Saliva Test

Before starting this diet, I took the Candida saliva test. Immediately after spitting in the glass, I had strings coming down from my saliva. Just out of curiosity, I decided to retest myself the other day. This time my saliva floated for about a minute and then one side started sinking but not in strings; just kind of cloudy looking like it was dissolving or something. So I still have Candida problem but it's getting better so I'm happy I'm seeing some sort of results.

Not liking the applesauce

Every since Shawn discovered that he liked the apple cider, he's been asking for applesauce. So last night I finally got off my butt and made some. I put in too much cinnamon but not enough that it was inedible but this morning when I asked Shawn to taste it, he almost gagged. So he's not ready for applesauce yet. I really don't understand what made him gag. It tastes almost like the apple cider. Maybe in a few more weeks we'll try it again and see if his tastes have changed.

Apple Cider

Shawn now likes Apple Cider! You would have thought we were making him drink poison when we started this diet but now he likes it. He asked me last night what Joshua was drinking and when I told him apple cider he asked if he could have some. So now that makes three things he's asked for that he previously didn't like - scrambled eggs, orange juice, and apple cider. We're getting there, slowly but surely!

Wow, that's all I have to say...

Ok, so I did not give Shawn any peanut butter today and guess what??? Not one cough! It's weird to think that peanut butter could have caused that kind of reaction. To think of the past two years when we thought he had seasonal allergies and it was probably the peanut butter all along. I'm still in amazement. Just one more thing to tell his pediatrician at his appointment on Thursday.

Another set back

So Shawn didn't bring home his agenda on Wednesday and Thursday but he said he had to move his stick to yellow. Wednesday he said that he forgot his agenda and Thursday he said he couldn't find his agenda. His behavior was a little off at home but not too bad. He was a little emotional, had really bad attention, but he wasn't too hyper. This morning a wrote a note to his teacher about his agenda and asked her how he's been doing the last couple of days. Today, he brought home his agenda and he had yellow for Wednesday, Thursday, and today. The note his teacher wrote to me was that he was having trouble at the end of the day. Well, I racked my brain trying to figure out if it was more die-off or if it was the tiny sip of smoothie with SCD Yogurt in it I gave him or the bite of herb bread that had Cheddar cheese in it. None of it made sense and then I re-read her note and the part about him having trouble at the end of the day was like a light bulb going off in my head. I recently made homemade strawberry jam and bought some natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt). I've been sending in a peanut butter and jam sandwich made between two almond flour pancakes in with him for snack. I talked his teacher into letting him eat a snack at the end of the day because they eat lunch at 10:15 and his bus doesn't drop him off until 3:45pm. It has to be the peanut butter! I can't believe I didn't think about that before. Technically, peanuts are an advanced food and we shouldn't be eating it right now, but we aren't doing the stages and I really didn't think they would have any effect on us. I guess I was wrong. It's kind of ironic because Shawn practically lived on peanut butter before we started this diet. He's also developed a cough since yesterday and I think some congestion (maybe post nasal drip?). I wonder if Shawn has a peanut allergy that we never knew about. He hasn't had any sinus problems or coughing since we started the diet but he still has the dark circles under his eyes. It makes me wonder. Of course now I have to pull the peanut butter and Shawn is not going to be happy about that. We have some homemade almond butter but it doesn't have much flavor. I'm going to try and mix some sea salt and honey into the almond butter and see if I can get it to taste decent enough to use on a sandwich. I think I should see an improvement in the next few days if I pull the peanut butter. If not, I guess it's back to the drawing board. This diet can be very confusing sometimes!

Still here...

Yes, I know it's been a while since my last post. We're still hanging in there. We did try a few new recipes. The first one was a recipe for Cinnamon Cookies and they were a huge hit! Don also tried a recipe for some herb bread and it was really good. Don didn't like it but me and the kids ate it up! I also tried another bread recipe that was just eggs and pureed carrot. It wasn't horrible but I thought it tasted really dry and resembled Styrofoam, lol. However, the kids really liked it. Since the kids liked the bread and it did resemble the same thickness as bread and wasn't cake like, I decided to make some strawberry jam and give them peanut butter (natural, only peanuts and salt for ingredients) and jam sandwiches. The kids ate them up. Then I decided to try the peanut butter and jam in between some almond flour pancakes and the kids still liked them so I think we'll just stick with the pancakes for right now.

RECIPES:

Cinnamon Cookies
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups blanched almond flour

Place butter in a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients, stirring the flour in last. Form dough into 1-inch diameter balls and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 275 degrees for 10-15 minutes, or until done.

Nut free/dairy free bread
4 egg whites
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup pureed veggies (I used carrots)
pinch of salt

Beat egg whites with salt until firm. Beat yolks with veggies. Fold yolks into whites and spread on parchment paper lined cookie sheet with edges. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes then flip the bread over and bake for another 10 minutes. I flipped the bread but I don't think it was really necessary.

Tasty Herb Bread
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup natural cheddar cheese-freshly grated
2 eggs 1/4 cup water
3 T. safflower oil
1/4 tsp. garlic - minced

In a large mixing bowl, combine almond flour, parsley, basil, oregano, baking soda, salt, garlic and cheddar cheese. In a separate small bowl, melt butter. Add eggs and water and beat together well. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth. Line bottom of loaf pan with parchment paper and lightly grease sides. Spoon dough into it. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. This bread is best kept refrigerated.

He ate it!

Shawn ate the "fish pancakes"! They didn't quite turn out the way they were supposed to. I read the directions wrong and they were a little on the runny side. I had a hard time thickening it up but decided to fry them as pancakes instead of rolling them into a ball. They were falling apart while I was trying to flip them but I managed to make a few intact. Don gave Shawn a bite and wouldn't tell him what it was. Shawn asked if it was a chicken pancake and when I said no, he wanted to know what it was. I asked him if he liked it and he said yes. I told him he couldn't change his mind once he found out what they were and when I told him they were fish pancakes, he got a huge smile on his face and said he wanted more. Joshua ate them too. So another huge victory today!

It's weird to me for Shawn to actually request certain foods now. He's been asking for scrambled eggs lately and he never ate eggs before starting this diet. I'm finally starting to see some progress made with him. As much as I worried about Joshua's weight when we started this diet, I don't think I have to worry anymore. He's been eating like crazy and he felt like he was getting heavier. I put him on the scale tonight and he weighed about 23.5 lbs. He was just under 20 lbs at his 18 month check up 6 months ago. So he's gaining weight and this is without drinking whole milk!

I was going to wait until their doctor's appointment (5-29) before starting them on any supplements but I went ahead and ordered a multi vitamin/mineral powder called GI ProChild. I'm going to go ahead and give it to Shawn as soon as we receive it but I think I'll wait until I talk to Dr. Tappan before starting Joshua on it. I just hope Dr. Tappan is open to the diet and doesn't give me any grief about it. I have yet to buy a probiotic. They are so expensive. I'm just going to keep using the yogurt until we don't see any more continued results and then think about buying some BioKult.

A Small Victory!

Ok, this may not sound like much to most people but...Shawn now likes orange juice. This is huge for two reasons. First off, he actually asked to taste it (he never asks to taste anything!) and second, he likes it. He's tasted orange juice in the past and even about a week into the diet and never liked it and now he does! I'm so excited! I just hope this is the beginning of new tastes for him. I'm going to make Salmon Latkes tonight for dinner and hope I can get Shawn to eat them. It's basically 2 cans of salmon, 1 carrot, 1 sm. zucchini, 1 onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 3 eggs, 2 T. almond flour. Shred the veggies in the food processor then add the egg and salmon, add salt and pepper to taste, and then add the almond flour to thicken. Form balls and fry. I'll let you all know how they turned out.

When we started the diet, I had read some things about die-off and one of them was little black specks in your BM's. Well, after 3 1/2 weeks (it's only been that long???), I finally saw some black specs in Shawn's poop this morning. It looked like black sand. Joshua also had some today which is a little weird they both had some on the same day. Both kids are now regular without the use of mineral oil so that in itself is a victory.

Another day of hyper activity

Shawn was pretty hyper today. Not as bad as yesterday but still got easily frustrated, etc. I thought about giving him another Epsom Salt bath but decided to put up with his behavior. So no more yogurt or cream cheese today. I hope his behavior is better tomorrow. We have church and I can not put up with him if he's acting like this. I might give him an Epsom Salt bath in the morning just to be on the safe side.

Extreme die-off!!!

After 2 days of SCD Yogurt and 1 day of SCD cheesecake, Shawn is going through some serious die-off. Wednesday and Thursday he came home from school with yellow in his agenda. Wednesday for not paying attention and getting his work done and Thursday for jumping on another student at pack up time. Today when he got off the bus, I noticed he was wearing different clothes than he had on this morning. When I asked him why, he told me that him and one of the other boys in his class got wet in the sprinkler on the way to speech. He told me he got on red but when I checked his agenda, it was green. Usually, if he gets yellow or red his teacher will put an X through the green dot and then give a yellow or red with a small explanation. I'm not sure if she forgot to mark his agenda or Shawn was mistaken but I think she probably forgot. His behavior was awful this afternoon. My voice was getting hoarse from yelling so much. He was very defiant, very whiny, argumentative, easily frustrated, and just plain mean. I had Don put him in the bath with some Epsom Salt and I made him soak for about 30 minutes. He was much better after the bath. I didn't give him anymore yogurt or cheesecake today. I'll see how his behavior is tomorrow and decide whether or not I want to give him any. If I do, I'll only give him a very small amount.

So it's been a few days since I posted so I wanted to update. We tossed the first batch of yogurt and started over. This time it turned out perfect. It is verrrry tart! It is definitely something you use in recipes instead of eating alone. I made a smoothie using strawberries, orange juice, some yogurt, honey, and some ice and it was pretty tasty. I added a banana the second time and it was even better. I talked Shawn into drinking some (about 2 oz). I told him he could either drink the smoothie or eat the rest of his meat and he chose the smoothie. Yesterday morning as he was eating breakfast, he complained that his stomach hurt and then said he needed to poop. He did not have diarrhea but wow, the amount of poop that came out of him was impressive. But then he had to poop again about 15 minutes later and had pretty much the same amount! I guess it was the probiotics at work. Yesterday he came home with yellow and a note from his teacher saying that he had difficulty paying attention and getting his work done. Hmmm, I'm not sure what he reacted to. It could be the probiotics in the yogurt causing die-off or it could be the goat milk. Goat milk is supposed to be more tolerable than cow's milk but it still contains casein. So I decided to use a trick suggested by someone on one of the boards I've been reading. I dripped the homemade yogurt which is supposed to get rid of the whey (which contains the casein). You end up with a cream cheese sort of mixture. I folded some honey into it and it doesn't taste bad but I didn't drip that much because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I'm dripping more as I'm typing this. I think it would be easier to get Shawn to take a teaspoon full than drinking a smoothie.

So much for stages...

Don and I talked and decided to give up on the stages. We are just going to eat off the legal list and not worry about whether it is an advanced food or not. We are all just sick of the same foods and I can't keep up with all the cooking not to mention the cost of meat, produce, coconut oil, almonds (for almond flour and almond butter), and eggs. Everyone is a bottomless pit right now. I think because the food we were eating is supposed to be easy to digest so an hour later we were getting hungry again. I suppose after being on the diet for a while and getting used to the cooking and the food we're eating, we may try the stages again but we'll move a little more quickly through them next time.

This morning I made pancakes out of nut flour and they were really good! Much better than the almond flour pancakes I made before we started the diet. We also made some nut butter brownies that turned out really good. It was nice to be able to give the kids a treat. I'm going to make a huge batch of the almond flour pancakes tomorrow so I can freeze some. I just checked my yogurt and found that the inside lid popped off and the yogurt looked too runny. I'm going to let it ferment a bit longer and see if it thickens up. I can't wait to taste it, it kind of smelled like cream cheese but I doubt it will taste like cream cheese, lol.

The two recipes that got 2 thumbs up:
Nut Butter Brownies:

1 cup nut butter (we used almond butter)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. It doesn't look like much when you spread it in a pan but it rises so no worries. We used an 11 X 7 " pan.

Almond flour pancakes:

1 1/4 cups of almond flour
4 medium eggs
4 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon butter

Mix all ingredients together in a blender for a light, fluffy texture. Pour onto a buttered electric griddle (preferable) at 275 degrees or a buttered pan. Cook slowly until golden brown; a bit longer than for regular flour pancakes.

Don cheated!

I can't really blame him. I suck at providing food, lol. I try to have plenty of food every day but sometimes, I run out. Take last night for example...I came home from a relaxing night at a friends house. My plan was to put the roast and carrots in the Crockpot so it would be done in the morning and Don could take it to lunch and then in the morning, throw in some chicken so I could make more chicken pancakes. When I got home, I immediately got the roast in the Crockpot and turned it to low and then cleaned up the kitchen. This morning, I looked in the Crockpot and the meat still looked raw. I looked to make sure I remembered to turn it on and it was set to low and then I realized that it wasn't plugged in, duh! So that ruined my plans and I had nothing for Don to take to lunch. At least he only had a salad, even though he probably had dressing that was illegal. Oh well, it's more for Shawn than the rest of us anyway.

I'm not so sure that the green beans were giving me the gas. It seemed like no matter what I ate, I would get gas immediately after eating. It's getting better now and I've been eating green beans. Maybe it was die-off? I don't know but I'm just going to keep adding new foods and see how we do. After being on the diet for a while, we can always go back to the intro and start over if we are worried about a particular food.

I got my yogurt maker today. Don is going to stop at Super Target after he gets off from work at Lowe's. I'm going to have him look to see if they have goat milk and if they do, I'll have him get some so we can make some SCD yogurt. There's a whole lot more recipes that have SCD yogurt in it so I'm anxious to make my first batch. Plus, I want to add more calories to Joshua's diet. Don gets paid next Friday and will have 3 weeks worth of pay from Lowe's. I'm going to finally buy a probiotic for us to take and a multi-vitamin for the kids.