David and I have been worrying lately about Ellie's extreme mood swings and exczema. We had decided about two weeks ago to try and see if there was some food allergy behind all of this, and we think we have found a winner! She seems to be allergic to wheat, or gluten, I'm not entirely sure which. My initial thought was dairy, since all of us seem to have sensitivities to dairy. But, much to my surprise, I found that she would be fine after a bowl of ice cream, but crying and miserable after baked ziti and bread. After watching her closely for a few more days, we decided to try to cut the wheat out of her diet (no easy task around here!). While I have not seen a huge improvement in her overall exczema yet, I have definitely noticed fewer mood swings in the evening. Also (maybe somebody can explain this to me?), the times when she has wheat now, she reacts more severely than she ever did before. It's like her system has cleared out of a lot of the problem, and letting any back in just causes her little body to go bonkers. Today, for instance, she had a flour tortilla for lunch. Soon afterward, she was cranky, and her face, especially eyes, had puffed up like crazy. She started scratching at her eyes and her wrists (the wrist scratching used to be a classic after-dinner activity). While she's mellowed out a little since then, her face is still swolen and I just gave her some Benadryl to give her some relief. Poor kid.
I was a little daunted at the prospect at cutting wheat entirely out of our diet, but it's not turning out to be as bad as I had imagined. A lot of what we eat does not contain flour until I add bread as a side. We can start substituting rice and potatoes instead. I e-mailed a friend of mine who eats a gluten-free diet, and she had some great suggestions and recipes, especially a recipe for gluten-free pizza. I can't wait to try it. Fortunately, our family eats enough now that I can justify making normal pizza for some and GF pizza for others. While I am not entirely sure if she is allergic just to wheat or to gluten in general, it does not look like she has celiac disease to me. But don't worry, the next time we're at the pediatrician for a well-baby visit, I'll ask him to have her tested for all.
So, if you have any recipes based on rice and potatoes instead of pasta, let me know!
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When people have allergies, whether it be to pollen or pet dander or food, it is to a protein in that item. The standard wheat allergy protein is gluten. Gluten develops as wheat flour particles rub against each other, which is why we knead bread dough. Back in the day, everybody used to make their bread from a culture of yeast saved out from the last time they made bread. This culture became inoculated with a harmless bacteria (lactobacillus). The bacteria was happy to be there, because its main food source was the gluten protein. So while humans made their bread, the bacteria was busy pre-digesting the protein that a lot of humans couldn't handle. Nowadays, we make our bread with a bacteria-free tablespoon of dry yeast, or we can buy fake sourdough bread that has salicylic acid added to make it taste sour, without all the time-factor involved in real sourdough bread. Maybe a few weeks down the road when you get Ellie all cleared up, you could try a piece of old-fashioned slow-rise sourdough bread.
Glad Ellie is showing improvement. As an aside, my favorite gf cookbook of all time is 1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes. Your library might have it. We just tried the gf pizza recipe in it, and it was delicious!!
I'm fascinated by what your mom wrote, and interested in trying some old-fashioned slow-rise sourdough bread for us...
Poor Ellie! I will esp. be praying for wisdom for you and the calm endurance not to get overwhelmed by all the little food choices etc. that goes into catering diets. I definitely have some great recipes I can send your way. Maybe after this weekend? (J and James are coming til Tuesday) much love from CO.
Okay, NOT salicylic acid (that would be aspirin.) Tinkyada makes a wonderful brown rice pasta -- the texture is far superior to wheat, and we think it tastes better than flour pasta. They'd probably have it at your organic store. So Ellie has oatmeal for breakfast, sweet potatoes for lunch, and rice for dinner -- how easy is that? She needs to come eat with Grandma!
The having-a-worse-reaction-after-going-off-allergenic-foods thing sounds totally in line with the experiences of my two friends who have had radical food allergy/sensitivity testing this past year. Leann is sick to the stomach after communion where she was eating whole pieces of bread before! I don't know why, but Ellie's experience sounds in line with theirs. And after having both of them here to visit in the past couple of months, I've learned a few tricks for avoiding gluten for one person while wanting to have "normal" food for everyone else...my favorite discovery was to use almond flour (at Trader Joe's, it's not too expensive) for breading chicken (or even for pancakes and scones). Of course, with Tommy's potential nut allergy, I still had to do his with regular flour. And all-corn tortilla chips (check the brand, obviously, to make sure they're gf) and pure cornmeal cornbread (or muffins or pancakes) or popcorn were fairly easy snacks for my girlfriends. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it every day, but I realized it wasn't nearly as hard as I originally thought. You guys can totally make it work! Good luck!
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