Dealing With A VERY Restricted Diet
July 11, 2011 by Marci
My son has always had sensitive skin. If you change his body wash, he breaks out. If you change his lotion, he breaks out. If Grandma washes his clothes in her detergent, he breaks out. So, we found what works for him and we don’t change it.
Occasionally, his eyes get all puffy and weepy. We just keep him home for a couple days (a kind of quarantine) and it goes away. We can usually pinpoint at the least the location of the substance that is bothering him, if not the substance itself.
Fourth of July weekend my son went from puffy eyes to the worst rash I have ever seen on his legs, arms and then, eventually, up on his face. YIKES!! After a couple trips to doctors, chiropractors and nutritionists, they all agree that his system is on overload from something and needs to be cleaned out and then we can start the process to find out what is bugging this kid. That means a restricted diet and tight controls over where he goes and what he does.
The Restricted Diet
That brings us to his new diet that he needs to stick to for the next 2 weeks – NO eggs, dairy, grains of any kind, corn, or soy. That means nothing with corn syrup, corn or soy oil, too. He’s pretty much eating meat, veggies and fruit. Mind you, he’s a picky eater anyway, so this is tough. He really doesn’t like too many veggies. But, the poor little guy is so miserable that he his sticking with it. The rest of us don’t want to torture him, so we are trying to stick with it too.
In the summer, we usually have a couple meals a week of just grilled meat and veggies, but not every single meal of the week! I’ve had to be a bit creative. Here’s what I have come up with.
Meals
Meatballs with homemade tomato sauce
Grilled chicken with grilled veggies
Bean burritos, chips and salsa (restricted variation bowl of refried beans with salsa mixed in), guacamole
All natural hotdogs with organic ketchup, organic potato chips, fruit
Grilled pork chops, dads’s potatoes
Ham steak, green beans, fried potatoes
Hamburger without the bun, organic ketchup, mustard, celery with peanut butter, green beans
Deli ham, turkey or chicken, fruit
Snacks
fruit
beef jerky
black bean salsa without the corn
Any other ideas you could give me??
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I’m linking up to Menu Plan Monday at I’m An Organizing Junkie
Comments (11)
I have an idea, but you may not like it.
He also could be sensitive to some of the chemicals they put in meat (such as nitrates, etc). You might want to skip the ham, deli meat, and the beef jerky.
(ducking…please don’t hit me!)
I hear ya, Erin. I am getting organic, all natural meats and jerky without nitrates. Not cheap…
Good! I just noticed you mentioned that about the hot dogs, but not the others….they are pricey, but if you can swing it, I think it’s worth it!
I could give you some ideas; we have been trying to eat a paleo lifestyle; which is essentially the caveman diet, meats, fruits, veggies and nuts. Is he able to have nuts?
Thai Lettuce Wraps – mostly veggies, ground chicken, with a homemade dressing. My kids like it because you can pick and choose what you put in the wrap. I’ll e-mail you the recipe if interested.
greek grilled salad: marinate chicken and asparagus, mushrooms, peppers, veggies of your choice in 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/2 c. lemon juice, handful of dried oregano for an hour or more. Put on grill to cook. Put lettuce (romaine) on plate, place grilled chicken and veggies on lettuce, sprinkle on cashews, feta (but not for your boy), and dress with poppyseed dressing, or homemade raspberry, basil basalmic. My girls eat this all separated – pile of veggies, pile of lettuce, etc.
Hope he feels better.
I don’t tolerate gluten (wheat protein) or casein (milk protein) so I have a limited diet EVERY day. It’s challenging but it’s not horrible.
If you’re looking to be certain it’s a grain, be cautious about sauces and seasoning and anything else that might contain gluten and other grain products. Usually the label will say “contains wheat” but if it has gluten and not the wheat grain in it, they won’t label it that way.
In fact anything that says “natural flavoring” usually means they were too lazy to list out all the other crap they put into it which could mean gluten, msg, and other known allergens/intolerances.
Sorry I don’t have any more to add to your menu. I can have eggs, so most of my suggestions for variety would include eggs. You might look up “primal blue print” or “paleo diet” for suggestions. Those are my go to searches for new menu ideas.
Also, if you’re interested, I had some testing done at an independent lab after my gastroenterologist said I was “fine” and decided to stop treating me even though I was still getting sick. The lab results showed gluten and casein as being problematic and within 2 weeks of going gluten-free and casein-free all of my symptoms cleared up. I do have flare-ups if I’m not careful or I accidentally eat something I thought was safe (manufacturers changing ingredients, etc.), but it’s not nearly as bad as when I was eating those things every day.
Oh and watch out for the deli meats… they sometimes contain corn products and wheat.
If you can get grass-fed beef, it’s also a better choice than the grain fed kind (and it’s more tender and tastes better in my opinion).
Also – your burrito will have either a corn or wheat wrap and tortilla chips are usually corn and other grains. Not trying to pick on your menu, but I’ve been there done that and really screwed up on many occasions. It’s tough to have to think through every meal but it’s good that you’re doing it with him.
On the bright side, I have found some great substitutes for things like Oreos that are gluten and dairy free so there is light at the end of the tunnel.
And for ice cream… freeze a banana and some other fruit and drop it in the blender for a few with a little coconut milk or vanilla almond milk.
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