A little who/what/where

I've just ended week 1 of an Allergy Elimination diet with my 6 yr old daughter. I'm pretty sure she's allergic to soy, and suspect dairy is also an issue. She's a vegetarian, and I'm a vegan. (My husband eats everything, so we called it in the middle with the kids). He's a little concerned about what will happen if our veggie daughter ends up with both soy and dairy allergies, but I think we should just wait and see what happens.

So, my daughter is on the diet for allergy testing. I'm on it to test myself for allergies and to offer her some moral support. And, I'm not sure why-but it just seems like an interesting thing to try. I decided to write about it online because while I've found some foods she will eat, I haven't found much she enjoys eating. I'm hoping someone else has ideas for what 6 year olds like to eat that fit within the restrictions below.

The diet is being supervised by a Naturopath. It's fairly typical for an elimination diet:

• 3 weeks of cleansing followed by new foods introduced 1 per week.


• Disallowed Foods: corn, refined sugar (including agave), soy, nuts (except cashews), chocolate, dairy, eggs, wheat, additives, coffee, tea, alcohol.


• Restricted foods: because my daughter is almost certainly allergic to soy, her intake of beans and peas in the same family are restricted. No more than 3 servings per week from each category of beans, peas, carob & lentils.


• Use as many organic foods as possible

Pretty much, I can sum up our first week  like this: we ate a lot of plain fruit, veggies, rice and rice pasta. We tried some mixes for pancakes and muffins, and found a few crackers (Brown Rice Snaps/Vegetable flavor) and chips (Potato Flyers, The Original). We use a rice protein supplement (NutriBiotic Organic Rice Protein, plain) 2x daily in smoothies, which helped tremendously after our first day when we were very low on energy. I'm personally finding a good amount of variety-curry sauces over veggies, spaghetti, pesto, salad, lentils, quinoa, soup. Unfortunately my daughter isn't crazy about any of these-yet. She did, however, eat (and claim to enjoy!) some of my vegan mac and cheese today, so there's hope!

I'm feeling really good energy-wise, and optimistic about what will be another two or three months of figuring this out.