Success stories of families going paleo or totally changing foods?

[Shazer]

I started eating well in '03 and DH hasn't paid any attention to eating well until now.  I don't know quite what finally got him thinking about eating good food, but thankfully he is about ready to commit to a good diet.  In the past I was grain free/somewhat modified paleo with limited dairy.  DH wants to try paleo now. 

Long story short, I need to be dairy, legume and nut free (and limited grain), DH wants to try paleo (changeover from a totally awful SAD), and our nearly four-year-old loves milk (mostly raw when I can get it), anything sweet, and abhors change.  Ugh.  If I don't support DH 100% by only having good foods at home, he will slip up.  He doesn't like sweets, but will gorge himself on other fare if it is around.  The easiest solution with DD, I imagine, would be a gradual changeover, such as I stop buying any premade foods like granola bars or "healthy" cookies.

Basically, I would like to know if anyone has been successful with a radical family food conversion.  I know I can maintain my diet because I've done very well in the past and only added back grains/dairy from boredom/busy mom syndrome.  But I'm worried about DD adjusting to not having "fun" foods in the house.  She has a much better diet than most children in that she eats veggies, fruits and meats.  But she hates butter, spits out cod liver oil in whatever form I've tried for her, and won't touch coconut oil unless I sneak it into a smoothie or something I bake. 

Anyone have any advice on converting the family, especially dealing with headstrong little ones?

[Llyra]

I don't have a lot of time to tell our story. So I'll be brief-- six years ago, when DD1 was born, DH and I were living on boxed TV dinners and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Kraft mac-and-cheese (or as DH calls it now, mac-and-sleaze.)

Then I got sick. I have moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis. I was not responding to the milder course of drug therapy, and still nursing my younger two, and didn't want to wean to go on the stronger meds, which are among the few drugs that are really truly unsafe for nursing LOs.

So we did a major dietary overhaul, very quickly. At this point, we're eating what I would call a basically traditional-foods diet, with a few of our own special modifications and exceptions. I went grain-free and sugar-free for 18 months, for instance. We eat fresh, locally-raised, home-cooked food at every single meal.

It took the hard kick of me being so sick, to get us moving. We knew our diet was bad, but we lacked the motivations to change it. It took a lot of trial and error, and we "backslid" an awful lot, but we continued to re-commit to the changes, and by now they've become second-nature. I can't imagine going back to the old way.

[deditus]

We were also SAD in the not too distant past - not really on purpose but when dd was a baby, I was a mess. She definitely had food intolerances and was very hard to settle (as in, never slept w/o me holding her and or constantly comfort nursing), so we lived on crap like Wendy's because I never cooked. I did cook most of the time before that, fairly healthy even by TF standards but I had never heard of soaking grains nor raw milk. But I cooked form scratch, had a garden, and ate tons of veggies and used full fat dairy.

I went pretty full force in to TF by the time dd was 18 months and we moved and had access to real milk and grassfed meat. I finally figured out that she had food intolerances, and we dropped the dairy, dropped the grains, every trace of soy. She really does better w/o any grains at all, as do I. Unfortunately, neither of us tolerate eggs either and that is a tough one to be without. We are so far from 100% better and I really can't say that we had a miraculous recovery but I am functioning and dd sleeps and eats now, but is still growing very slowly. We still eat root veggies but I am trying hard to phase them out. I actually think we need to do GAPS to heal our guts up.

Honestly, I'd be fine with milk for a little one, but probably only cultured. I see it's main benefit as an excellent probiotic source. And my dd LOVES dates. She has dessert every night and it is usually a few dates or frozen fruit. I have made lots of yummy almond flour goodies, and coconut based desserts. Pumpkin pie is awesome with a pecan or shredded coconut crust and coconut milk in the filling! Really, I just wouldn't offer anything besides what you want your lo to eat. They'll get used to it. Dd is allowed to eat what she wants from what I serve and that's it. She may not eat collards cooked in bone-broth every time I serve them but often she will! She also happens to LOVE liver. So I think through trial and error (and yes, phase out old foods, phase in new) you'll be able to do it.

[cocobean]

We ate a very SAD until about 2 years ago.  I stumbled across Marks Daily Apple.  At first I was very resistant to the ideas but as time went on it all started to make sense to me.  We got pregnant with DS soon after we started on real food.  But throughout pregnancy still didn't really get how important nutrition is.  When I started learning more about nutrition for ds first foods I found out about Weston Price.  Since then we have been slowly working in an all TF diet.   We started with just a few things at first.  Fats was what we first started with.  Such as cooking with coconut oil, butter, bacon fat, and lard.  We started getting rid of all processed food in our house.  Starting with cereal (which I LOVED!)  and condiments.  I started weeding out anything that had msg and high fructose corn syrup.  Then several months later I added in raw dairy and pastured meat and eggs.  We eat eggs with some ketchup everyday for breakfast with a glass of raw milk.  I don't even crave anything else now.  If I were you I wouldn't worry about a big overhaul.  Just start with small things and eventually you'll be eating a TF diet without much effort.  We're almost there.  Our only downfall is going out to eat.  But everyday we keep trying to eat better and to take better care of ourselves and our ds.  Its a fight that's worth fighting.