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.