Food intolerance Manifestations

for your enjoyment: 

a picture I found of me leaping (unsuccessfully, I might add) over a stream during the mud run. isn't my outfit super attractive?

Over the last few years, I've learned to pay attention to my body and can usually identify when I'm reacting to something I ate. I've also learned to watch the Little Miss for her reactions.

That said, I still sometimes miss things.

My reactions have evolved from stomach pain and throat swelling. Now I get eczema under my wedding ring (weird, I know) and in my scalp. It took me awhile to figure out that the rash under my rings wasn't poison ivy like I originally thought, but directly related to what I eat. It also took me awhile to make the connection between the itchy "dandruff" and what I eat. Thankfully my hair hides most of the damage, but I do go around looking like I have a bad case of dandruff if I haven't been eating right.

With LMS, it's a bit trickier. Some things are fairly obvious, like intestinal issues, but others are less cut and dried. Changes in her behavior sometimes don't click right away with me, even though I know (and have known for some time) that her behavior is greatly influenced by what she eats.

Recently I've finally made another connection that has eluded me for months.

This past fall LMS and I went on a road trip with my sister for a few days and LMS started coughing. I chalked it up to the dry air in the car (I always get dehydrated when road tripping) and when we got home I turned her humidifier on each night and the cough went away.

The cough re-surfaced around Christmas, which coincided with another road trip, and some actual winter weather. LMS got sick on New Years, and even though she got better, the cough hung around. Last week she got a bit sick again and the cough evolved from a dry, unproductive cough (so annoying to listen to) to a pleghmy cough. I'd been thinking about taking her to the doctor, but with the phlegm and cold, the doctor would just say to keep an eye on things.

I've been praying about how to help her, and I finally made the connection between the cough she had in September and her current cough. And I realized that it wasn't caused by the dry air- it was caused by eating things that don't agree with her. When we road trip, we are a lot more lenient about what we eat since we invariably have to eat at restaurants at least part of the time. We hadn't started GAPS yet when we went on the road trip with my sister, but we were pretty close. When we returned home, we went back to eating more carefully and her cough cleared up because she wasn't eating the offending foods any more, not because the humidifier made a difference.

At Christmas we cheated on GAPS while traveling to my sister's, and we've been cheating in one way or another (for one reason or another) ever since. LMS's cough hasn't been able to clear up because of the continued cheating.

Yeah, it's only taken me since September to realize that coughing is one of LMS's food intolerance manifestations. I'm not always the fastest on the uptake, that's for sure.

My super-sensitive sense of smell seems to be disappearing (thankfully!). I only have a couple weeks left before I hit the second trimester and I'm really hoping the nausea and lack of appetite clear up then so I can start cooking food again, which will enable us to get back on the GAPS wagon.  I can't wait for LMS's cough to go away....

CSA

pretty spring flowers we bought yesterday

I've wanted to join a CSA for 3 or 4 years now, but could never quite justify the cost in my mind.

Then I realized I was going to the grocery store and only buying produce and spending X amount of dollars to do it. I vaguely recalled that the CSA's I'd investigated were not that expensive.

I did some research, and found a local CSA that has a winter option- reduced offerings, but it does include random items like local cider, local raw honey, local pastured beef, etc to make sure you're getting your money's worth. And it's a lot less than what I was spending at the grocery store.

I still need to buy some produce items at the grocery store (our current diet is restricted enough that we have to eat some veggies out of season, though I'd like to be able to eat with the seasons), but it's a lot less than before. I'm still buying our weekly pastured chicken at Whole Foods, but I may switch to getting it from the CSA- it's a little more expensive (not much), but it would mostly eliminate the need to go to Whole Foods every week. It's not nicknamed Whole Paycheck without reason.... I'm also trying to reduce the number of stores I'll have to go to each week once the baby comes- less running around with a newborn is always a good thing.

I really like how flexible our CSA is:

• monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly options
• small, medium, and large boxes of produce
• milk, eggs, fish, beef, pork, chicken, bread options (varying delivery options available)
• al a carte- you can order more of something if you want, and just pay for that
• very allergy friendly- easy substitutions
• you can quit any time it stops working for you- you pay weekly, as opposed to for the season
• Pickup and delivery options- less options in the winter, but more the rest of the year

I should mention that our CSA is not an actual farm that sells just what it produces: it finds local sources  for everything and builds the boxes from there. They tell us where everything comes from and whether it's organic, low-spray, etc.

So we get a large box of produce once a week, with a portion of pork (local, pastured pork- can't find that at Whole Foods) once a month. They send out an email each week stating what's in the boxes that week and I just respond and ask them to substitute the items we can't eat. They have the info in their computer, but responding each week allows me to state a preference for what we'd like instead- usually apples one week, squash another week, etc. Right now I drive downtown to pick up our box each week, but next month I'll be able to pick it up at a location that's a lot closer and more convenient- they'll be starting their regular spring/summer routine.

I hear everyone talking about Bountiful Baskets, but they're not available in our area :(
Do you get food from a CSA?