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If I had written this blog post a couple of weeks ago I would have called it ‘Deprived’. That’s how I was feeling for sure, but the further we progress into this adventure in eating the easier it gets.
In May I had the girls and I tested for food sensitivities. We met with a Naturopath who did the testing for us and then, just before Memorial Day, counseling for us when we got the results. Yikes! No wonder we’d been feeling so bad. The list of things the girls and I need to stay away from is daunting. We all need to stay away from milk and gluten and yeast for sure.
If that weren’t enough there are a ton of little things we need to avoid too. On top of the milk and gluten, I’m lucky enough to come up positive for rice, corn, soy, all dairy and …gulp…coffee. Peeps, I was a daily Starbucks visitor! My naturopath advised that I would be best on a paleolithic diet. Meat, veggies and fruit. That’s all well and good except I don’t really like veggies and fruit. You see my problem, eh?
After going through an angry denial period I decided that we were going to shoot for 75%. It is VERY difficult to remove everything from our diets (it’s amazing where all these things hide), but it’s only been a couple of weeks and we are feeling much better. In fact, after months of Jill complaining of stomach upset, it was such a relief when she came to me worried the other day. She was concerned because for the past couple of days her stomach had been considerably flatter. Was it normal to have that feeling she wanted to know? It’s normal when you are eating food that agrees with you! That made all of this totally worth it.
The hardest part has been finding snacks. The girls used to have pretzels and graham crackers and granola bars for a snack. Gluten free pretzels are $7 a bag. Whoa! We haven’t really found any crackers we are partial to so snacks consist of Veggie Booty, fruit, cheese sticks and cereal. That’s right, dry cereal. There are a ton of gluten free cereals that the girls like and they don’t mind carrying baggies of cereal for snacks so there you are. A good, fortified snack on the go.
The good thing in all this is going gluten free is much easier today as it is the eating style du jour. It’s expensive, but there are great sources for finding products that taste as good as, or better in many cases, as our old ways. Whole Foods, PCC and Trader Joes all have great products. Even Amazon Fresh, or online delivery service, has a great selection of things that can be bought in bulk and delivered to our doorstep.
Of course the best thing of all is that chocolate did NOT come up on my list. There is a God!