Monday, August 2, 2010

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment