Mothering Forum banner

soy-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, nut-free vegetarians???

853 views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  Panserbjorne 
#1 ·
Is it possible to eat this way and be healthy? I am a former vegetarian of 8 years and vegan of 1 year, that is currently eating traditional diet with some grassfed meats. The ethical part of eating animals really upsets me and I dread having to explain to my kids when they get older that those cows and chickens they think are so cute are what they've been eating for dinner. My dd has alot of food sensitivites/allergies (eggplant, pears, mushrooms and squash are on there also) as do I, so unfortunately meat has been that thing that made it easier to figure out what to cook
: I am really pondering going back to a veg lifestyle and I just need to know if there is anyone else out there successfully feeding their family an ovo-vegetarian diet without any dairy, soy, gluten or nuts. My dd has always been a bit underweight and she really likes to eat meat, which frankly has disturbed me as I have always not liked it because of what it is. It feels like I'm lying to her even though she doesn't understand.

We love veggies, fruits, beans, gluten free grains, and use some coconut or rice milk for certain replacement needs. DD can eat sunflower seed butter luckily. We have access to eggs from chickens at our local CSA farm and I feel confident that they are well cared for and healthy. How can I make this type of diet work? I need some support as it feels like I am trying to make cooking a meal for family even harder on myself than it already is. My DH will probably continue eating meat but if I may decide not to prepare it anymore for him. Please help me figure this out mamas!
 
See less See more
1
#2 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by celestialdreamer View Post

We love veggies, fruits, beans, gluten free grains, and use some coconut or rice milk for certain replacement needs. DD can eat sunflower seed butter luckily. We have access to eggs from chickens at our local CSA farm and I feel confident that they are well cared for and healthy. How can I make this type of diet work?
I think this list gives you a lot to work with! I can see how a gluten-free diet could become monotonous, but maybe you can fix this by varying the pulses and grains you use, and finding some not-so-common ones. For example, grains like quinoa and amaranth and there are soooo many types of beans and pulses (adzuki beans, lentils, black beans, kidney beans, split peas...the list is endless!).

Can you do other seeds besides sunflower, like hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds? What about flax?

Also try to vary forms, like make a lentil loaf one night and a stew or chili the next, then omlettes, then something like black bean patties.

I think with a restrictive diet a health food store is your best friend, especially one with a good bulk food section. HFSs seem to have such a range of options as far as cereals/flours/grains go. Dh and I found some wild rice pasta once that was fantastic!

Good luck!
 
#3 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Viriditas View Post
Can you do other seeds besides sunflower, like hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds? What about flax?
I can eat all of the above and also I can eat nuts, except for peanuts (we don't keep in them in the house because DH is allergic). DD so far only seems to tolerate seeds only and only in a butter form like sunbutter or tahini. I haven't tried pumpkin seed butter because she is very sensitive to all varieties of squash. She has had flaxseed oil in stuff with no problems, and I have no clue where to get hemp seed anything. She also can't eat brown rice unless it is mushed up for a porridge or like brown rice pasta, etc. For some reason things like seeds and brown rice just go right through her
I think it may be because of the celiac damage from before we realized she was not tolerating gluten.

I guess we already eat alot of what we would end up eating if we got rid of meat, but I've felt like it was a safety net to make sure we were not just eating beans and rice. Nothing wrong with beans and rice, but I don't want them 24/7!
 
#4 ·
Ooh! You have to try hemp seeds! They're really good. I've been able to find them in any health food store or grocery stores with decent natural food sections. The hemp seed oil should be in the same place as the flax oil. I've also heard of hemp seed butter, but I haven't seen it and it must be really expensive.

I can understand not wanting beans and rice all the time. But if you vary the forms and flavors it really doesn't get boring. At least not for me. I'm a strict vegetarian, I don't eat much wheat and we only have soy once a week or so.

I want to tentatively recommend the book Vive le Vegan by Dreena Burton...she doesn't have too many recipes with soy (except the cakes and pies) and almost all of her recipes are wheat-free or have a wheat-free option. She uses spelt flour quite a bit...is spelt gluten-free? In any case, she does an awful lot of creative things with beans/legumes and grains.
 
#5 ·
Me! I occasionally still eat grass fed meat, but not much at all. I am GF/CF/SF, I do nuts, but no eggs. It's absolutely possible, just be careful. If she has alot of damage she may require some things that this diet can't give, or can give but not in concentrated enough amounts. We do use quite alot of supplements to make sure we are getting what we need to heal.

We don't do any grains, with the occasional exception of rice and corn.

I rely heavily on seeds and nuts, but you have eggs so you can do that for the beneficial fats and proteins.

I know how you feel. My dd was raised vegan until we found out all of her health issues. We added meat to help her get things in large amounts that she wasn't able to get in other ways. She clearly needed it at the time, but we are past that now. Not to say we are totally healed, we aren't. However we have more options now. She was allergy tested (blood tested) and was allergic to lentils, garbanzos, sesame seeds, peanuts and pinto beans. She was also unable to do peanuts and cashews (amongst many other things-she also has CD). We needed to add meat to help her heal. We have since been able to add the beans and seeds back and the meat is almost totally phased out.

I hope this helped!
 
#6 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Viriditas View Post
She uses spelt flour quite a bit...is spelt gluten-free? In any case, she does an awful lot of creative things with beans/legumes and grains.
Spelt contains gluten and is off limits for folks with celiac disease.

For the OP:
As for the diet being healthy. I'm soy-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, and limited-nuts, but I can't go dairy-free and not shrink away. Actually, I have a hard time keeping weight on even with the dairy.

I'm currently eating a small amount of meat (I crave it and it helps keep some morning sickness at bay), which eliminates the weight loss issues. That said, I'll probably go back to my ovo-lacto lifestyle after my symptoms die down. It's *very* hard for me to get sufficient calories without dairy in my diet. I still need to make protein shakes (whey protein powder + milk or coconut milk) on a daily basis.

While quinoa, brown rice, and amaranth are *great* foods, they just don't pack a lot of punch when it comes to calories. It's really hard to get everything I need without at least one dense, fatty, protein-rich food.

Some things I cannot have, but which might be okay for you:
hempseed, flaxseed, avocado (I can have this, just infrequently), sugar!, etc.

If your daughter has dermatitis herpetiformis, the iodine in eggs may worsen it. I find that iodine worsens my skin eruptions, so I have to go easy on eggs (and seaweed) when I have an outbreak of eczema or other skin woes.

I wish you luck in this. It may be that your daughter needs time to heal. Is she allergic to casein, or is she lactose intolerant from the celiac damage? She may tolerate lactose again at some point if the problem is the latter. I was lactose intolerant from birth. It gives me *no* problems whatsoever now (two years GF).
 
#7 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by jocelyndale View Post
Is she allergic to casein, or is she lactose intolerant from the celiac damage? She may tolerate lactose again at some point if the problem is the latter. I was lactose intolerant from birth. It gives me *no* problems whatsoever now (two years GF).
I believe she is truly allergic to milk as she reacted to dairy even when I ate it when she was EBF. My ds is the same way. I actually figured out that I don't tolerate dairy well either (surprise! it was the cause of the majority of my sinus and skin troubles) when I went off it to help her. I can immediately feel my sinuses swell when I have something with dairy now. When she was 9 months old and at the point of almost being diagnosed FTT because she was so thin from a viral stomach bug (which I believe was a trigger for her celiac starting), her pediatrician insisted that I try giving her some whole milk yogurt for protein/fat and probiotics. She ended up with black poop from bleeding and hives on her skin. When she has any dairy she is like a different kid (in a bad way I mean). It really exacerbates her SID and autistic symptoms.

I think firefaery is right about her needing time to heal. Even brown rice is too hard for her to digest. I guess because she is still healing and has other issues, jumping into limiting something that *is* seeming to make her grow and learn better, is not a good idea. I am really struggling with the idea of us eating meat, but I also do not want her back on the bottom of the weight chart and I do not want to make life harder for her than it already is. I think we will try to focus on eggs (which she loves TG!) and maybe fish
: . That would be a little bit of a compromise and hopefully would keep her still healthy. With her having severe sensory issues and possibly some form of autism and such a limited diet already, I think this is probably not the time to eliminate the grassfed meat in her diet
I hope no one flames me for this on this board. This is really hard for me, and as I am former veg that is struggling to make my child healthy, I hope you will understand where I am coming from. Thank you for your input. I'll go hide in the TF forum again
: Don't necessarily always feel like I fit in there either.
 
#8 ·
Me neither. It's okay. We need to do the best for our kids-period. I still struggle with it, but it was the difference between interventions in a hospital because we couldn't get the numbers up and some grass fed meat. I chose the right thing. Now we are putting it behind us. I took some steps to mitigate the damage emotionally, but it didn't help that much.

FWIW I think you *could* do it with eggs and no fish, if that's your choice. We couldn't use eggs for allergy reasons. I would have been much more okay with that.

It it a long road, but you'll get there!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top