Monday, September 30, 2013

The Start of a New Diet

I'm feeling a little battered over here at the moment.  Between my back deciding to flare up for the first time in years and some sort of nasty flu bug that has been moving around our house and has finally hit me I have been stumbling through the last few days allowing the kids to watch way too much Netflix in the afternoons and trying to stay off my feet as much as possible.

We've also just jumped into the GAPS diet (full GAPS, I can't figure out how we would even try to do intro since Mae is not a fan of chicken broth... or soups textures at all).  It's not so bad and isn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be.  It's less of a challenge than the elimination diet was back in January, because I've done an incredibly restrictive diet once and I'm pretty good at GF baking now (with almond meal and coconut flour).

And the results of cutting out any and all gluten are already pretty amazing.  You see before this Mae wasn't having a ton of wheat.  She'd have a meal with wheat... maybe once a week.  And that would be something like a flour tortilla or something like that.  We're not allowing that at all anymore and the change?

Well this week the child who has about ten words and can go a month without using any of them said: "Red boots!" "Animal!"  "Bunny rabit!" "Bunny, bunny, bunny!"  "Mama!" "Baby!" and "Moon!"  So I'm beginning this new diet with cautious optimism.

This weekend I was hard at work making fermented foods...  my family is not rejoicing at the amount of cabbage that seems to be a new part of their diet, but lunch today was pretty funny (to me).

I'd been making chicken broth this morning and I moved some of the broth into a second pan and started making soup for lunch.  Lunch is the hardest in this brave new world without rice or most of the beans I'd usually use.  I added some of the extra carrots that I'd grated for sour kraut.  I threw in a diced onion and celery.  There was garlic.  I looked around.  The soup needed something more.  And then I saw it... half of a purple cabbage.  I diced it and threw it into the soup and watched as the broth turned bright purple. Then I hoped it would be good.  Just around that time Paul arrived home and we had this conversation:

Me:  "Lunch is almost ready!  We're having cabbage soup!"
Paul:  Stops.  Looks visibly disturbed by the prospect.  Purses his lips and tries to look normal.
Me:  "What?  You're making a face."
Paul:  "I'm just offering it up."
Me:  "It's going to be good!  You'll see."
Paul:  "Mmmm hmmmm..."

A few minutes later from the other room:
Sadie (in a little voice):  "Daddy, this doesn't look very good."
Me: (coming into the room):  "It's Princess Sofia soup!  Did you see that it was purple? Of course it's going to be good."
Sadie: "Oh!" (looking unsure and then making a bravely polite face) "Yes, it looks good."

At this point I was really, really hoping that it would be good, because so far it had been too hot to taste.  Then everyone started to eat.  And guess what?  It actually was really good in all it's bright purple-ness.  They actually liked it!  Shockingly (to my family at least) it's something they would willingly eat again.

That's one step in the right direction.  And despite the flu we finished school for the day, so that's something else.  I figured canceling school usually causes discontent in the ranks anyways, so we might as well muscle on through.

Now to come up with a creative dinner... I know one thing: it's going to involve spaghetti squash!

6 comments:

  1. It's so great that you are doing GAPS. I did it a little for a couple months and it worked really well for my body. Unfortunately my living situation doesn't really allow for it and I'm at a point in my life where eating out (either in restaurants or other people's homes) is huge, so I'm not willing to sacrifice that. But I think it's great that you're doing it for Maggie. I'm looking forward to reading about how things improve.

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  2. I'm starting a combo of the GAPS/SCD tomorrow with my six-year-old after hearing friends who have had such good results. I have Crohn's Disease and my son has anaphylactic food allergies, so we're praying this works to heal both of us.

    For the last month we've been slowly phasing out the illegal foods and introducing the kids to the legal ones. Everyone in the house is doing the diet (there are six of us) so it's definitely going to be an adjustment. Luckily, the kids love sauerkraut, so that's a plus.

    Anyways, I just wanted to say that I feel your pain. We start the intro tomorrow and I'm not excited. I also have some broth simmering on the stove. I'm tempted to just start on the full diet because the thought of nothing but broth, sauerkraut, and raw milk yogurt for a few weeks just doesn't sound good. My son is already so skinny, I'm worried about this introductory phase with him.

    Keep us posted. Since I'm starting it at the same I'll be interested to see how you guys are doing, even if we're doing it for different reasons.

    Good luck! I will add you and your family to our prayers tonight as we begin this journey.

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  3. For the record, calling it Princess Sophia soup is probably the most brilliant solution you could've come up with!

    Good luck with the diet. You're all in my prayers. {hugs}

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  4. Good luck! For the record, our family loves cabbage & Keilbasa soup...And I have had GREAT success with spaghetti squash lasagna!!!

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  5. Haha my husband is from Eastern Europe, so we eat a LOT of cabbage, and its one of my 21 m/o favorite foods :) You should try making borscht. Its a very traditional soup with beets, cabbage, garlic, onion, carrots, seasoning, really almost anything you want as long as it has beets. (We also add beans and chunks of potato). We find it is great for the winter and extremely healthy. I also wanted to wish you luck with your new journey. I have been following your blog long enough to remember when Mae was born. I have heard great things about diet changes helping kids on the spectrum and I pray the positive signs you have seen indicate that it will do wonderful things for your family as well.

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  6. As you get going with GAPS you might find this blog by the homeschooling doctor worth a read - she's a medical doctor who had health problems and started her whole family on GAPS to help her own health and her kids. From the little I know about GAPS, it seems like it would be really overwhelming, but the benefits would be completely worth it.

    http://thehomeschoolingdoctor.com/gaps/

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