So what DO we eat?

Lately we've been asked by a lot of people "So, what can you eat since you've eliminated so many foods?"

Let's see, the basics are: rice, quinoa, mung beans, adzuki beans, lentils, lots of veggies, some fruit, and some meat.

So how does that translate to our daily menus?

One of my favorite sites for recipes is The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. Their cookbook (The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook) is also a great source for recipes and info.


Green smoothies
Cabbage quinoa soup
Broccoli soup  (from another of my favorite recipe sites)
Red Lentil Soup
Curried Cauliflower Carrot soup
Potato Leek soup
Chicken stew
Lentil and rice casserole
Lettuce wraps
Nori rolls  (we stuff these with whatever veggies we have in the frig- avocado, sprouts, spinach, cucumber, carrot, green onion, steamed sweet potato, cabbage, etc)
Quinoa salmon burgers (we really like these!)
burrito bowls
parsnip fries (quite good- kind of sweet)
sweet potato fries
steamed broccoli
sauteed zucchini and summer squash

Treats:
Mango coconut pudding  (I also made a peach version)
Date treats


Breakfast is usually a green smoothie with leftovers from dinner
Lunch is usually a burrito bowl, nori rolls, or a lettuce wrap and a piece of fruit
Dinner is one of the recipes mentioned above
Snacks are fruit, carrots (LMS will go to the frig and grab a carrot and start munching), or a date treat (LMS really likes them. I've fiddled with the recipe a bit, but the date taste is still very strong, and I'm not a huge fan of dates. I need to mess with the recipe some more)

So we have plenty of food we can eat. It's mostly a matter of changing up our menu and cooking completely from scratch. It takes more planning on my part, but some of the recipes come together very quickly. We're getting used to eating lots and lots of veggies and we're getting to try a lot of new recipes.  Changing my mindset about how I cook has been a bit of a hassle, but LMS and I are both feeling good (and LMS's intestines are finally healing) so it's worth it.

The only downside to changing up our menu this way is the increase in cost. Lots of veggies costs lots of money. I read an article recently that said something along the lines of the cost of 500 calories of vegetables costs a lot more than 500 calores of junk food or convenience food.

Eat a couple candy bars and you've eaten 500 calories and only spent a couple bucks and you'll be hungry again soon. I dare you to try eating 500 calories worth of broccoli at one sitting. I found this site that shows 200 calories of a food.

via

Hmmm. That's 200 calories worth, which means that 500 calories is another plate and a half full of broccoli. That'll stick around a lot longer than a couple candy bars. And it's a lot healthier. However, that much broccoli will cost a lot more than a couple candy bars.

Despite the increased costs, the health benefits are definitely worth it.

Last week

Last Saturday I got hit by a double whammy- cramps (the monthly variety) and a head cold. The last week has not been too fun. 

Luckily LMS didn't get sick, but she's been very whiney and cranky the last few weeks. (I think she's mad that daddy's gone so much with work and this is the only way she knows to express it)

We're still waiting to hear if we got the house or not. We signed the papers, the owners signed the papers, but the lady who was going to buy the house (her financing fell through) also has to sign the papers (giving up any claim to the house), and then they get sent to the bank to be given the ok (or not). Hopefully it doesn't take too much longer and the process will start moving ahead quickly.

We have to keep the house we're renting clean all the time so it can be shown to potential buyers. Not that we usually have a dirty house or anything, but when time is short clutter can take over a bit, and 4 year olds like to spread their toys all over. Kind of a pain to be constantly picking things up, but the house does look nice. We've looked at 6 or 7 houses so far, and only one of them was occupied, and it was a bit of a dump. Not clean and organized at all. Of course, it was a foreclosure, so it could have been worse. In any case, I don't want the house looking like a dump when people come by- it does not leave a favorable impression at all.

The elimination diet is definitely helping. LMS's diarhea is mostly gone and she's mostly having normal bowel movements. Yay!
I say mostly because we've started adding things back in and not everything agrees with her, which has resulted in a couple instances of very bad diarhea, which I'm really hoping won't ever happen again.
It was horrible.
I think I'm scarred for life.
And so is LMS.

The down side to the elimination diet is that our list of things we can't eat is growing. Either that or our bodies still need more time to heal before we add new foods back in. So we're going a lot slower than planned and are keeping our meals very simple and basic. And I'm still losing weight!

How was your week?

The difficulty of multiple food allergies

There's nothing quite as heartbreaking as standing in the natural foods store, telling LMS we can't buy the animal cookies that we've bought in the past. She broke down and started crying- loudly. Not that I blame her, because there's definitely times I feel like crying about being so limited in our food options.

The animal cookies in question contain corn starch, which was added to our no-no list since the last time we bought them.

Luckily for us, an employee came by to help, as did a fellow customer- both of who (whom?) gave suggestions of cookies to try. The winner: Enjoy life  gingerbread cookies. They are free from all the allergens we have to avoid, and they taste fairly decent. In fact, LMS horked down most of the box while I wasn't looking :)  Like a lot of things we are able to eat, they are pricey, but for a once-in-a-while treat, that's ok.

I'm also a fan of Enjoy life semi-sweet chocolate chips. Unlike every other brand of chocolate chips I've checked, they don't contain soy lecithin- yay! I actually find them a bit sweet, but the flavor is pretty good. I've been doing some experiments with them, and we were able to make some yummy chocolates for Christmas.

Elimination diet

As I mentioned Saturday, we're doing an elimination diet. What does that mean? Well, we eliminate a whole bunch of stuff (anything that could cause a reaction) and eat a non-reactive diet for several weeks, allowing the body to heal. We then start adding in potential problem foods one at a time, with enough time in between each to make sure there's no reaction.

So where did we find this elimination diet? Awhile ago, when I first started searching for gluten free, vegan recipes, this is one of the sites I found that was an excellent resource for recipes and information: NourishingMeals.com. The couple who run the blog (they have a website also) are nutritionists who have also written a book, The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook.

I bought the book after Christmas, and I have to tell you, I love it! Not only are there recipes, there's also a lot of good nutrition information, including the elimination diet. I can prepare most of the recipes as written, though there are a few with tofu or eggs that I would have to adjust. I've prepared several of the recipes in the cookbook, as well as some from the website (there's some overlap, but not all recipes are in both places), and they've been very yummy.  I really like that the ingredients are whole foods: fresh fruits and veggies, herbs, spices, gluten free grains, legumes, lean meats, etc. It's a bit more work to cook completely from scratch, but the chances of cross-contamination are reduced to almost nil, it's healthier for us, and the food really does taste good.

We're a week into the elimination diet, and already I've lost 3 pounds, which is in addition to the 13 pounds I've lost since eliminating dairy, eggs, corn, and soy. Goal #37 is almost accomplished!

Admittedly, it hasn't all been fun and games. We had colds all week plus we had to deal with the detox die-off that makes you feel crappy. And we had to adjust to eating A LOT more vegetables than we're used to. In the past we tried, but never succeeded, in eating as many as we should. Though I can honestly say that we are now getting more than the recommended servings of veggies (not quite on fruit, because that's too much sugar).

The recipes from the book and website make it really easy to incorporate more veggies into your diet. And if you eat leftovers from dinner for breakfast or lunch the next day, that's more veggies for very little work. I balked at eating lots of veggies for breakfast, but it's not that bad (I really like being able to just re-heat leftovers, and then maybe whipping up a green smoothie to go with it), and it does stay with you. I made this broccoli soup (from another site I use a lot) a few days ago, but instead of serving it with rice, I served it with quinoa. We had leftovers for breakfast the next morning, and it stuck to my ribs very well.

Have you tried eating veggies for breakfast?