October 2, 2012

Ok, well a month has past and Lily is doing GREAT. Because of her limited diet, I have really been able to see her sensitivities. For example, there is an ingredient called xantham gum that is often used in gluten free foods. It can derive from several places, wheat, dairy, corn etc. Lily typically does not do well with this ingredient. She had some brownies that claim to be free of everything Lily can't have...but have this ingredient. Their website says that this ingredient comes from a source that makes it ok...well if that is the case than Lily can't have that ingredient under any circumstances because it makes her more hyper and less focused. So yet another, note to self.

Because we went cold turkey with the diet and eliminated everything at first, it got me thinking about her allergies and wondering if it was all corn related...after all, corn is in almost EVERYTHING, which includes ice cream and yogurt. The new experiment: Give Lily milk (and only milk) related products to test the possibility that MAYBE she could have dairy? So I went on the hunt for some yummy ice cream and didn't find ANY that I could give her so I ended up buying Kefir which has ice cream consistency but is more tart and tangy than sweet. Can I have another bowl? ABSOLUTELY! A third bowl? Why not? How about some cheese sticks? Sure, have THREE :)

Observation? Hyper Hyper Hyper....needing to climb EVERYTHING, no focus...she wouldn't follow direction. Then we climbed into the van to visit my brother and she wanted to read a book on the way. No big deal usually, she's been reading for a couple of years now except now, "Mommy my eyes won't focus! I can't read this!" She was totally frustrated. The following day Lily was super emotional, crying about everything. The third day she seemed back to normal (they say it can take up to three days for casein to get out of your system). End experiment. No more dairy for sure.

So, for those of you wondering what in the world she CAN/will eat, here is the list (with hopes of finding more things)
Vegetables (fresh or frozen, nothing from a can) Broccoli, green beans, carrots
Eggs (hard boiled or scrambled)
Rice, potatoes
Chicken (plain, kinda boring)
Bacon (this is a questionable one, I've been trying different ones)
Ham
Chocolate Chip Waffles and Pancakes
Fruit (fresh mostly and organic when possible, very few fruit cups are acceptable, nothing canned of course)
Rice pasta
Organic peanut butter (I use it on bananas)
Cookies (there is a small variety at the natural food store I was able to find...hard to find without soy though)
I found some organic rice krispy type marshmellow bars that she thinks are so-so
I also found a coconut strawberry bar that she really seemed to like, so I'm going to stock up on those.
Orange Juice Pops that I freeze myself
There are some fruit twists and fruit flats that she likes, they have citric acid in them though (on the list for corn) but it's hard to stay away from citric acid so I allow these from time to time.
Organic Lollipops and gummy bears (same deal with the citric acid though, but the girl has to have SOMETHING good!)

I'm sure there would be more if I was a creative cook (which I'm not sure I could ever be) I am going to try making some butter that she could have. I made a whipped topping from full fat canned coconut milk, organic brown sugar and some raspberries that she seemed to like, but the cake I made to go with it was quickly deemed unacceptable. I had found an angel food cake mix that I thought would be ok. The first ingredient was sugar, which I was concerned about. If an ingredient is just listed as "sugar", you don't know where that sugar comes from, so I've found that too, has been problematic. After eating the cake, at bath time she wouldn't follow direction to even get to the bathroom and get undressed. You could tell she was trying but for some reason she felt she needed to run around. When Anthony got frustrated when she couldn't get undressed she declared, "My brain won't SHUT UP!!" End of cake. It's all trial and error unfortunately.

After all this, I came across an article about rice and how it's filled with arsenic and that you should stay away from rice syrup. Well isn't that lovely? You just can't win. There's always gonna be something.