Going Totally Allergy Friendly

Our house is becoming almost totally milk and wheat free - FINALLY.  Can you say, "CHALLENGING?!?!?!?"  That's an exclamation, not a complaint.  I'm happy to be getting healthier for our family, and also keeping the twins safe.  But WOW.  This is hard.  VERY VERY HARD. 

Out of six of us, we've known that two are allergic to milk, but we recently learned that two more of us are lactose intolerant.  It makes sense for it to GO!  Everything in moderation, though, or I'll go insane (not to mention BROKE buying alternatives).  Elimination has been a slow process.  Just last night I read the calendar wrong and I had to have our oldest at play practice half an hour earlier than I'd planned.  UGH!  Dinner plans ruined.  I had enough prepared for the twins to have their food thrown into containers and eaten on the go, but I had to hit drive-thru for the rest of us.  As my skills grow, and planning gets better, I'm hoping that I will have more on hand to throw together for all of us, not just the twins.  If I learned to do it for two, I can learn to do it for six, right????

 I'm learning.  Always learning.  And sometimes I get tired, frustrated, despondent, and scared.  I once sat in the allergist's office alone with the twins.  My husband tries very hard to get away from work for important doctor appointments, but this one he had to miss.  I remember the doctor saying this wasn't the worst case he'd ever seen, but very close to it.  He told me to keep doing what we were doing, and we'll reevaluate when they're five and take it from there.  The twins weren't yet two, and we'd almost lost Z just a few months earlier.  Tears came to my eyes as I asked, jokingly, but meaning it from the depth of my being, "How do we keep them alive till then?"  He laughed a sympathetic laugh and said, "You're doing great, Mom.  Keep it up."  And then he sent us to a dietitian. 

The dietitian was helpful in determining nutritional goals and proportions, and had some great food suggestions, but she had no clue the scope of the problem.  She recommended a ton of foods and supplements that the twins had never tried before, and we'd just been told we couldn't introduce ANY more new foods until we visited the allergist again in a year.  To use a term I read in Angela's Ashes, "dark clouds" formed in my head.

I hit the Internet hard to learn how to cook.  I looked at recipes, not for their ingredients (the twins couldn't eat most of them), but to see the cooking instructions.  Chicken: how to roast it.  Seriously.  I had no idea you could just throw chicken pieces in a baking pan for an hour.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, baste with their natural juices at the end, and voila!  I learned Paula Deen's "House Seasoning."  Google it for proportions, but I just now sprinkle a bit of each of the three ingredients: salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Now I even add onion powder.  (I know from experience that if someone with food allergies read that, "dark clouds" gathered as they read "garlic" or "onions" or even "chicken."  Ignore them and look for the things you or your child CAN have.  It's okay.  I've been there.  I AM there.).

I hate cookbooks.  I don't use the "H" word often, but it's applicable here.  There is not any one cookbook, or just a recipe for that matter, that has everything I need.  Everything requires substitutions, experiments, and new versions to suit our family's needs.  I recently tried again.  I had some time to kill in a bookstore while waiting for a son's event.  I had the twins draped around my ankles and N standing with me, bored out of his head while I flipped through "Gluten-free" and "Dairy-free" cookbooks.  None of them were free of all of the twins' allergens all at once, and (this is my ugliness showing) I was annoyed at how self-assured and perfect these women seemed because they'd figured out how to cook without just one or two allergens.  Why I put myself through that "Dark Cloud" session again, I don't know.  But I picked up my guys and moved on.  Exhausted from looking at books, and feeling guilty for judging their authors.

THANKFULLY, now that I've finally learned to cook several things, feeding the twins really is not hard anymore. But it's boring.  We eat every version of chicken, beef, rice, basic veggies and potatoes imaginable.  My husband likes to say, "Welcome to how the rest of the world eats!"  Who knew so many foods could taste so good on their own!  (I'll be sure to post some of our family favorites).  It just feels like we're eating the same things all the time.  That's all. 

I need to add that I am so very thankful that "Dark Cloud" moments are fewer and farther between these days, but they still happen.  Last night's drive-thru incident, caused dark clouds to gather for a moment, but I'm much better at moving on.  This whole "relearning everything I thought I knew" is hard for me.  It might not be so hard for others who already know how to run a well-oiled household perfectly, but it's hard for ME.  But I'm learning.  And the Lord is so patient with me.  And soon our home will be full of all wonderful and safe foods for all (hopefully...pray for us!)!

Love,
G