Week 2, Day 4: beyond physical reactions to food

I was told by my daughters Naturopath that allergic reactions to food manifest both physically and emotionally, and that during the testing phases I should take note not only of any physical changes affected by introducing new foods, but also any emotional changes. In addition, she reminded me that food is energy and so I should also note what high and low energy shifts happen related with changes in food. She also mentioned that food allergies can cause brain swelling, which can alter one’s perception of the world, perhaps in her case making the world appear more scary than it would appear otherwise.

Intrigued by the idea that the body sends emotional signals regarding food allergies, I have been pondering this concept in the back of my head since we started. After the first few days when both my daughter and I felt pretty awful (low energy, me with a caffeine withdrawal headache, her a bit more emotional), I started noticing that she was starting to take a few more physical chances. For example, she’s been on roller skates (and falling down) in the house almost every day since we started, sometimes she carries large objects around on the skates – one day it was a guitar. At the playground, she’s starting to try more daring moves. At the same time, I noticed that I’m allowing her to try things without telling her to “be careful” as much. After all, the child is 6. It’s probably about time!

The last few days she’s been more emotional than usual, crying and frustrated. I’m not sure if this is due to food changes or not (I had to remind myself we have been told to clean ourselves out for 3 weeks before testing because it can take that long for the food and symptoms to leave our bodies) , so in the meantime I’m trying to give her lots of space to express whatever she needs to.

I was recently listening to an Alan Watts podcast in a series on Taoism that I’ve found very useful during this process. He said “the more liberty you give, the more love you give, the more you allow things in yourself and in your surroundings to take place, the more order you will have.”

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For dinner tonight, we had butternut squash soup with coconut milk, salad, and potatoes. Sweet potatoes with cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Mashed potatoes with oil, salt and pepper, and baked potatoes with salt and pepper. I figured, its one veggie she really likes, and it would be nice if she would eat a full dinner. We had kale/raspberry/banana/rice milk/flax seed/rice protein smoothies earlier in the day, so I figured a potato-heavy dinner would be ok. As it turns out, she really only ate the salad, baked potato and the mashed potatoes. I’m discovering that what she likes one day she doesn’t necessarily like the next.



6 yr old’s version of dinner



My version: soup & salad with avocado/oil/lemon dressing. Loved it!