Gluten Allergy (Me) & Coffee Test

Gluten Intolerant - Who Me?

Well what do you know! It looks like I am allergic to or responding unfavorably to gluten or wheat when ingested at a pretty minute level. Here I thought I was just going along with this elimination diet to support my daughter. I can tell you, I have not ever even suspected I was gluten intolerant. I have eaten some form of pasta and/or bread and/or baked good every day, well, since I was born, practically. I mean, I love my carbs. I've heard before that people who are intolerant of a food usually crave it, but wow! I did not see this one coming. Also, what I did not see coming: my reaction. I didn't really have one.

It was a slow realization, and I'm not 100% positive it's actually the case. My daughter and I finished up the first phase of our elimination diet where we were restricted from eating most foods a few days before we left for a mini family vacation. I admit I did sneak a few vegan cookies that had regular flour, and ended up with a small case of diarrhea, which is exactly what happened to me during our gluten testing phase. The last day of our vacation I felt a cold coming on, and I was coughing and had diarrhea for the better part of three weeks. A nurse I went to see called it an upper respiratory infection and said it would clear itself up in about a week or 10 days.

It was somewhere around the 2nd week or a few days into it that it occurred to me that perhaps these two symptoms were not related. I was at a friends house talking with a bunch of wonderful ladies about our kids with special diets and working to fill our children with healthy foods and avoiding parabens and other toxic health hazards. My friend told me a story about her son who, as it turns out is gluten intolerant, and they figured it out because he has temper tantrums when he eats gluten. She said even one piece of taffy that likely contained a small amount of wheat was enough to upset his system - sometimes for up to a month.

I think it was the next day that it occurred to me that since we've been off the elimination diet (but still keeping to a gluten free/dairy free/soy free diet) that my daughter had been displaying more emotional issues. More complaining, more - unhappy. No large tantrums or displays, but for sure not as even tempered as she was before. I thought about it, and thought perhaps I was also less even (although I'm always such a delight, its hard to tell, really.) :)

So I started thinking, what are we eating more of now than before? We aren't eating any gluten directly. But once I started reading the packages in the pantry for chips, Trader Joe's peas, and other snacks (how quickly they returned to our pantry!), I realized these foods are made in facilities that also process wheat.

Once the idea landed on me, I thought, okay, and moved all the products that were new to another shelf in the pantry so we wouldn't accidentally eat them. My daughter was nearby when this idea hit me, so we both decided together that we had been more grumpy and we should try eliminating these foods. I didn't really think much more about it. Thank goodness the diarrhea has subsidised as soon as I stopped eating those foods. I know, TMI, but I've saved you from having to hear the story from me in person, so that has to count for something.

I'm planning to make an appointment with my daughter's Naturopath to see about getting tested and to double check whether I might have something similar to "leaky gut" like my daughter, which does cause damage to the body.

Coffee Test

I started drinking coffee this week after months of being off it. I've been staying up late and getting up early, so I thought I'd give it a try. I completely love it. For a while I'd been phasing off coffee because I thought I was reacting to the acid in it. While that may be true, I decided to test coffee because it occurred to me that maybe I was reacting all that time to the soy milk without realizing it. For sure I can tell that on coffee I'm very awake during most of the day, and I feel the energy crash in the evenings. I prefer the evenness of no coffee, but I think I'll keep it around a bit longer because I'm enjoying it. I think, however, that 1 shot instead of 2 may be better for me to start with. I've been really hungry and a bit shaky on the current dose.

Let It Go? Oh!

Don't you love it when the universe conspires to help you just when you need it most? That happened to me a few weeks ago. It was the first day my daughter and I were coming off the elimination diet to our less restricted current version of the ED: gluten-free, soy-free and whole milk cheese-free.

I was beginning to freak out about the idea that we could eat sugar, chocolate, non-organic foods, corn, and all the things we were restricted from eating for 13 weeks. Worried that relatives and friends would start offering us foods that I deemed unhealthy and we wouldn't have any reasonable excuse to avoid it, then our downward spiral into unhealthy eating would return. We had become such healthy eaters during the ED, I didn't want to lose that. I was sure that something had to be done, and quick, to avoid our almost certain doom. I know, such drama! But that's really how it felt.

I had some neighborhood ladies over to my house and we had the whole evening to just chat. I started picking their brains about what they do and how much thought they were giving to organic foods and avoiding sugar, junk foods, hydrogenated oils and the like.

They said, well, we do our best to provide healthy balanced meals at home, because we know when the kids are outside the home, they may eat foods that aren't so healthy. That part, they said, they just had to decide to let go. I said, yes, that's what I thought, I should make sure my food at home is organic, healthy and balanced. But, I pressed on, what can I do? The same information was repeated, yes, we all agreed that between activities, school, parties, relatives and friends houses that the kids were getting a lot of junk food, and so just provide as healthy food as possible when they eat at home. Just let the rest of it go.

I sat for a moment, pondering. Struggling. I was still thinking, yes, yes, I understand, but what can I do? Yes, okay, let it go. Oh! Then it hit me. Oh! I have to Let.It.Go.

Wow. I was really struggling to control this area of our life. I have noticed that letting go has been the key to freeing up other areas of my life, but it had not occurred to me to apply it here. What a freeing realization once it hit me, though. Thank goodness for good friends!

Massaman Curry, Spring Rolls & Peanut Sauce

I rolled up some yummy spring rolls made of rice noodles, carrot, lettuce & avocado. I made a few for the kids without the lettuce. For dipping sauce, I mixed up a few TB of peanut butter, coconut milk, water, a tsp of brown rice syrup and salt. It was really delicious!

I then made a coconut soup. I loosely followed a recipe for Thai Massaman Curry, which is my favorite curry dish. I put some oil in a pan and heated with garlic and onion, then added chopped potato, carrots, peas, and coconut milk. I didn't have all the ingredients. I didn't even have Massaman curry paste, so I used the only ingredients I had that are in massaman curry paste, cinnamon and cumin, and a little salt. I brought it to a boil as in the recipe, then let simmer for 20 minutes.
It was delicious! Both my kids ate dinner, although my 2 yr old just picked through the spring roll, dug out the avacado and dipped that in the peanut sauce. They both liked the soup.

Diagnosis: Leaky Gut

We went to appointments with my daughter's Naturopath and Dermatologist last week, and here's what we discovered. They think what's going on is called "leaky gut". I have to say here that I haven't researched it that much and my understanding is what I could glean as my 2 year old son screamed during the appointment, so it might not be 100% medically accurate, but it's in the ballpark.

First I'd like to mention that my daughter had a full blood panel done about a year ago and the test did not detect that she was allergic to anything. She didn't even register as possibly allergic to anything.

The theory is that a chain reaction was likely caused by eating soy (which we have eaten TONS of since my daughter was little). Her body couldn't completely digest it or started developing an allergy to it because of how much we ate. Her body then started reacting by causing a rash and stomach aches. I think this started happening when she was about two and a half. It then took us about 2 and a half years to figure out that it could be a food allergy. At some point my daughter's body crossed over from reacting to just the protein in soy to all proteins without us knowing it. By the time we got to the elimination diet, her body was treating all proteins as an enemy, which is why she reacted to all foods we introduced (and some we didn't intentionally introduce) with the exception of sugar and chocolate. Most of the remaining foods she reacted to were acidic, which was making the problem worse.

As an aside, apparently when people are allergic to a food, it's the protein in the food they are reacting to. So, with a lactose intolerance, its the milk protein, same with peanut allergies, it's the protein that people are reacting to.

The good news is, there's a plan to treat her. Yay! We're on a modified diet for the next 6 months. Her diet has changed to allow all foods back with these few exceptions/modifications:

No Soy
No Gluten
No Whole Milk Cheeses
Once a week: foods she reacted strongly to, such as acidic foods and black beans (& most proteins).

In addition, she has been given two medicines to help her gut heal: digestive enzymes and intestinal support. The way we'll know if it's working is that over the next 6 months the rash and stomach aches should start to disappear. The doctor mentioned that we might do the elimination diet again once we think the gut has been restored to normal.

This diagnosis makes so much sense to me, I think it's going to work. It feels great to have both doctors agree on the treatment plan as well. Hooray!

If you want to read more about Leaky Gut, I just found a site that explains it pretty well.

Here's an excerpt:

Problems of Having Leaky Gut
Leaky gut is a condition that can directly lead to many other specific disease states, or indirectly aggravate or worsen other conditions. You may have leaky gut and not be aware of it. Many food intolerances and sensitivities are a consequence of a leaky gut to some degree. You may just feel run down, out of energy, have many food and chemical intolerances, or a multitude of other seemingly unrelated problems. Symptoms of leaky gut syndrome may include:

• aggression • anxiety • asthma • atypical sensory reactions • bed-wetting • bladder infections • bloating or gas • chronic joint, muscle, or abdominal pain • confusion • diarrhea or constipation • fatigue • fevers of unknown origin • fuzzy thinking or ‘brain fog’ • indigestion • memory problems • migraines • mood swings • nervousness • poor exercise tolerance • poor immunity • skin rashes

Wk 13, Day 3: Nut Test

Since we have an appointment with my daughter's Naturopath in a few days, I decided we should just head right into the "peanut/all other nuts besides the cashews we've been allowed to eat" test and see if there's a reaction.

I spread some peanut butter on rice cake for a snack today, which was awesome, and made a peanut sauce for my beans and rice which was yummy (peanut butter, coconut milk, water, rice vinegar, coconut aminos, maple syrup).

My daughter joyfully spread peanut butter on banana at lunch, and I made her a peanut butter smoothie after dinner (rice milk, 2 TB peanut butter, half frozen banana, protein powder). She loved it. A half an hour later she was in bed and said she was really hungry, so I warmed up some rice and pinto beans she didn't finish at lunchtime. When she crawled back into bed she said her stomach hurt. I'm not sure if she ate too much, or, more likely, her gut is reacting to the proteins. After just one day, her rash appears to be getting worse.

Wk 13, Day 2: Corn Test Results

We finished testing corn and I have to say the test was inconclusive, and here's why. My daughter was very emotional during our corn test. As far as physical reactions, she had no rash the first day, a rash the second day, and a clearing rash the third day. Her biggest emotional outbursts happened on the first and last day (complete meltdown on the last). This brings up an issue I've been putting off dealing with for years and I can see am going to have to address in the next few weeks. I hope.

Here's the thing. Somewhere into the first day of testing it occurred to me that I wasn't sure if I bought organic corn or not. I was at Trader Joe's and I saw "fresh corn" and got all excited we could eat it. I fed the corn to my daughter, not sure if it was organic. It sure was tasty. On the second day, I was feeling pretty sure that it was indeed not organic, but continued eating it anyways. I mean, I bought it, so we should eat it, right? Then my daughter's grandma stopped by with 2 very ripe, non organic, ready to eat right now mango's, which is my daughters favorite fruit.

When we started this ED, I was introducing at least one new fruit and one new veggie each week (not for testing but for variety), but as we proceeded and my daughter continued reacting to the new additions, it became clear that I should stop introducing new foods and just stay contained in a small arena of fruits she did not appear to react to, which for us turned out to be bananas, apples, grapes, and blue/black/straw/raspberries.

Now, on this same evening, my husband came home with an unopened full platter of non organic fruit that was leftover from a work party. I had already peeled and fed to my daughter an entire mango and now was allowing her to eat strawberries, more mango, cantaloupe and grapes. It bothered me, first because they were not organic, second because they were new fruits and I knew there was some chance they would cause a reaction, negating the corn test. However, my feeling that I have already restricted my daughter so much and after all, it's just fruit, so come on here people, I should just let her have it overrode my gut reaction. I am actually concerned I'm causing her food issues because of all the restriction.

So, I let her eat all that extra fruit, and her skin reacted that day with a rash. The last day of our corn test, I bought organic corn, removed the non organic (and unusual) fruit and my daughter's rash started to dissipate.

I clearly have an issue about saying no when other people offer yummy foods to my daughter. Obviously it's not always healthy foods like fruit, sometimes it's sugar, or just too much of one kind of food. How do I make sure she maintains a healthy diet but allow her to eat random foods sometimes? Like, snacks at school, after-school activities, and family, school and friends birthday parties? I don't know how to balance letting her eat occassional goodies with healthy foods when it feels like goodies are offered all the time. I know there must be a way to do it without making her feel deprived but also not to her health detriment. This is bothering me now because we have an appointment with my daugther's Naturopath in a few days, and there's a chance we will be phasing off the ED, except for some foods. Lucky for me, I bet she can help me figure this out.

For the corn test, my best guess is that my daughter did not react physically to the corn, but emotionally something was definitely happening. Whether that was due to quinoa earlier in the week, non-organic foods, extra fruits or actually the corn, I don't think I can say for sure. Maybe this is one of those foods that my daughter's Naturopath mentioned earlier when she said not all reactions to foods are allergic reactions.

Wk 12, Day 7: Corn Test, Part 2

We've started testing corn again, but this time just plain corn. We did have a few tortilla chips with dinner tonight, but the only other ingredients listed on the chips were oil and salt, so I thought it would be okay.

So far today, I've had a slowly progressing headache. Over the past few days my daughter has been overly emotional. She's been saying things like, "this is the worst smoothie ever", or "the worst day ever" and having crying outbursts and sensitivity for things that normally would not cause such over-reactions. I'm just not sure if these are corn or quinoa related outbursts. Hopefully the next few days of testing corn will help us figure out if we're reacting to corn or not.

Wk 12, Day 3: Corn Test, Part 1

We returned from our wonderful vacation full of sugar, chocolate, and no reactions. Hooray! Feeling pretty sure these next two weeks would be a breeze and just a formality to finish out the ED, I thought today would be a good day to start testing corn.

I fed my daughter a modest amount of corn for breakfast - just the amount included in the soy-free vegan butter called Earth Balance we've been avoiding because of the corn content. For lunch, some corn tortilla chips on the side of some rice pasta with corn and other veggies mixed in. For dinner, I loosely followed a risotto recipe and used Organic Quinoa gluten-free corn pasta (organic corn flour, organic Quinoa flour, dried organic red bell pepper, dried organic spinach) in place of the rice. It was basically garlic sauteed in olive oil, add frozen corn and veggie broth, Quinoa pasta, topped with her soy-free butter. Much to my surprise, my daughter's skin reacted pretty strongly, a bright red. Then it occurred to me, while I had included the quinoa because it is a protein that also included corn, it is a protein and I assumed (I'm not sure why) that she wouldn't react to it because it's not a bean, which she has reacted to.

So now, I'm not sure if she reacted to the protein, as she has been having issues with up to this point, or the corn. I'm going to stop the test for now, wait for her rash to subside, and the plan is to test plain corn once she heals to see if it is the corn or the quinoa that did it. As an aside, we enjoyed the taste of the dinner, even my 2 yr old liked it.

Wk 11, Day 6: Chreese & Sequim ED Friendly Stores

We found the best ED-friendly store in Sequim called Sunny Farms. Tons of vegan and gluten free options and organic produce at prices slightly lower than I'm used to finding around Seattle. One find was Road's End Organics Gluten Free Cheddar Style Chreese Sauce Mix (Organic Brown Rice, Flour, Organic Tapioca Starch, Nutritional Yeast, Organic Green Lentil Flour, Unrefined Salt, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Ground Yellow Mustard Seeds, Organic Onion Powder, and Annatto.) I thought it tasted a lot like my homemade vegan mac and cheese sauce, but my daughter rated it 4/10 stars vs my homemade sauce which she rates at 6/10 stars. However, it is easy to make on the go, so I liked it.

We also tried the Alfredo Sauce Mix made by the same company, and I didn't really care for it. I've tasted other vegan alfredo sauces and they all taste pretty much the same to me. Not great.

We travelled over to Port Townsend one day and visited their Food Co-op. It had some items in the deli case that were ED friendly, but none my daughter wanted to try, as they were all some form of mixed veggies with kale or wild rice. I saw a few I would have tried but I wanted us to find something we could eat together. We settled on some gluten-free pita chips and hummus, with some gluten-free curry sticks (think sesame sticks flavored with curry). I was the only one who would eat the curry sticks, but the 4 of us polished off the entire bag of pita chips and most of the hummus. The Co-op has a nice outdoor place to eat near some flowers and trees, so the kids had a great time playing in the sun for quite a while, collecting rocks and pine cones.

Wk 11 Day 1: Chocolate & Sugar Test (S'mores)

Well, the day finally came where we could eat chocolate and sugar again. I used to eat at least a few chocolate chips every day. After the first initial days of withdrawal from most foods I was used to (most notably, coffee), I haven't really craved chocolate or sugar, although I had thought about how weird it was that I was able to go so long without it. I wasn't really as excited about eating it again as I thought I would be.

I noticed that it really opened up what we could eat once we added sugar back in. I picked up some Kettle BBQ chips that I've been avoiding so far because of the sugar content. When I think about it, it's kind of vexing that so many foods include sugar. A little bit here and a little bit there adds up to too much sugar, in my opinion. I can see I'm going to have to think about this one as I look forward to phasing off the ED and into a less restrictive diet ahead.

Since we are on a camping vacation (in a motorhome) this week, I decided this would be a good time to test chocolate and sugar, so we could have some s'mores. To me, it's just not camping without them. I'm thinking of this week as a kind of break from our ED, without actually breaking from it, as we are keeping all (well, most) other "avoid" rules in place. I also thought it would be nice to bring some chocolate chip cookies, so I followed the cookie recipe on the back of the package of organic chocolate chips, substituting brown rice flour, tapioca flour and xanthan gum for regular flour. They turned out great! I'm not sure if it's the amount of time I've been away from chocolate or, perhaps sugar, but I found just one cookie was plenty each time I ate one, whereas before I could have easily eaten more. Maybe it's due to the rice flour? I'm wondering if it's more filling then wheat flour? I need to look into that.

So, now on to finding the ingredients for the s'mores. I found some ED friendly chocolate: Trader Joe's Fair Trade Swiss Dark and Theo's Organic Fair Trade Rich dark with 70% cacao. I didn't notice how thick Trader Joe's bars were - if you are headed out on a camping trip, I recommend Theo's even though it's a little more expensive (or even less expensive, use chocolate chips).

I found some gluten free graham crackers at PCC called, perfectly, S'moreables (pea starch, non hydrogenated shortening, potato starch, brown rice flour, brown sugar, sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, water, rice bran, sugar, blackstrap molasses, honey, glucose, salt, sodium bicarbonate, pea protein, vanilla, sodium carboxy methylcellulose, pea fibre, guar gum, inulin, soy lecithin, mono calcium phosphate). I must admit that I'm not exactly sure what some of those ingredients are, and it does include a tiny bit of soy, but I was feeling brazen, so I went for it.

Lastly, we needed marshmallows. I don't use the normal ones, since they have gelatin (animal bone) and aren't vegetarian. There are several vegan marshmallows on the market but most if not all include soy or some corn derivative, which is not too ED friendly for us. I decided to use Ricemellow Marshmallow Creme (Brown rice syrup, soy protein, natural vegan gums and flavors) because it had the shortest list of ingredients. Even though it has soy, I decided another small amount would be okay, because I believe our Naturopath has figured out what's going on with my daughter, and I guess I really feel I would be depriving my daughter to have her miss out on s'mores. Written out, it's not a very compelling argument to break from the ED, I admit. I wouldn't be doing it if we were early on, but I'm confident she isn't allergic to chocolate or sugar and she will be okay with a little tiny smidgen of soy. Wow, such excuses!

So, here's what happened. Our first day of the trip, my daughter was sitting outside with her brother for a few hours while I set up camp. Apparently in that period of time, they downed a bag of chips, a cookie each and some other snacks too (I hope some fruit). After dinner, we made a nice fire and made s'mores. Since we have marshmallow creme, instead of roasting marshmallows, we didn't actually use the fire to melt anything, and just sat near it while compiling our layers of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallow creme. I made my daughter 2 small ones, the size of a quarter of a normal graham cracker each. However, she did use the Trader Joe's chocolate, which as I mentioned before, is pretty thick. Before bed, she told us her tummy was hurting, and around 3 in the morning she woke us up to let us know she didn't feel too good. After throwing up twice, she was fine. Needless to say we avoided making s'mores again for a few days, and even then only one small one per person. She didn't want any more marshmallow creme, and I used the thinner Theo's chocolate. I melted the chocolate onto the graham cracker in the oven which I hoped would somehow digest better.

She learned a good lesson, since it was likely the combination of all the extra foods in one day that upset her stomach. She now is starting to notice that even though foods taste good enough to keep on eating, she should only eat until her body is full, then stop, even when it tastes really good. I *thought* she knew that before, but she's talking about it more at mealtimes, so I guess she needed a reminder. Later in the week I decided to bake some s'mores cookies, crumbling chocolate chunks and graham crackers into the batter. Yum! I think I've learned a good lesson myself - camping is still fun without s'mores.

Wk 10, Day 7: Tomato Wrap-Up & Some Good News

My daughter also reacted to tomatoes. I decided it was time to consult with my daughter's Naturopath again to see what she thought of all these reactions. She was able to see a commonality in the list of foods that my daughter is reacting to that I didn't notice: proteins and foods containing acids which are just causing insult to injury. She thinks that a few foods have inflamed my daughter's gut for a long enough period of time that it's no longer working properly to break down and filter proteins. So now we just need to figure out which foods are causing the most problems and remove them (and add some supplements), and hopefully that will help her body generate healthy gut tissue. Then, we can re-test again in 6 months or a year.

So, that's really good news! I am so relieved that there's a way to make sense of what appeared to be such random reactions. We are going to test sugar and chocolate together this week, then finish off this phase of the ED with a week of nuts and then a week of corn. After that, we'll meet with my daughter's Naturopath and see what to do next. Yay!

Wk 10, Day 4: Popsicles & No More Orange Juice

It's warmed up around Seattle lately, and to keep cool and hydrated, I want to give my kids yummy drinks and popsicles in addition to water, which we drink a good amount of. Also, the ice cream truck is coming by more often, and I don't want my daughter feeling left out if I can help it. I went to the grocery store to search for an ED friendly popsicle, and found one! It's frozen strawberries in a tube, actually. I think there might have been a few more options that I passed over because they have pineapple in them, which we are avoiding. The one I bought is called The Power of Fruit, All-Fruit Banana Berry Bars (strawberries, bananas, strawberry juice concentrate, water) from Central Market.

I had been serving my daughter orange juice pops all week and noticed her rash that rose up during our gluten test wasn't going away and I wondered if orange juice could be the culprit. I've taken her off of orange juice in the past, and since I've also removed pineapple due to reactions that may be caused by the acid content, I figured it was possible that orange juice was irritating her too. So, for now, orange juice and all citrus is off the list.

So, what to do? I mixed together a bunch of strawberry juice that was sitting at the bottom of a bag of defrosted strawberries, some water and a little brown rice syrup. The result? Strawberry juice that's not very sweet for just drinking, but for a popsicle they work. Next time I'll add less water so they will have more flavor.

Wk 10 Day 3: New Flour Mix & Homemade Pizza Crust

We went back to Bolles organic farm and picked raspberries and blueberries. Of course, we made more scones again with the berries. I would find a new breakfast recipe, but honestly, these are so delicious, I have no motivation to find something new. I'm trying out a new gluten free flour mix from Manna Mills. It's supposed to be similar to Bette Hagman's *magic* gluten-free flour mix but it's sold in bulk so I'm guessing it's more reasonably priced. We used it in place of the brown rice flour and tapioca flour in the scone recipe. They came out great and a little bit chewy.

My wonderful sister-in-law came by and gave me her trusty recipe for pizza crust. It was the best one we've made. We just added homemade tomato sauce, 2 kinds of olives and sundried tomatoes.

Here's what I learned after making it: It was a little thick in places, so next time I will roll it out really thin. Also, there were a few ingredients I didn't have: gelatin (I need to pick up more vegan gelatin or agar agar) and dry milk powder or almond flour. Instead of adding flour to replace the dry milk powder, I added rice milk, which changed the consistency of the dough for the worse. I added more flour and fixed it, then put some plastic wrap over the top of the dough so I could roll it out since it was so sticky. I only used half of the batter, and the unused half firmed up nicely after sitting in the bowl. Anyways, I digress.

Auntie Marie's Gluten Free Pizza Crust Recipe Makes 2 14" pizzas.

Ingredients:
1-2 TB dry yeast
2 cups warm water
1 tsp sugar or honey (I used brown rice syrup)
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour*
1 cup tapioca flour *
1/4 cup dry milk powder or almond flour
3 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
2 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
2 TB olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar

*I replaced both flours with Bette Hagman's flour mix and it was great.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

1) Combine warm water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes.

2) In a medium mixing bowl, blend flour, dry milk powder, xanthan gum, salt, gelatin powder and Italian seasoning. Add yeast mix, olive oil and cider vinegar. Beat on high 3 minutes.

3) Pat on greased pan or pizza stone. Bake crust only for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add toppings. Bake 20-25 minutes.

Wk 10, Day 2: Tomato Test, Spaghetti Sauce

Since I've noticed my daughter has reactions often after eating pizza, we are working our way through pizza ingredients, hoping to find what she has been reacting to. This week we are testing tomatoes, which she does not like to eat at all. She's being a good sport, though, and eating enough to test.

My daughter LOVES olives, so I found an ED friendly sauce by Middle Earth Organics, Organic Tomato Sauce with Olives and Capers (organic tomatoes, organic black Peranzana olives, organic extra virgin olive oil, organic capers, organic garlic, sea salt). I didn't really like this one, it was kind of plain for me, but we ate it. I found quite a few ED-friendly ones by Rising Moon Organics at PCC that I'll get next time I want some prepared sauce.

For lunch, we had some spaghetti, and chips/crackers to dip in salsa. My favorite is Salsa de Rosa, mild (hand selected tomato, tomatillo, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, salts) and my daughter likes it too.

Wk 9, Day 5: Asian Pasta Salad

Today was pretty warm, so I wanted something for dinner that required minimal cooking and could be eaten cool. I was torn between Italian or Asian pasta salad, and my daughter said she was in the mood for soy sauce, so that made it easy. I found this recipe. I heated the pasta up just enough to warm it so it became soft, then my daughter waited for it to cool to room temperature before eating it. I made a quick version of the recipe, using our favorite veggies, broccoli and carrots.

Ingredients:
1 package gluten-free/rice pasta (I bet linguini or angel hair would be really good)
1 cup carrots (sliced or shredded)
1 cup broccoli, slivered
3 TB sesame oil
2 TB coconut aminos (in place of soy sauce)
2 cloves garlic
small chunk of fresh ginger, diced
dash of salt and pepper

Directions:
Cook pasta and drain.

I put the veggies on the stove top to steam over medium heat for just as long as it took me to mix everything else up, less than 10 min. They were slightly soft but not overdone.

Put 1 TB sesame oil in a wok or pan, add garlic and ginger and cook until light brown (but not burned). Add cooked pasta and add 2 TB coconut aminos, 2 TB sesame oil, dash of salt and pepper, and steamed veggies. Toss and serve.

Note: I made this with about 1/3 the amount of ingredients because that's all the pasta I already had cooked. It was enough for about 2 servings, and was delicious. If we had more pasta and veggies, I might have added more coconut aminos and sesame oil.

Wk 9, Day 3: Gluten test, oatmeal cookies

We tested gluten over our 4th of July weekend. I thought that would be a fun one to test, since I was fairly certain neither of us were going to react, and we could get all the benefits of getting to eat regular flour with the addition of crackers, toast, etc. We were gluten-free for a month or two earlier this year. After weeks of eating gluten-free, my daughters rash returned, so we stopped eating gluten-free as it seemed to have nothing to do with a possible gluten allergy. As it turns out, we both reacted to the test this weekend. I had a more stuffy nose, stomach gurgles and diarrhea, my daughter's rash flared up on half of her normal spot after the first day, and by the third day, her rash was full blown. She had stomach aches on and off, but no emotional reaction that I noticed. What is this about?

I had assumed that during the ED, we would go many weeks with no reaction to foods, maybe notice some emotional changes with some foods like sugar, but walk away with a very clear idea of what food(s) are causing the rash on her body and some enlightenment on foods that negatively (or positively) affect her moods and energy. At this point, the list of foods she might be allergic to is growing: gluten, soy, black beans, pineapple, pumpkin, squash, possibly cheese and other beans. It's difficult for me to believe she is actually allergic to all of these foods. This reminds me of my sister-in-law when she went through this process but didn't yet know she had Celiac disease. She tested high on an allergy test to a ton of foods because her body was reacting so strongly to the gluten allergy. Once she realized gluten was the issue, removed gluten from her diet and let her body clear out, she tested normal/not allergic to most other foods.

Despite our physical reactions, we did have fun getting to eat homemade tortillas, sandwiches, veggie burgers on wheat buns, and other gluten-filled goodies. On the 4th, we made red, white and blue scones with strawberries, blueberries and coconut sprinkled on top with regular flour.




























Oatmeal Cookies
I adapted a recipe from allrecipes.com, with some ED-friendly changes. The flavor was fantastic, but they fell apart very easily. I'm pretty sure I'll be trying these gluten-free sometime soon.

3/4 cup Canola oil
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 eggs (used egg replacer)
1 1/4 cup unbleached flour
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 good shakes of cinnamon
1 shake nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1) In a large bowl, mix together oil, brown rice syrup and maple syrup. Whisk together egg replacer with water as instructed on the egg replacer box and add to mixture.

2) In a separate bowl, mix together flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg. Add to liquid ingredients. (note: this recipe came out a little wet for me so I added about 1/4 cup more flour and a sprinkle more oats. it ended up being very crumbly, so next time I might not add any more flour or oats).

3) Spoon onto greased baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Wk 8, Day 3: Strawberry Pancakes

This weekend we went to Bolles Organic Farm to pick some strawberries. We ended up getting one flat! The kids had a fun time running around and my daughter was so excited about all the delicious looking berries. There's one more good week of strawberry picking, then around July 10th they'll have blueberries and raspberries. My freezer will be filled with organic berries. How fantastic!

Of course, once they were cleaned (and most put into the freezer), I went to work finding ways to eat them. We started with strawberry pancakes topped with strawberries and maple syrup, strawberry smoothies and, of course, our favorite scone recipe. All delicious. I didn't have a gluten-free pancake recipe on hand, so I adapted one of my favorite pancake recipes (I don't remember where I found it originally months ago) and they were great. I think I'm getting the hang of gluten-free baking. I intended to make my daughter a side of home fried potatoes, but as I was having a veggie burger with fries for dinner, I gave her french fries instead. I do like a little time outside the kitchen!















Fluffy Strawberry Pancakes
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp baking powder (the original recipe calls for 3 1/2 tsp but I ran out. either works - the more you add the fluffier they are.)
1 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon and nutmeg
1 TB maple syrup
1 TB brown rice syrup (optional - I don't think I needed both sweeteners)
1 1/4 cup rice milk
1 egg (used egg replacer)
3 TB canola oil
1/2 - 1 cup berries

1) In a large bowl, mix flours, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt cinnamon and nutmeg. Make a well in the center and add sweetener(s), milk, egg replacer and oil. Mix until smooth. Add berries and mix, being careful not to over mix.

2) Heat lightly oiled griddle over medium heat. Pour or scoop (I use a soup ladle) batter onto griddle. Brown both sides and serve hot.

Wk 8, Day 1: Coconut Aminos

We've started using Coconut Secret's Coconut Aminos as a replacement for soy sauce. I love it! It really does taste like soy sauce. Not only are we adding it straight over stir frys, but also I'm using it as an ingredient we've been missing in macaroni and cheese and different sauces.

Last night we made a mixture of Sunbutter, coconut milk, coconut aminos and salt. We were aiming for a kind of peanut sauce. I also made a coconut curry. Nice to have some new options for dinner sauces.

Wk 7, Day 6: Soy Test, Lasagna & Coffee (sort of)

Cheese Wrap-up
Whew. A week has gone by and I have a collection of pictures. First, the wrap-up from cheese week. My daughter did not have any new reactions to cheese, however because she did have some initial issues stated earlier (stomach ache, crying outburst) I am going to re-test cheese later. The Naturopath said to consider these issues a reaction, but she is not yet sure it's intolerance, allergy or enzyme deficiency. Hmm. Well, I'll stick that one in the back of my brain and let it simmer.

Soy Test
The next test we did at the beginning of this week was soy. We were pretty excited at the idea of getting to eat lots of soy, but after reading labels and disallowing foods that had other no-no's, such as wheat or sugar or corn, we ended up with a large dose of:

soy based hotdogs (Lightlife Original Tofu Pups: water, soy protein isolate, organic spray dried tofu, contains 2% or less of natural flavors (from vegetable sources), beet powder, yeast extract, sunflower oil, natural smoke flavor, salt, paprika oleoresin, vegetable gums, tomato pulp)

soy cheese (Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella/Cheddar Cheese Alternative: Filtered water, expeller pressed canola oil, tofu (soybeans, calcium sulfate), soy protein, inulin (a natural extract of chicory), natural flavor (vegan), agar, sea salt, Brewer's yeast, carrageenan, calcium lactate (vegan), lactic acid (vegan), annatto)

soy cream cheese (Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Cream Cheese Alternative: filtered water, palm fruit oil, soybean oil, inulin (chicory root extract), soybeans, soy protein, agave syrup, sea salt, juice concentrate, natural flavor, locust bean gum, xanthan gum)

plus a little tofu and gluten-free tamari.

My daughter is a big fan of hotdogs, so she had them at just about every meal. I opted for some tofu. Because I was pretty sure that soy was one of her top allergens, I assumed that just a little would make her body respond with a major rash. By day 3, she had a little reaction, but nothing like the reaction I had seen a few months ago that I assumed was caused by soy. I decided to max her out on soy and see if I could force a reaction from her body, to verify whether soy is an issue or not.

breakfast... (hers, then my version)
















lunch...




























and dinner...




























By the end of the third day, she did have a skin reaction I was expecting to see, but much milder than I had seen previously, when she had some slices of soy cheese pizza a few months ago. This got me thinking, maybe its another ingredient in pizza that she was reacting to?

I consulted with my daughter's Naturopath and she let me know that an exposure to one allergen could set the body up to react to the next introduced food, so I'm going to take an extra week of cleansing before testing a new food. I'm wondering if this wasn't part of what I saw earlier in this ED, where my daughter appeared to react to three different foods in one week.

As for emotional reactions, my daughter didn't have any that I noticed during the three days of soy testing period. However, today she had what was either a normal 6 year old outburst, or a delayed emotional reaction to the soy. She was completely fine, then started crying and was angry because she said I was being mean to her by asking her to do a few things she listed. It lasted about five minutes, then she was completely fine again, and she asked if she could do those things she had just complained about. She realized she was contradicting what she had just said, but appeared to return to her self again. The outburst came on so quickly and was so out of character for her that I immediately took it as a possible food-related reaction. For myself, I think the soy made me more aggressive, but I would need to test again to be sure. I'm thinking about removing this one long-term from my diet, except in small quantities.

Coffee! (sort of)
I've been drinking Teeccino Mediterranean Herbal Coffee (Vanilla Nut flavor: Organic carob, organic barley, organic chicory, dates, almonds, organic dates, natural vanilla extract, natural nut flavor, figs) on and off for a few years because I have somewhat of an intolerance to coffee if I drink too much of it. I make it in my espresso maker. This is cheating a bit, as I'm not really supposed to be eating almonds or vanilla, but I was ok with it.

It felt so great to drink something very close to a cup of coffee! I drank it here, with Silk Organic Unsweetened soy milk (organic soymilk, calcium carbonate, sea salt, natural flavors,carrageenan, vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D2, Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin b12). Also, somewhat of a cheat, I bought this to add to my daughter's smoothies to add even more soy into her testing period. After the initial soy test was over, it started getting warmer out and I made an iced rice milk version, also really good!

Sesame seed lasagna!
I adapted a raw manicotti recipe to make some ED friendly lasagna. I added gluten free lasagna noodles, and pretty much followed the rest of the recipe. It was fantastic! Next time I will add about twice as much sauce (and some red wine). I avoided adding wine this time since it's on our avoid list, but since it cooks down in the sauce, I think it will be okay. Almost 8 weeks in and I'm saying that more and more. Also, I think a layer of vegan pesto would be a great addition as well.

Week 6, Day 6: Burgers and Fries, Fried Rice & Sweet Potato Fries

Wow. It's hard to explain how excited I was to find a burger that we can eat. I was at Central Market, about to buy some more protein powder, when I realized I was pretty sure it's about 7 bucks cheaper at PCC (note: I re-checked, and the PCC version is not organic, so that's why), when I was struck with a hunger for veggie burgers. I wandered over to the frozen section and looked at the options, then saw Sunshine Burgers, which I've been eating on and off for a year or more. I picked them up and read the package, and lo and behold - 2 of the 3 kinds are ED friendly. Actually, all 3 are, but their Southwest flavor has black beans, and since my daughter reacted to those (I think), we are avoiding them.

We tried the first of two kinds tonight, Sunflower's organic Garden Herb burgers (organic cooked brown rice, organic ground raw sun-flower seeds, organic carrots, organic herbs and sea salt.) We had a side of fries, Alexia organic Yukon Gold Julienne Fries with Sea Salt. The ingredients include citric acid. I remember reading something about citric acid being a no-no online, but I really need to check the info from our doctor. I felt it was worth it to avoid washing potatoes and pulling out the mandolin slicer to make my own fries. My daughter was thrilled with the fries, of course, but was only so-so about the burger, even with the avocado, which she likes some days and not others. She agreed to finish the burger (8 grams of protein!) in exchange for another round of fries. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to bribe my children into eating food with rewards of other food, but I'm okay with it today. I pondered making gluten free biscuits to create hamburger buns, but I decided to play with the kids instead. It was worth it! And, I looooved dinner. It felt good to eat something that seems normal.



Last night I made some garlic and ginger fried rice and sweet potato fries. Super yummy and a hit with both of us.

Week 6, Day 4: Rice pudding

This morning I decided to make something different for breakfast, to try and distract my daughter from the fact that she is no longer eating cheese.

I made rice pudding, roughly based on this recipe.



I mixed together 3/4 cup cooked brown rice (I was thinking about how much oatmeal we usually eat, but I forgot that oatmeal expands, so it didn't turn out to be as much for both of us as I had thought it would be), 3/4 cup rice milk, 1 TB maple syrup and heated on stove top until most of the liquid was absorbed by the rice. Once off the stove top, I added a little cinnamon and salt. Both my daughter and I liked it. I served it with a protein smoothie, vitamins, water, and half a banana. We were good and full.

I took of picture of her lunch because she assembled it, and it's a nice simple balanced alternative to her usual lunch of pasta primavera. We use raw nuts and seeds, and today I sprinkled a little salt on the seeds, as she usually won't eat many of them without it, and then, what's the point?. That goopy stuff is sunflower seed spread, which really is pretty good when you dip crackers or carrots in it. Almost like peanut butter, but not quite. And, a little cup of applesauce. I think I might try making some peanut butter cookies soon, substituting the sunflower seed spread for peanut butter.

Week 6, Day 3: Raspberry “ice cream”

Well, cheese. Hmm. After the first cheese testing day I talked with my dad and found out he has some mild issues with mozzarella cheese in block form, so I removed my daughter's mozzarella block cheese in case that passed through a genetic line to her, and kept her on mild cheddar. Maybe she can eat some kinds of cheese and not others? I hadn't really considered that idea enough before this week. Yesterday, day two of the cheese test went fine, and today she also seemed fine, except her stomach hurting at the end of the day. But no rash, which is incredibly hopeful. Now I'm supposed to watch her for the remainder of the week since it can take that long for a reaction to occur.

For dinner, we had beans and rice.  My daughter had hers with cheese mixed in, I added avocado and hot salsa from Trader Joe's, and we both loved our dinners. My daughter asked me to make her nachos for her last cheese day, but since we can't eat tortillas (because of the corn or other ingredients), I melted some cheese over kettle chips, also a big hit. For dessert, I made some raspberry ice cream that I read about recently. I just put some frozen raspberries and coconut milk into our food processor, and added a smidge of rice milk and brown rice syrup. Yum!

Week 6, Day 1: “Happy Cheese Day!”

My daughter woke us up this morning, excited for "Cheese day". Our Naturopath advised us that 2 slices of cheese with each meal 3 times a day (for 3 days) is the correct amount for testing dairy. We bought 2 kinds of organic cheese for testing: pre-sliced mild cheddar and a block of mozzarella. We melted 1 slice per meal over pasta or potato, and she wanted to just eat the other slices by themselves. She was so excited this morning, she was giddy. It has been about a year since she has had any cheese. My husband talked with her this morning about how we need to watch for energy or emotional reactions today, and so after breakfast she let me know she felt great, and right before dinner said, "I know you want to know how I feel, not how excited I am, but how my body is feeling from eating cheese, and I want you to know my body is feeling great."

We spent most of our day out in the sunshine, and it's been a while since we've done that, so I wanted to make sure she wasn't dehydrated. I had her drink 2 glasses of water with dinner. After dinner, in the bathtub, she started crying. The initial reason was that her brother picked a "movie" from a stack of DVD's she selected to watch tonight - he picked Charlie and Lola, which is quite tame and she said she doesn't like it and feels very frustrated and sad that she doesn't know why, even though she put it in the pile for him to pick from. Then she said she was crying (which she still was) because she misses her protein powder because it makes her body feel good (we aren't taking it because her cheese consumption covers her daily requirement of protein), then said her tummy was hurting. She started coming up with non-cheese related excuses why this could be. Too much water too quickly. Too much to eat. Then I talked with my husband, and we did the same thing. Too much sun today, not enough sleep last night. Uh-oh. I know it's possible (I mean, I think it's possible) that her tummy could be hurting from trying to process cheese for the first time in a year. Also, from drinking too much water too quickly. But honestly, if I had to guess, I would say this is definitely a food reaction, since her temperament has been fairly even for weeks (although, come to think of it, she did have a giant tantrum last week that is completely out of the ordinary for her). But the emotional reaction of crying in addition to her upset stomach makes me wonder if tomorrow we are going to start seeing some physical reactions to cheese.