etc...), and salicylic acid, which is present in just about every fruit and most vegetables. She eats a very animal-heavy diet with a handful of veggies, a few carbs, and 2 fruits. Being this restricted actually forces us to eat an almost entirely whole-foods, home-cooked diet. Her only "junk" foods are rice chex, chocolate, and ice cream. She has seen the doctor and he had no complaints about her diet and seemed to think my research on the issue was pretty good. Not restricting these foods for her would make her life miserable. Before I figured out the sals issue her skin was literally burning and melting off her butt the minute she pooped, in addition to the constant rash. The mainstream solution to that would have been diaper creams, but that would have done nothing for what was happening on the inside of her poor little body.

Care should be taken to ensure these children are clinically allergic to a food prior to removing it completely from their diet.

DD has only tested clinically allergic to latex but not latex cross-reactives or several of the other foods we know she has an issue with.

[DevaMajka]

It's not just bananas, just for the record. :) Bananas alone would be easy- I never ate them before started ED'ing, because I don't actually like them that much.  

I'm mostly wondering in a more general way, if that makes sense.
 

And I suppose the individual foods I think he's sensitive to aren't bad to take out. Let's see- egg, sweet potato, potato, banana, pineapple, raisins/grapes, peas, green beans, carrots, oranges, kiwi, and some non-nutritional stuff like coffee (for me) and chocolate. Plus there's something else still hiding. Potato, banana, and something still hiding (plus my coffee and chocolate. lol) are related to minor skin reactions and nothing else. Everything else causes either worse eczema, or digestive and sleep problems, so those are no-brainers even to dp.  

Originally Posted by ASusan 

. Of course doctors can't recommend taking a banana out of that diet. It's about the only whole food the kid is eating all week.

But taking bananas out of YOUR child's diet? Probably not a problem.

Yes, I'm an MDC snob.

Hahaha, too true. We probably eat more veggies in a week than most SADers do in months.

 

[DevaMajka]

I was just thinking about it, and while it's currently not a big concern, I worry about it every time I think I have all the triggers out, only to find that there's something else (now I'm wondering if it's nightshades, citrus, or butternut squash). At the moment, I suspect a lot of great vitamin A sources. Stuff like that.