Tribal Mamas - Healing Our Families

Hot Potato!

2012-02-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when you go down the path of the GAPS / SCD list of allowed/disallowed (legal/illegal) foods you will come across someone who thinks you are *crazy* for omitting certain healthy foods. For people with a compromised gut there are steps to be taken before returning to the foods, particularly sugars and starches, we once enjoyed.

My friend, Elli, has been healing her rheumatoid arthritis for years with the Nourishing Traditions diet and has recently begun her GAPS journey. She has found a more complete healing with GAPS than she had been experiencing previously and has become a big believer in the GAPS solution. Her kids will soon be going on intro and hopefully I'll get her to write up a few posts sometimes soon!

In the meantime, she has become a local cheerleader for GAPS. She is our local Weston A Price chapter leader and teaches cooking classes in her home so you could say she has somewhat of a "following" already. The other day she sent out a rah-rah-GAPS notice to her e-mail list and I guess someone responded with doubts. In particular, doubts about the need to eliminate potatoes. I particularly enjoyed the storytelling nature of Elli's response (to the full listserv) and thought I'd share it here.

Although you may not be eating potatoes today you may want to add them back in later and this will give you some things to think about when that time comes!!!

- Kati

My friend Sam responded to my email about GAPS in this way, "Those Peruvians have 3,000 different kinds of potatoes, and can outwork any white man. Explain that with GAPS."

What a fabulous question!!! I thought you might appreciate his question and my response below:

Sam,

You are awesome!!

Those Peruvians started out eating potatoes with dirt. They watched the llamas, who dug up potatoes with their hoofs, rolled the potatoes around in mud, and ate them. The dirt has enzymes that helps neutralize the toxins in the old breed of potatoes. When Peruvians started eating wild potatoes, they copied the llamas, serving potatoes in a mud sauce, taking advantage of the enzymes available in the dirt.

Once the Peruvians started growing potatoes, they breed them so there were less and less toxins over the years. Even though there were less toxins in the potatoes, the Peruvians continued to ferment potatoes prior to eating.

We find that all over the world in cultures where people live close to the Earth - complex carbs get fermented prior to eating. Sourdough bread, fermented oats, and yes, fermented potatoes. Fermenting breaks down the complex carbs into simple carbs so your gut doesn't have to try to do that incredibly complex job.

Because our standard American diet does NOT require fermenting carbs, we've got gut problems and health issues that the ancient cultures lacked.

GAPS gets all of the complex carbs out, until the gut is in much much better shape. This usually takes 2 years or longer. Once the gut is healed, a person on GAPS can, if they want to, try out fermented carbs - sourdough bread, fermented oats, fermented potatoes, etc. If those fermented complex carbs agree with the healed gut, then the person on GAPS can include them in their diet. If not, the gut may still be fragile and require more healing first.

Here's an article in the Smithonian Magazine about the history of potatoes. Read it with your Weston A. Price glasses on.

I've pulled the paragraphs out about the way the ancients prepared and ate potatoes. Here they are:

Wild potatoes are laced with solanine and tomatine, toxic compounds believed to defend the plants against attacks from dangerous organisms like fungi, bacteria and human beings. Cooking often breaks down such chemical defenses, but solanine and tomatine are unaffected by heat. In the mountains, guanaco and vicuña (wild relatives of the llama) lick clay before eating poisonous plants. The toxins stick—more technically, “adsorb”—to the fine clay particles in the animals’ stomachs, passing through the digestive system without affecting it. Mimicking this process, mountain peoples apparently learned to dunk wild potatoes in a “gravy” made of clay and water. Eventually they bred less-toxic potatoes, though some of the old, poisonous varieties remain, favored for their resistance to frost. Clay dust is still sold in Peruvian and Bolivian markets to accompany them.

Edible clay by no means exhausted the region’s culinary creativity. To be sure, Andean Indians ate potatoes boiled, baked and mashed, as Europeans do now. But potatoes were also boiled, peeled, chopped and dried to make papas secas; fermented in stagnant water to create sticky, odoriferous toqosh; and ground to pulp, soaked in a jug and filtered to produce almidón de papa(potato starch). Most ubiquitous was chuño, which is made by spreading potatoes outside to freeze on cold nights, then thawing them in the morning sun. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles transform the spuds into soft, juicy blobs. Farmers squeeze out the water to produce chuño: stiff, styrofoam-like nodules much smaller and lighter than the original tubers. Cooked into a spicy Andean stew, they resemble gnocchi, the potato-flour dumplings in central Italy. Chuño can be kept for years without refrigeration—insurance against bad harvests. It was the food that sustained Inca armies.

Even today, some Andean villagers celebrate the potato harvest much as their ancestors did in centuries past. Immediately after pulling potatoes from the ground, families in the fields pile soil into earthen, igloo-shaped ovens 18 inches tall. Into the ovens go the stalks, as well as straw, brush, scraps of wood and cow dung. When the ovens turn white with heat, cooks place fresh potatoes on the ashes for baking. Steam curls up from hot food into the clear, cold air. People dip their potatoes in coarse salt and edible clay. Night winds carry the smell of roasting potatoes for what seems like miles.

Love,

Elli

A Face for Radio

2012-02-27T14:00:00.002-05:00

I figure since I'm writing this about myself, I can say that... Seriously, this healing diet stuff is TOUGH on a Mama and I don't know about you but the dark circles from lack of sleep and pale skin from lack of sunshine (it is, after all, February) has left me with a face for RADIO. I am pretty sure I would not have agreed to do this one if it were on TV/YouTube. LOL!

Anyway, if you have an hour and want to spend it with me blathering on in the background, here it is: BlogTalk Radio with Beth Wiles. It was actually pretty fun and if at least one parent gets at a nugget of information / wisdom they needed then it was well worth my time.

Sour Cream Pork Chops Braised with Cabbage

2012-02-20T17:10:00.003-05:00

This recipe is a modified Paula Deen recipe. The woman knows her pork chops, but I had to make some adjustments to make it GAPS friendly. These melt in your mouth and are just sooo good. My husband and I aren't big fans of pork chops, but these converted us for sure. They are also GAPS, SCD, LOD, Gluten-free, and Paleo friendly!

Ingredients

Four thick (3/4"-1") Pork Chops
Sea Salt to Taste
2 Tablespoons lard (or ghee, butter, goose fat, any legal fat really)
1.5 cups onions cut into rings
1 cup stock or broth, preferably chicken, but any will do
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried mustard (if you have a favorite Dijon that is legal or homemade, feel free to use that instead)
1 tsp paprika
1 cup (8oz) sour cream, or dripped yogurt if you really need to substitute
3/4-1 head white cabbage, depending on how much your family likes to eat
4 - 8 oz mushrooms, again depending on your family

Method

1) Salt the Chops

2) Heat fat over medium/high heat. Brown the pork chops 4-5 minutes per side. Place onions evenly over the chops.

3) Combine spices, and broth (and Dijon if using) and pour over chops. Place cabbage and mushrooms over chops. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4) Remove cabbage and mushrooms, or at least most of them. Turn off heat, and stir in sour cream. Do not boil.

Serves 4... or less if you don't eat a giant pork chop each!

Enjoy!

Kai's Story Part 2

2012-02-20T16:47:00.003-05:00

Life is returning to normal.

Kind of. I guess "normal" with the exception that we went from a low-fat diet where I cooked all the time in an attempt to get my husband healthy, to a high-fat grain-free diet where I cook all the time to get everyone in the family healthy. Not too big of a change if you really think of it. Oh, and my son who previously couldn't talk doesn't stop now. I don't mind that at all!

Now that I have the hang of Low Oxalate GAPS and a good amount of recipes that my family likes, plus a routine for getting everything accomplished, my husband and I are venturing back into the world of having a social life and friends again outside of the diet. I'm also getting my house back together room by room. It is nice.

Kai is still rapidly improving. Amongst detoxing and periodic oxalate dumps, he is shining through as the healthy, happy boy he is supposed to be. His speech therapist came last Wednesday, and she feels that when she comes back in a month to check up on him to make sure he is still progressing and has no lingering problems, that it will probably be her last visit before he is discharged and declared caught up to his peers. She is sad about this because Kai definitely is not shy about showing how much he likes her by showering her with hugs, but she is, of course, still happy to see him talk. So, can this diet help with Apraxia/Dyspraxia of Speech? Yes! It most certainly can. Especially if your child has known food intolerances and digestive issues go for it!

These days, Kai is describing pages in books to us, telling us how other people feel, telling us what he did during the day, and all the adorable little things a two-year-old should be talking about. He still has some sort of skin issue on his head (psoriasis or dandruff or eczema of some sort), but he is just about symptom free. I am amazed by how quickly he healed. There are advantages to starting before you are even two years old!

I've started reading parenting books to help me figure out how to raise this energetic, mischievous, wonderful boy. I'm also working on keeping him on a schedule, including a nap, in hopes of helping him to eventually sleep through the night without issue, and not do things like fall asleep at the bottom of the stairs by our playroom while I'm making dinner. He likes his schedule, so this is working out well. I mention this because I think too often we get caught up in thinking that the diet should fix everything, but sometimes you need to go and look into the other aspects of child rearing to truly heal your child completely.

I enjoy our diet. I am feeling the healthiest and calmest I ever have. My husband is making large strides. Now I just need to convince my almost 9 month old daughter that she wants to eat solid foods (in addition to breastfeeding of course) and my family will be on the path I'd like. My daughter, by the way, is still developing wonderfully typically.

I've become sort of a mad scientist in the kitchen. I'm having some successes. I just got some French cookbooks as they seem like they will translate well to Low Oxalate GAPS with dairy tolerated. I'll share my successes with you for sure! I've tried many times to write something for this blog, but I always feel inadequate. Recipes, though, recipes I can do. I hope you like them.

What I can say is that it does get much easier. You start to enjoy the diet. You stop being embarrassed by it. You stop being overwhelmed by it. It becomes a natural, joyful part of your life. (Except for those days when you're detoxing, or someone you love is, but even then, you know it's temporary.) Don't ever give up hope. Fight for your health and the health of your family. You will find the way.

Then life will go back to normal, or it might even be more normal than it was before if you find yourself with a child who is finally developing typically. There is no better feeling in the world!

The Fungus Amungus

2012-02-13T23:00:00.001-05:00

Last night at Tribal Council we did not vote anyone off the island. We also took a break on serving "Surviver" worthy foods challenges and just served the amazing GAPS Donuts that Saved Christmas and some coconut macaroons. Oh, and a little Sauerkraut because we just love it so!

Also, I should fess up in case any stalkers are getting excited about the Tribal Council. It was really just the local monthly GAPS circle and no, nobody was sporting a loincloth. In fact, there was no skin showing whatsoever. Just a bunch of Mamas and a couple of kids in the ten-year-old range.

Anyway, I made a comment last night about "bad belly bugs" and the "dreaded yeast" controlling our brains. Any Mama who has gone through the dreaded die off on SCD / GAPS knows what I'm talking about. No, your child does not NEEEEEEEEED sugar (or cake) the way they are claiming, and don't think of that as your child. Think of your child as a puppet - it is the belly bugs talking from deep inside their gut! Your poor child is under the control of one tough opponent, the guys we affectionately call "belly bugs" in our home. It only lasts 7-10 days in most cases and then the sugar craving is gone and life gets a whole lot more healthy!

Similarly, at times when your children / significant other is making you C-R-A-Z-Y with erratic behavior, keep in mind that it just might be the bugs talking. I have started to think of my family (and myself) as some percentage of self and some percentage of Poltergeist. The percentages can change overnight and sometimes I know why they shifted and sometimes I start checking lunar calendars, Jupiter rising, mold counts, and fungal growth below the nails. Kidding again, kind of.

However, every now and then when the people I love are driving me over the edge, I stop and remind myself that it is not them I am frustrated with at the moment... It is the bacteria / viruses / fungus / parasites inside of them. Because my daughters and husband really ARE perfect. It's just those darn creatures from the other branches of the Animal Kingdom that we barely studied in school that are controlling them. Got a lot of drama? Hm, perhaps yeast. Got a child throwing temper tantrums and acting really strange? Hm, perhaps parasites / bacteria. Got a strange layer on the child's scalp? Hm, perhaps a fungus. Bizarre swelling / rash? Perhaps virus. You get the picture.

I once read about a parasite researcher with a theory that a cat-based parasite was controlling his behavior. And some of his contemporaries thought his research to be possible/credible. So it isn't just me with this "You are crazy but it's okay because you have no control over your emotions" theory.

So with this "theory" of mine backed up by an obscure researcher, I like to throw around this "zombie" theory totally irresponsibly like it might be possible and a fact to consider. Just because that's the way I roll (but always with the caveat that it is my own personal theory and yes, I know that I just my be crazy or at least obsessed, just ask my brother). And then last night, my future neighbor, Elli, threw down another piece of evidence with an AMAZING story from the rain forest for our youngest Tribal Council members who were paying any attention to the yammering ons of the Tribal Elders.

This is the story (approximately) she told:

There is an ant in the rainforest that, when under the mind control of a fungus catching a ride on its exoskeleton, will crawl all the way up to the top of the tree where it will do the fungus' bidding and die. The fungus needs to get to the top of the tree to proliferate but it doesn't have legs. So it mind controls the ant to do its bidding and the ant dies and the fungus lives.

Elli had more details but that is it as best I can remember it. So I woke up at 3 AM totally excited about this ant being remote controlled by a fungus on it's back. I mean... really... Talk about a proverbial monkey on your back! So I fact checked Eli's cool story and found it is even more incredible than she made it sound. The crazy fungus has been controlling the ants for over 48 million years! That is a lot of practice time for mind control of a group of zombie ants! And don't even get me started on the synchronicity of all the ants showing up in the same area at the same time and none of those fungi even have a watch! Shoot, my Mama friends and I can't even do that for a playground playdate. Although, in our defense, we are trying to round up multiple zombies under mind control that is, unfortunately, not our doing (as best we can tell, or the downstairs would be a whole lot more tidy).

So, if you find yourself in a zombie like state walking toward the pantry, or if your four year old is muttering about cake and lollipops 18 months into GAPs, or if you are listening on the phone to a friend's seven year old scream, "I want pizza," over and over... That may be the bugs talking directly to you, via their favorite medium, someone you love!

Zombies: It isn't just for humans anymore!

Fact Checking References:
Fungus makes zombie ants administer ‘death bite’ at noon
Parasitic Fungi and Zombie Ants

Egads Dads!

2012-01-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

Most of us local Mamas have spouses "along for the ride" so to speak on our crazy SCD/GAPS dietary adventures. Some spouses have been through an autism diagnosis, the biomed route (loads of supplements to heal the body), the gluten-free diet, the gluten-free + casein-free diet, gluten-free + casein-free + soy-free + corn-free diet, elimination diets for allergies, Weston A Price diet, etc.. Is it any wonder that they are beyond DONE with diets by the time they arrive at SCD/GAPS?

So for the most part they support us with, "yep, sure, and uh-huh" to our obsessive rantings about sustainable agriculture, chemical free cleaning products, clean spices, and disaccharide/polysaccharide free menu options. It is not just my husband who, although supportive, grows weary of all the SCD/GAPS talk around the house.

These are good guys. They see the positive changes in the kids. They support their wives. They think only a mother would be crazy enough to do all this work. But some have dared to wonder aloud if the kids would just outgrow their issues and if we aren't just killing our Mama selves over nothing.

Sure they would... Just like the laundry magically gets folded and messes are magically cleaned up. Sometimes what looks like a kid outgrowing something is really a testament to the mother who did not give up. In fact, it is a wonderful thing if the Mama of the house has managed to make it all look fine to the outside world. If teachers just say things like, "Wow, ________ has recently turned a corner and is doing really well," just smile and nod. Explaining that you are tired to the bone just sounds a little like whining. But I digress. Maybe I need a nap.

So... I received two coincidental phone calls this past week. Two Mamas have husbands who, after being the mostly supportive dad and eating SCD/GAPS when the kids are present, went off the wagon last week for "business reasons." At home they had been mostly eating SCD/GAPS for months, although they did sneak treats here and there (perhaps almost daily, but just a little cheating since they aren't technically required by their own Mama to be on the diet). Last week both of them, for different reasons, were eating out most of the week. By day three they cried uncle. Well, at least their bodies cried uncle. I think both men were becoming intimately acquainted with their bathrooms as a result of all the processed, who-knows-what-laden meals they were consuming.

I am trying not to get a chuckle out of all this. Really, I am. But frequently the spouses give us Mamas SUCH a hard time thinking that these little changes don't *really* make that much of a difference. That cheating here and there shouldn't/wouldn't/couldn't be a big deal. We patiently explain the theory about starving out the pathogenic bacteria and that infractions, whether purposeful or not, reset the clock on starving out the bad guys. Keep in mind the size of the pathogens and that a tiny amount of cheating can feed a lot of bad bugs!

Anyway, these two dads (if they care to step back and analyze WHY they feel so badly) probably feel as though they are visiting the planet krypton. They used to have stomachs of iron and ate all that #$%^ without a problem. But now... now... Now their body has had a chance to get rid of some of the layers of toxins. Now when they put processed junk into their bodies their bodies know enough to rebel against the assault!

So, the big question is... how many times will they repeat the experience before deciding that _______________ doesn't agree with them. Or just admit that perhaps, just perhaps, their little apples didn't fall all that far from their tree. The kids being healed on this diet could come in the size / shape / ages of fathers as well.

I Love the Wavy Chopper

2012-01-19T14:00:00.001-05:00

There is a lot of cooking on the SCD/GAPS diet. A lot. It is almost too much for any Mama to bear unless she really loves cooking and already knows how to cook circa 1880. Do you already make bone broth on the average day? Are you handy with fermenting? How is your liver recipe repertoire?

We homeschool our older daughter and so learning new recipes is a part of her education. It's a wonderful chance to teach her about her body, about foods and nutrition, and also a little math (measuring and fractions). I love listening to her repeat a favorite recipe (like coconut fish) to her friend or better yet to a mom at the playground.

However, I sometimes shy away from having the kids do work in the kitchen because of the supervision it requires. Cooking is not my favorite thing to do, so spending more time on it is not something I usually try to do. LOL! So with my 4.5 year old it is mostly a matter of her dumping ingredients in and turning on an appliance.

However, I have recently found that giving either of the girls a big batch of carrots / apples / pears to chop keeps them busy and gets a job done that I didn't have to do myself. A 4.5 year old (or 6 year old) with a knife? Well, not quite. I have an awesome secret weapon. The wavy chopper. I recommend it for any parent of a preschooler. See, we were a Montessori family before the homeschooling request from Ani. The Montessori catalogs are filled with all kinds of adorable child-sized housekeeping equipment. It honestly looks like you could start a preschoolers housekeeping service if you got a few of each from the catalog. Kids love to do this stuff, especially with the right equipment.

The beauty of the wavy chopper is that by its design it keep the child's fingers away from the blade/surface of the cut. So with a small cutting board and her own wavy chopper, Ani was happy to help me with the carrots. I even filled the sink in their play kitchen so they could take their time scrubbing the carrots. The beauty of the wavy chopper is they are so self-sufficient. I can do five other things while they spend 20-30 minutes on carrots and it doesn't bother me because it is one less thing for me to worry about (make that two - one is the carrots and the other is "what are the kids doing since it is so quiet").

Check out the wavy chopper if you could use a little assistance in your own kitchen and your kids are too young to use a knife (or if you are too busy/distracted to supervise knife skills). We got ours from Montessori Services. I highly recommend the one with the plastic handle but do not recommend the one with the wooden handle (the leverage is tough for a young child). The cutting boards we use are from Epicurean (we don't cut on plastic and most bamboo boards have formaldehyde in them). Also, you can find wavy choppers on Amazon.com!

Enjoy!

The donuts that saved Christmas

2012-01-11T22:12:00.003-05:00

Here is the infamous donut recipe from one of my favorite blogs.

http://comfybelly.com/2010/05/coconut-flour-donuts/

My mom made, literally, like 5 batches of these before we came to visit and froze them. She used a mini-donut maker that made the cooking very easy and the cleanup even easier. Just do an internet search on "mini donut maker" and you'll see lots of inexpensive options. The final step of brushing with honey then coating with coconut is an extra touch that makes these look and taste fantastic, even to a non-gaps palate.

They freeze well and are perfect for when you just gotta have something "normal".

Enjoy!! Thank you Comfy Belly!!!!

GAPS through the mouth of an Italian Grandmother

2012-01-11T21:47:00.003-05:00

The GAPS program is an honest look at what we have been feeding our bodies for so long. I find the Program fascinating, restrictive, difficult, monotonous and stressful. With that said, do I think it is effective? Yes, yes, yes! As a grandmother who likes to cook and create meal events (mostly involving refined carbs), retrofitting GAPS into my passion for Italian cooking traditions and social gatherings (of which food is a MAJOR part) has been challenging but doable. I realized a mindset adjustment was required.

My Italian cooking has always been more about nourishing the soul and keeping souls together (family gatherings)rather than stuffing their little tummies with treats that may cause long-term ill health. I can now approach any modified recipe with my previous passion. I am making this for my grand children and they will take delight in it. The end result is sound nutrition. I can have my cake and eat it too, figuratively speaking of course! I continue to perfect my “Nonnie” culinary instincts and provide the grandkids with so much more in the long run. We all win.

I use the anti-smoking campaign to help me understand the changes which will eventually have to occur in our society. In the 70’s, we all knew smoking had a negative impact on our health yet many of us continued to do so. Campaign after campaign, testimonials from people who suffered the afflictions from smoking, repeated surgeon general warning, etc. were presented to us on a daily basis. It took a very long time for that information to assimilate and for people to change. GAPS is on the forefront of change for how we eat, heal and nourish our children.

A GAPS family has to dedicate themselves to food preparation and food consumption in our crazy busy world dependent upon quick processed meals. Children will become responsible for food preparation, admittedly, according to their developmental ages. They will understand where the food comes from, how it is prepared and what the food can provide for their bodies. They can and will learn healthy habits from the get-go. Daddies must be on board (granddads too) to make this lifestyle change a success for the entire family.

The most difficult time for me understanding/accepting GAPS was during the initial stage (Intro) where I witnessed the “die-off” phenomena first hand with my young grandchildren. One child vomited and become listless. My first instinct was to give her something “sweet” to jolt her into feeling better. The second child refused to eat and looked frighteningly thin. These episodes were brief and eventually quieted down, But it broke my heart to see my grandkids so sick. It was hard for me to stay silent and supportive during the initial stages of the program. I probably misspoke on one or two occasions with suggestions like “What are we doing to these kids??” or “ Give her a popsicle or lollipop, please!!” My daughter’s confidence, calmness and resolute brought me back to earth, but I was emotionally exhausted when I returned home. My daughter’s commitment has brought us 7 months into the GAPS program. Yes, it is easier and calmer in some respects. We’ve soldiered through Halloween, Thanksgiving, birthday parties, movies, friends’ visits and of course, Christmas. Valentine’s Day is on the horizon in a month or two and presents no problem to us. Bring it on. We are ready. We are prepared. And the children are thriving. I have already thought of a food alternative rather than a chocolate piece of candy tucked into a Valentine.

I’m on board. I’m a GAPS Italian grandmother who uses coconut flour instead of white flour, ghee instead of margarine, raw honey instead of white sugar and make the most delicious baked mini donuts for my grandkids. Once I give them a catchy Italian name like my now extinct Cucidadi or Pignoli cookies, I will be happy. I’ve also learned to make the richest beef marrow stock! I grew up on bone marrow so this was not a stretch for me. And it is oh so good! No, I’m not making traditional Italian cuisine with tons of pasta anymore but the essence of Italian cooking remains. This is clean food made from scratch and with handfuls of love and shared together. I will continue this journey. I have so much to learn.

GAPS is not for sissies but I challenge any grandparent to come on board. You can create new traditions for the sake of the long range health of your family. You can do it. I cannot think of a better legacy to leave my wonderful Ryan, Mary Katharine and Ethan. But not so fast, I intend to follow GAPS for myself and the grandfather too. We want the best chance at a front row seat for our grandchildren’s future growth and development.

Mangia!

Anna aka "Nonnie"
P.S. The mini donuts will now be referred to as “zeppole”
(donut in Italian…) and of course, I am happy!

Blondies

2012-01-10T18:00:00.002-05:00

Do you know how you can tell a professional blogger from a Mama? The professional bloggers get favorite holiday recipes out BEFORE the holidays.

Unfortunately, I am not a professional blogger. Maybe one day ;-) For now I will have to be content to share my favorite experiments AFTER the holidays. Today's recipe is a smash hit in our household and judging by the pan I brought to the GAPS circle chat last Sunday I think I'm onto something... Of course, it took me about five delicious iterations to get to this place so perhaps this will be a great jumping off place for you to do a few delicious iterations and find your own perfect blondie. I think it would be tasty with dried cranberries or something for a festive twist.

BTW, I call it a blondie (as opposed to a brownie) because it has the thick/chewy consistency like a brownie. I look forward to one day adding cocoa into this recipe (I'm sure with a heavy hand the first time I try - lol). If you try it that way definitely let us know how much you used and whether it needed more (because I am a firm believer in never needing less chocolate).

Blondies

Ingredients
1 lb of sunflower seeds, soaked and dehydrated
1/4 cup of warmed coconut oil (or other oil)
6+ eggs (duck eggs are my choice, particularly for baking)
3/4 cup of honey, more if desired
2 tsp vanilla

Step One: Make sunflower seed butter
Put the pound of soaked and dehydrated (sometimes to save time I use the Go Raw brand instead of doing the soaking/dehydrating myself) into a food processor. Turn on the food processor and slowly drizzle in the oil as the sunflower seeds are whirling around. If you've not made sunflower seed butter before you spin it until it eventually clumps into a big ball in the food processor. Stick with it through this phase and it will smooth out afterwards. Sometimes I stop the food processor a few times and scrape down the sides but with the oil it is less necessary to do that step.

Step Two: Add everything else
Add the rest of the ingredients to your sunflower seed butter and run the food processor again. The perfect batter is one that is not sticky and firm but instead one that pours easily / drips from a spoon (although it will still be a little sticky from the honey).

NOTE: In my egg count, keep in mind I am using duck eggs which are a little bigger than chicken eggs. The most important thing to pay attention to is the viscosity of your batter - is it dripping off a spoon easily or is it thicker? If you are using chicken eggs you may find 7 or 8 eggs is the ideal number. Also, if you use chicken eggs when you pull it out of the oven and it cools, it may sink compared to how fluffy it looked when hot. That is not a "problem" it is just because the chicken eggs do not have the same quantity of raising / levening agent in the duck eggs. If you want baked goods to be the ultimate in fluffy you'll have to give a duck egg a try!

Step Three: Bake
Grease an 8x11 pan (I particularly like duck fat but have also used bacon grease and plan to try palm shortening next), pour in the batter, lick the spoon, and put it into an oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Step Four: Catch it when it's perfect
The key to a good blondie is to cook it just perfectly. You do not want to overcook it or it gets quite dry (and these ingredients are just a little more expensive than the average experiment I care to throw out). Start checking it around 30 minutes by putting a knife in the middle and pulling it out. If it pulls out cleanly then you are done. If it is not done, check again in the next 3-5 minutes or so. Don't go by visuals since sometimes it can look a little "wet" on the top but actually be finished - I got fooled with one batch by the dessert mirage so just throwing that out there.

So how is THAT for a whole food? Five ingredients or less? No problem! This is such a tasty option filled with protein that I wouldn't have a problem giving it for breakfast on a special day. Maybe the next sleepover we won't have to serve butternut squash soup to some kids who look at me like I'm crazy.

This is a large batch so be sure to show a little restraint since eating the whole pan *might* be a little much unless you are a family of 12. I think it would freeze pretty well but we've not yet had an opportunity to test that. Again, if you do let us know how it goes.

Enjoy!

p.s. If you are comfortable with your egg source enjoy licking the pan, the spoon, and be careful with that food processor blade as you lick it too.

Cranberry Goodness

2011-12-12T14:00:00.003-05:00

We had the MOST *A*M*A*Z*I*N*G* Thanksgiving feast this year. Two GAPS families, a cool Paleo dude and a lovely GAPS/WAPF dentist. It was, as I said, *A*M*A*Z*I*N*G*

One thing that stood out on our holiday table, that you might consider adding to your Christmas feast this year, were the ferments. We had four ferments on the table: cranberry-lemon, cranberry-orange, muscadine grapes, and fermented turnips! Not even a jar of sauerkraut made it to the table that day. LOL!

Anyway, the cranberry-orange was phenomenal. Stole the show, in my opinion. I ate at least a cup that day and finished the remaining cup or so the following morning. I traded close to a pint of amazing gravy for a cup of this ferment, it was so wonderful.

So... drumroll... The recipe, as I have now tweaked it:

2 12 oz bags of organic cranberries, fresh
1 organic orange
ground cloves
ground cardamom
Celtic sea salt
honey
water kefir
filtered water
3 wide-mouthed canning jars

Rinse the cranberries and split them evenly between the three jars.
Peel the orange (you can use some of the peel in this ferment but if you are watching oxalates you are better off without the peel and the pith) and slice it to make sure all seeds are out. Split the orange (+ optional peel/pith) evenly between the three jars.
Put a scant 1/4 tsp of ground cloves and cardamom in each jar.
Put between 1/2 and 3/4 Tbsp of Celtic sea salt in each jar (depending on how salty you like your ferments).
Put between 1/8 and 1/4 cup of honey in each jar (depending on how sweet you like your ferments).
Put 1/4 cup of water kefir in each jar.
Add filtered water to just under the top of the fruit in each jar.
Use an immersion blender in each jar (AKA a "stick" blender). Blend it until it is the way you like your "relish" whether that is thick and chunky or a heavy puree.
If, after blending, the jars look as though they could fit into two jars instead of three go for it. Just make sure there is an inch of headspace in each jar when it is filled.
Cap the jars and set them in a warm place for two days.
Refrigerate for another 3-5 days before eating. Your ferment should keep in the fridge for up to a month but I doubt it will last that long!

Many thanks to the lovely healing dentist, Laura M., for the original recipe and to my fellow Mamas, Sara and Elli, for the first couple of rounds of the recipe using various fermenting agents / techniques. I finally got off my tuckus and made it myself. Because it is SOOOOO *A*M*A*Z*I*N*G* and easy.

Holiday love from our home to yours!

xoxo

- Kati

Kai's Story

2011-12-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

This story is from a "Virtual Tribal Mama" that a few of us have been in touch with as she journeys along the sometimes lonely road of healing her child using nutrition / diet. She has done a wonderful job and has been rewarded with a recent language explosion. Kai is lucky that she is his Mama!

On September 22nd of this year, my son Kai was given a diagnosis of “Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech” by Early Intervention. At the time, he had two words he could say with his mouth open (“Dada” and “Uh-Oh”). Much of his spontaneous speech was said through his teeth. At 23 months old, he had the speech of a one-year-old. He’d lost the ability to say “Mama,” and he would have meltdowns if we tried to make him speak. He knew letters, numbers, animals, and understood most of what we said to him, yet he couldn’t express himself through words. I was heartbroken.

At that time, I was already working him towards GAPS. I’d found out about it through my local Weston A. Price Foundation chapter. My son is also gluten intolerant, and after seeing studies and reading anecdotes showing that gluten intolerance is not uncommon with Apraxia (I already suspected Apraxia before Early Intervention did), and that these children are generally deficient in fatty acids and vitamin E, I began to search for a diet to heal my son, as it was so obviously a malabsorption problem causing his inability to express himself in words. I found WAPF while researching healthy, whole-foods diets for children, and I knew immediately that the nutrient dense food it advocated was what Kai needed to heal. I contacted our local chapter leader, poured my heart out to her regarding the situation my family was in, including my suspicions that my son was suffering from a neurological disorder, and asked her how to get started, and she pointed me towards GAPS. I owe so much to her for this, but that’s a story for another day.

I plunged myself into reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome and Breaking the Vicious Cycle, and I listened to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride present her theories on YouTube. I read many a parental testimony where they would express their delight in the progress their child made on GAPS, including multiple references to an “explosion of expressive language.” Oh, how I dreamed and wanted that for my son! We started eliminating starchy vegetables, grains, and casein until eventually Kai was eating only soup and eggs. On October 5th, we started Kai on Intro.

We saw behavior issues disappear. Stims diminished within two weeks. He was happier, healthier, and he had a very big growth spurt. He loved the food. He devoured everything. Amidst regressions and difficult days, we saw any behavior he had that could have labeled him as “ASD” go away, with the exception of on die-off days. Small improvements were made in speech, and he was able to say “Mama” again, but I began to be discouraged because I couldn’t find testimony regarding GAPS helping specifically with an Apraxic child. My speech therapist was also discouraged because she was getting nowhere with him. She started giving me homework to just do things to get his mouth open, not even to try for words! I wanted that speech explosion so badly.

When I aired my concerns to the Tribe, suggestions for supplements to help speed the detoxification process were made. We started giving Kai Enhansa soon after it was suggested to us by multiple sources, including my mother-in-law. His father offered me continual comfort, support and a steadfast belief that Kai would heal on the diet, even when I was faltering in faith, so I pressed on and hoped his speech would improve more.

Kai progressed through Intro relatively quickly. When we got to the point where almond bread and carrot juicing is introduced, we noticed that Kai began to complain of pain in his diaper area. At first I was in denial and thought it was due to a diaper rash that he had, but he soon made it abundantly clear to me that the issue was most likely pain caused by the newly introduced high oxalate foods. We began to wean him off of them, and his pain immediately went away. That same week, Kai hit the maximum dosage of Enhansa. We’d been able to get him raw milk for his yogurt for two weeks. We’d been on 100% organic and/or grass fed meat for a week. He was about to hit his 2-month GAPS anniversary.

I started to notice that Kai was saying, “UP! UP! UP!” while sitting and playing by himself. I asked him, “Are you saying ‘Up?’” He would just look at me funny. I figured it was more ghost words, common to Apraxic children. A couple days later, he started saying “Up” when he wanted to be picked up. Then he started saying, “Apple” and “Egg” clearly, with all vowel and consonant sounds! Within one day of these three new words, many, many more started coming, including “Elmo,” “Hat,” “Hot,” “Hop,” and “All.” He even said, “X” and “A.” He tries to say “Avocado,” and other more complex words, but they are mispronounced. I’ve lost track of everything he can say, but I estimate he has around 20 words, letters, and animal sounds that he can now say clearly. Best of all, he’s imitating us and attempting spontaneous speech every day. He is also trying to build upon words he already says to say things like “Apple Sauce.”

Kai’s speech therapist came yesterday. She almost cried when I had Kai saying his new words for her. She was thrilled by his progress. They had a great session, and she was able to get new sounds out of him. He was very proud to show off what he could do for her. I am thrilled.

I think we found the magic formula for Kai: GAPS+LOD+Enhansa+Organics+Raw Milk. He has a long way to go, and he still has sounds that he cannot make, but I have faith that more surges and breakthroughs will come, especially with help from our DAN and the Tribe. GAPS isn’t easy, but, as my husband always reminds me, nothing worth doing ever really is. I am excited to find our next breakthrough intervention, all with the strong foundation of GAPS and good, Real Food.

Mothers of Apraxic children be heartened. There is hope.

Gelatin For Your Skeleton

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Gelatin is an amazing, nutritious food that is so often overlooked. Perhaps because the name gelatin (at least for my generation) is synonymous with Jell-O brand gelatin and nobody spelled out the advantages of gelatin while they were singing the J-E-L-L-O jingle.

Well I have a bit of good holiday cheer for you!!! Watching it wiggle and jiggle while your children grin IS a good thing and it IS good for you. As long as it is homemade, of course!

Gelatin is a major component of healing the gut wall and if it is accidentally excluded from a healing diet you will end up either treading water, getting worse, or perhaps having to take glucosamine + chondroitin for knee/hip pain. Why not skip the supplements and instead eat some delicious foods? Homemade (aka "real") jello, homemade marshmallows, stocks/broths/soups with gelatin in them. There is a fair amount of scientific background on gelatin on the "Why Broth is Beautiful" link from the Weston A Price website.

But here's what I can tell you, Mama to Mama. Awhile back I ate an extremely gelatinous broth (so good I craved it for months afterwards) and the next morning the skin on my face had noticeably improved in quality. Enough to make me think, "Whoa - why does that look so much better?" Of course, I didn't keep up the gelatin and that went away after another day or so... I like to learn my lessons the hard way. I should note that the skin difference can also be the fats in those amazing broths, but I really think it was the gelatin.

So now my family is in a gelatin feeding frenzy. It is not a terribly expensive item to keep in a kitchen pantry, it keeps for a long time so I can buy it bulk, and it is SO GOOD FOR US!!! What is not to love about gelatin? These days we are instituting the 1950s tradition of dessert every night with dinner, but our dessert is homemade jello!!! My girls are ecstatic. This is SO easy that there is literally no acceptable excuse for not doing it multiple times / week.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeasy Jello Recipe
(serves 4)
Put 1 Tbsp of gelatin in 1/4 cup of water and let it soften (about 5 mins)
Heat 3/4 cup of water to a boil
Add the boiling water to the softened gelatin
Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved
Add 1 cup of fruit juice
Pour into a mold, if desired
Refrigerate until it is set, about 4 hours

Here are a few extra notes:

I am very lazy, I mean busy! I do all of my jello making in my measuring cups and do not use a pretty mold. It is all about minimizing cleanup for me. Try it multiple ways and see what works best for you!
If you are on the GAPS diet you may want to know that the SCD PecanBread peeps recommends specific brands based on a company asserting (on corporate letterhead) there is no added sugars. Here is that link / listing. Our family uses the Knudson's Just Juice brand and we have been very happy with their products. Oh, and I would not recommend anything in a can so you may want to skip the Dole pineapple juice. Or juice/blend it yourself from a fresh pineapple. YUM!
If you are not on the GAPS diet but are watching your sugar intake you may want to see the above note and use those same juices. Sugar is very inflammatory and the more you can stick to a small level of fruit sugars in your diet the healthier you will be.
Play and experiment with the recipe and don't worry about things being totally perfect. I promise never to post anything that has to be done with measurements that are "just so" because I don't cook that way anyway!
One of our favorite jellos is Just Tart Cherry + lime juice. Mix and match and play all day. If you do this daily (it really takes less than 10 minutes AND the kids will cheer after dinner, which really means they will finish all the sardines you put on their plate just to get the jello) you will have plenty of time to mix and match flavors and see what tastes best to your family.
There are two schools of jello lovers. Purists who do not like anything "in" their jello and those who like a little fruit added. If you want to check out the addition of fruit to your jello just do it after the jello has started to set up a little. I am craving an experiment with the fermented cranberry orange relish from Thanksgiving in a jello. This is on the list for next year's Thanksgiving treats!
If you want your jello to be a little fizzy, try adding some water/juice kefir as part of the liquid. A little should go a long way and you can follow a jello recipe that uses soda for an idea of the proportions. If I experiment and master that one I'll let you know!

FYI, here are the two gelatins I use:
Fish Gelatin
Grass-Fed Beef Gelatin

Happy jiggling!

Grandpa Gunk's Kraut

2011-11-21T10:00:00.003-05:00

This post is dedicated to my great-grandfather who, according to family lore, had a love of sauerkraut. My great-grandmother, however, did NOT like the stink of the kraut as it fermented. What does a happily married couple do to make this resolve this situation?

The marketplace will always provide a solution when there is a consumer demand... So Grandpa Gunk struck a deal with a local farmer. Grandpa Gunk would buy the fermenting barrel and pay for all the cabbage and salt if the farmer would make it and let it ferment in his barn. I don't know any more specifics (did he pick up kraut weekly, or just for special occasions), but I love that I know the story. My dad told it to me when he was visiting awhile back. He was visibly amused by the little sauerkraut party fermenting away on my kitchen counter.

Why sauerkraut?

Well... turns out I *LOVE* sauerkraut. Once I tasted it and realized it is sour + crunchy + salty I was hooked. Anyone else a recovering chip-a-holic? Anyone? It can't just be me... Sauerkraut is my new chip. I adore it. But I only like it made from purple cabbage and I only like it with cabbage + sea salt, no brine. If there is brine it takes me a long while to go through a quart jar of kraut because I am not totally wild about a salty kraut.

Sauerkraut is an amazing food. Through the fermenting process the kraut goes through three totally separate stages of bacteria. From Wikipedia (which I usually wouldn't quote but I don't feel like typing it all in from a book I have on fermenting foods):

In the first phase, anaerobic bacteria such as Klebsiella and Enterobacter lead the fermentation, and begin producing an acidic environment that favours later bacteria. The second phase starts as the acid levels become too high for many bacteria, and Leuconostoc mesenteroides and other Leuconostoc spp. take dominance. In the third phase, various Lactobacillus species, including L. brevis and L. plantarum, ferment any remaining sugars, further lowering the pH.

Did you hear that? Lactobacillus species? Without paying $20-$50 for a pack? I have worked out the price of my sauerkraut and it runs me roughly $4-$5 per quart jar and that includes some labor since I've turned over my kraut production to Chef Steve. It is a DEAL! Also, for people who are not yet healed enough to eat the raw cabbage they just use the sauerkraut juices which are plentiful since you can add some brine whenever they run low.

Oh, and kraut will last for a YEAR in your fridge once it is fully fermented. A year. Even if the power goes out and you have to toss other foods, your kraut will be fine. Hurricane? Earthquake? Power disruption? Your kraut is still ready for you, even when you have run out of every other food in the house.

Recipe please!

Like I said before, I am a bit picky with my sauerkraut. I take great joy and personal pleasure in the fact that sweet little Neely only likes *my* sauerkraut. Of course, it would be even better if my own children would say that, but se la vie! So here is my method, adapted from a recipe in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz.

Buy heads of red cabbage that are heavy for their size and note their weight on your receipt. Heavy cabbage = high water content. Make sure to go right home and make kraut that day or the next - you don't want to pay for water and have it evaporate.

I use purple cabbage because it ferments faster and in my experience is more crunchy than slimy. It also is a lovely shade of hot pink which is awesome for our goal of "eating the rainbow" on our plate. I also have daughters so the hot pink was a nice selling feature. I tried a lot of different cabbages before I decided on my favorite so experiment and find out what you like! It is so good for you and there will be many, many opportunities to make kraut so just play with it. It is very forgiving, a wonderful quality in a food!

For every five pounds of cabbage use 3 Tbsp of Celtic brand Sea Salt, course grind. You will layer this into the jars with the cabbage as you pound.
Cut each head of cabbage into eighths, remove the white core from and finely shred each section.
Tightly pack the cabbage (+ sea salt) into wide mouthed quart jars using a heavy, wooden mallet of some sort. I use this masher
my mom gave me to push tomatoes through a Squeez-O-Strainer and instead of it being stained red from tomatoes it is purple from the cabbage!

I recently noticed an ad for a "kraut pounder" which is as close to a description as I have ever heard. I have not bought from krautpounder.com but I would in a heartbeat if I needed one. I have yet to find a good alternative although another Mama and I spoke to a local wood spoon carver last weekend about making an artistic kraut pounder so if anything comes of that I'll put up that info too!

Pound, pound, and pound some more. Get out the anger at the _________ that totally screwed up the ___________. Bring peace on earth (or at least to your household) by bottling up your rage and saving it for a weekly/bi-weekly kraut pounding session. As you pound you break down the cell membranes of the cabbage which will release the liquids into the jar. About the time your arms are crying out for mercy just ask someone else to take a turn, rest up, and then get back in the ring! We call that tapping out in our household. ;-)
Once the kraut is sufficiently pounded into the jars (I usually leave an inch to an inch and a half for the liquids to come up) find a juice glass, partially fill it with water, and set it on top of the cabbage in the jar. The purpose of this is twofold. First, it provides a bit of weight to help squeeze out the water from the cabbage. Second, it will keep the cabbage submerged below the water so it does not get moldy as it ferments.
Gather your jars together in a reasonably cool/darkish space and put a towel over top of them to keep dust (and flies / eggs, but I am not admitting to having flies in my kitchen) from settling on the top of your kraut.
Twenty-four hours after you make the kraut check to make sure there is water covering all of the cabbage. If your cabbage was a little dry then you will need to add brine so it will not get moldy as it ferments. If you need to add brine mix up some water with sea salt (~1 tsp of salt to a cup of water).
Every day or two lift the towel, push down on the glasses, make sure things are not bubbling over (you don't want to lose the precious juice) and make sure none of the cabbage is exposed to air. Sometimes I end up taking the water out of the juice glasses so they are not pressing so heavily (if the water is overflowing) and other times I have to add a little bit of brine as things dry out.
Your sauerkraut is fully fermented when you push on the juice glass and do not see bubbles making their way to the top of the jar. At that point screw on a lid and put it in the fridge. It'll keep for a year!

I hope if you too are a recovering chip-a-holic that this will satisfy some of the crunch you have missed. I find it is particularly helpful in keeping the kids healthy during cold / flu season. In Zi's class last year strep must've gone around a dozen times (at least it felt like it) and took out almost all the kids AND the teacher. The most amazing thing happened. ZiZi, who was previously very susceptible to all colds/flus/fevers/viruses did not get sick. At all. Not even a sniffle. I credit her daily portion of sauerkraut (mostly because once the spring came and I eased up on the sauerkraut and forgot it for a whole week she got sick).

Sauerkraut: It's not just for scurvy anymore!

Mamas Care About S***

2011-11-16T14:00:00.004-05:00

There is a dirty little secret each of us hides. Well, maybe flushes. And we don't like to talk about it. It's not polite.

WELL......... It is time to grow up and get past all that. Join me with a labcoat and glasses as we talk about the body as a system for a moment. What is the number one output from your system? Okay, how about number two? LOL - get it? Number two? How can you consider the health of the system without considering the output of the system? If I want to know the quality of the product from a factory, wouldn't I just grab a box cutter and head to the loading dock to check out some of the stuff in the boxes? Well, your poo is the product from you digestive tract and it contains excellent clues as to the health of the system.

Believe it or not there are actually websites dedicated to tracking poo. Like reading scat on a trail. Except incredibly bizarre because real live humans are willing to upload their toilet pics. I am hopeful they each removed the GPS info from their cell phone pics and NO - I never posted on one of those sites.

For the rest of us polite folk, we just don't talk about it. Surprisingly, doctors seldom ask us about it. That fact shocks me. I think there are some eloquent phrases to describe this reason - something about "delicacies" and "etiquette." Well, I call BU!!S*** on that. If the evidence of a crime were in front of a detective, don't you think (s)he would at least take a look?

So let's put on our clean, white labcoat and our detective hat. Here is a picture of the Bristol Stool Chart. No idea how many lab assistants it took to look in toilets and determine this charting tool. It's actually kind of funny to think about and how would YOU like to be the guy who is famous for creating this picture? No thanks. My last name may be a little funny but I don't want "Stool Chart" after it for the rest of my life. Ha!

What you want is poo that looks like a four or five. Some people say sixes are fine too - I personally am not thrilled to see those in my home. We are honest to goodness poo peekers in our home - I've taught my girls to always look at it and let me know. I am thrilled with fours, okay with fives and start looking for a big picture issue or solution if we have anything else on an ongoing basis.

Note: If you are doing the SCD/GAPS diet your stooling can shift back and forth quite a bit. Don't freak out if you get one random 3 or 6 or whatever. But if you get more than one start looking for a culprit or a solution. Keeping a food / supplement / emotional / poo journal can be very helpful. It took awhile to figure it out but cucumbers and zucchini had my older daughter living with 6s. Once we removed the foods she settled back into 4s and 5s.

So enough random chatter, since we have labcoats on today let's get in there and start dissecting the matter at hand.

The Big D

Diarrhea cha cha cha. Surprisingly I cannot remember the rest of that grade school rhyme but I realy consider that a good thing.

The reason loose stools / diarrhea are a big deal (a 6 or 7 on the scale) is that it means the person's bowels are moving too quickly and they are likely losing all the amazing nutrition they have put into their body. On this diet, that is literally flushing a lot of $$ down the toilet. I know about the loss of great nutrients this way from my older daughter's experience. It has been a big deal for her and something she struggles with intermittently. It seems to be related to allergies for her. In the meantime she is not growing much at all (her formerly "failure to thrive" little sister is catching up to her). Coincidence? I think not.

Diarrhea is one of the developing world's biggest killers of young children, killing close to 2 million children per year. If you expand the age group and set of nations it kills between 4 and 6 million per year. It should be taken seriously and not ignored. Stress can cause it. Diuretic foods / veggies / juices can cause it. Bacteria can cause it. Yeast can cause it. Food allergies / intolerances can cause it. Getting to the bottom of it (ha - didn't even have to try on that pun) can take awhile and you just have to experiment a bit to eliminate possible causes and find out which one is the primary underlying problem.

So, if you rank a 7 on the Bristol scale, how do you want to handle it? First, remove anything from the diet that can irritate your digestive lining. When the gut lining is irritated it just flushes everything out as fast as it can (AKA diarrhea). Remove nuts, seeds, roughage/fiber and just drink broth. Eat boiled or broiled meats, particularly easy to digest food like fish. Really go easy until you get it under control and then add things in slowly, starting with well-cooked vegetables. Sounds quite a bit like intro, right? Glad you thought of that! That is actually a great idea you just had - just go back to intro to get a little healing. Listen to your body and see what it is crying out for - your intuition will be a better guide than anything I can type. Observe how foods impact you and pay attention.

If you rank more like a 6 on the Bristol scale, particularly if you have undigested food, you may be looking at a yeast overgrowth issue or a lack of stomach acid / enzyme action (they are frequently linked). If this kind of poop has been going on awhile, then consider doing a little research on using HCl with Betaine to increase your stomach acid and give a boost to your digestive enzymes. Alternatively, you can start out a little more gently with apple cider vinegar (ACV) or sauerkraut juice twenty minutes before a meal. If you think it is yeast, there are a bunch of other things to consider toying with as well. I'll write a separate yeast post soon (and I'll come back and link it). But addressing low stomach acid may help with yeast as well because yeast can grow in a stomach that is not at its optimal level of acidity.

With the 6s and 7s on the Bristol scale, keep an eye on the foods you are eating and look for a culprit. Allergies can definitely show up like diarrhea. Just ask my little girl. Gosh, I hope these posts are history by the time she has a prom date. But in the interest of Mamas sharing information we'll keep going!

The Big C

For the anal retentive among us, constipation is a physiologic disaster. It'll make you grumpy and mean. Probably because all the toxins your body wants to get out of the way are sitting in your colon being reabsorbed.

Do you want to reabsorb that which your body is trying to dispose? Definitely NOT! So if you are anything less than a 4 on the Bristol scale you will want to take steps to get things moving. Here is a listing, in no particular order, of things to consider / try:

If your constipation kicked in as a result of a change in probiotics (or fermented foods which are a great source of probiotics) consider going lower/slower. Probiotics are wonderful and necessary for improving gut health but they can also cause some die off as your body acclimates. It is a delicate balance and is particular to each body so listen to what yours is telling you and adjust accordingly!
Consider your diet - are you consuming enough fat? Sugars? Both play a role in elimination of waste from your body. We don't do a lot of sugars in our home but I do keep up with the winter squashes since we are mostly avoiding fruit right now. But I notice a big difference in gut motility when eating a lot of fat versus not enough fat. And it's also a lot of fun to cook with loads of it. It makes my body feel GREAT!
When you wake, first thing, drink a glass of water with a whole lemon or lime squeezed in it. Not only is this great for constipation it is also a nice bit of vitamin C which will nourish your adrenals. Some say it is helpful to the gallbladder and liver. Drink the lemon/lime water on an empty stomach and do not eat anything for thirty minutes and you can reasonably expect to see *some* difference in your bowels and morning digestion. Do it a lot and your body will begin to crave the morning lemon/lime water!
Magnesium... magnesium is something I struggle with keeping in my body on this diet. Perhaps because my body is dumping oxalates (if that sounds like a foreign language I promise a future post) and perhaps because the grains I used to count on for magnesium are not in my diet anymore. Then there is the whole "health of our soils" that makes our food and water sources low in minerals they used to include. Regardless of the cause of low levels, magnesium is usually one of the first items I consider when talking about constipation. Feeling stressed out? Mean? Yelling at the kids? Got a kid throwing tantrums (who isn't eating processed foods / sugars)? Consider your magnesium levels. My favorite forms of magnesium are epsom baths (2 cups of a high quality epsom in a hot bath for 20 mins), Natural Calm (a magnesium supplement), or magnesium spray/cream. If you need magnesium but are not constipated then try the transdermal methods for getting magnesium into your body. If you are constipated, try an oral supplement + a bath/cream/spray.
Increase quantities of broth/soup, particularly those with a load of gelatin in them. The gelatin is very soothing to the gut wall.
Sauerkraut! And if the sauerkraut is too advanced for someone to digest just the sauerkraut juices will be helpful and taste wonderful added to a warm (but not hot - you don't want to lose the probiotics in the kraut) broth or soup.
To help heal the wall of the colon butyrates are helpful. Just to mention it in case someone is curious. Butyrates are most commonly taken in the form of an oral supplement but the original delivery method studied and pronounced successful was via enema. Two birds, one stone? Sorry. Trying to keep it all light-hearted. Supposedly bifido bacteria make butyrates so if you are following a GAPS probiotic protocol versus an SCD probiotic protocol you may have a better supply of butyrates as a result.
I saved the best for last. Really. How about a coffee enema? I have no personal experience (I swear) on this one but I'd be remiss not to mention it since Dr. NCM covers it in her book and the chat groups are all lit up with people talking about it. I personally focus on the magnesium but that may be because I need to chill out and I am *not* curious enough to find out caffeine's ability to be absorbed in the colon. Really.

Color

Just a quick word on color - it should be a nice dark brown. If it is light yellow / greyish then that is likely a stomach acid issue and again I would suggest researching HCl with Betaine. Dr. NCM has a chapter called Digestive Enzymes that is particularly helpful in understanding this.

If the color is black that can be blood in the digestive tract and it is worth a quick visit to your doctor for a testing kit. Sometimes you can just call in and get them to put a kit at the front desk for you - you don't necessarily need a consultation to get the kit.

As far as other rainbow colors, sometimes poo can take on a shade of red (think of the red flaking off poo when someone eat beets) or orange-ish poo after a load of butternut squash. There can be shades of green, particularly with a lot of blueberries. What I have found in my family is that if a food is coloring things in a major way it is likely nothing to worry about but I do watch to see if perhaps it is another symptom of not fully digesting the food.

Other

If your poo leaves a streak on the porcelain express, that is a symptom of fat malabsorption. Again, see the notes on considering HCl with Betaine. If there is an oil slick on the surface that is again a symptom of fat your body did not absorb as well. This may or may not be something to worry about - depends on whether or not you had escolar (an amazing tasting but exceptionally fatty fish) a day or two before. I'm really not kidding on that one. But the words "etiquette" and "delicacies" is coming to mind so I won't tell the story. ;-)

Also, watch the frequency of the poos. Plenty of Mamas get to know their baby's poo cycle as a young child. If something suddenly shifts, see the above notes on "D" and "C." Plenty of poo bloggers say it is ideal to poo once for every large meal you eat. I don't think our family has quite experienced that, even when things are all looking awesome, but certainly 2x / day seems pretty normal. Just 1x / day seems a bit on the "C" side of things and 4+ / day seems a bit on the "D" side of things. Just try to normalize it all and consider frequency in addition to the way it looks on the Bristol scale.

In Conclusion

Thanks for joining me today in the poo lab - you can drop your labcoat in the laundry bag on your way out. If you'd like we can all pretend we didn't just look at that / talk about that / get that on the labcoat. Someday we may be ready to admit that poo is a big deal but until we are there you can just hang out with me in the back of the room and we'll whisper about it. I don't want to be known as a freak either.

Our Little Canaries

2011-11-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Our children today are our proverbial canaries in the coal mine. Have you looked around a preschool classroom lately? Good grief! As one teacher said to me a couple of weeks ago, "If you could just spend a couple of hours in my class you would be amazed. Almost 3/4 of my class has some issue of some sort. It wasn't this bad 5 or 10 years ago."

Have you seen the crazy cases of eczema? Asthma? Allergies? Allergies that look like ADHD? How about all the "normal" kids with terrible teeth, ultra pale skin, and no meat on their bones? How about the child with dark circles under his/her eyes? So what is it?

I am generally not one to join in public speculation and outrage about chemicals, toxins, vaccinations, food sources, and the like. I am making different choices today than I did previously and have become a fanatic about clean food. But as far as trying to find the smoking gun, it seems a worthy but frustrating pursuit. I believe there is not one single smoking gun. Few kids I know with issues have the same story so how would we decide what was the true "cause" for them when we can barely piece together enough pictures to make a baby book (or maybe that's just me - I am *terrible* about documenting my children's lives)?

I do, however, believe there is one sure cure. Heal the gut, heal the immune system, heal the body, heal the brain. I know our diet would help any number of children achieve their full potential.

So I have decided to put forth my personal efforts in healing children with existing conditions. Prevention? Would be lovely. Few will listen, even fewer will do. But have a kid that has an issue and you will find a very motivated parent. Parents want solutions and they are willing to go to great lengths to get them.

I hope that if we are able to consistently help children heal via natural methods, to let their bodies heal and rebuild themselves, that perhaps someone will have enough insight on the way in which they are healing as to find the way they are being broken in the first place.

Until then, let us watch these precious little singing birds. They are our warning signals. Once you know what you are looking for (dark circles, pale complexion, anxiousness, hyperactivity, lack of eye contact, chronic ear infections, chronic strep, behavioral regressions, etc., etc., etc.) you will begin to see that an overwhelming number of sweet little canaries around you are having a hard time. The answer is true healing, from the inside out. Put on your diagnostician glasses and see if you do not see issues facing many of our youngest members of society. *Something* is not right in our coal mine and some of our canaries are barely able to sing.

If you can just see all the children of the world as your own, all the mothers of the world as you are, we can make a huge difference.
-- Susan Sarandon

Liver Lover

2011-11-06T17:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, after you've been on the crazy train for awhile, you look around and think to yourself, "Where am I???" I have been on a crazy train ride these past few years and I am looking around my kitchen this morning thinking, "Wow. How did I end up in my grandmother's kitchen?"

The foods I've cooked today have included the usual squash, broccoli, cauliflower, soup, stock, etc.. BUT... today also included a lemon soak for the liver and now I am throwing it into my nearly famous (at least with my friends) pot roast. As I put the liver in the pot I started thinking that I have *got* to tell people about this amazing, nutrient dense food and how it has helped my family's health, particularly ZiZi's language skills.

Liver is the kind of food that makes people cringe. It is the kind of food that only a "mature" parent would bother cooking. Even really knowledgeable Mamas shy away from it. I used to be that Mama. Even after I had read about and embraced the concept of liver, I had not yet embraced the preparation and serving of liver. But these days I am totally crazy for a healthy, 100% grass-pastured beef liver and have turned into a bit of a fanatic.

I first added liver into our diet a couple of months ago. I know, I know... 15 months on SCD/GAPS and I didn't get around to adding in liver until month 13? Do as I say, not as I do (this is a quote from my dad). Liver had long been on my "hit list" of things I should have been doing all along but I have a weekly routine that keeps me sane and I had not figured how to flex the routine to incorporate the liver.

So in early September, I debated (against myself, one of my favorite ways to debate) various ways of getting the kids to eat it. Eventually I just stopped the analysis paralysis and dove in wholeheartedly. I am a 150% kind of Mama.

I went straight to the classic dish, liver and onions. I pulled out a liver that had been in my freezer awaiting the long end of the internal debate. I think it had been there for at least two or three months. I soaked the liver in lemon juice, rolled it in coconut oil, sauteed a heap of onions in coconut oil, and then "flash sauteed" the liver so it wasn't overcooked. To distract the children from the potential awfulness on their plate (this was my first time eating liver too so perhaps I was really distracting myself) we had a special dinner in the family room while watching the Redskins. The Reskins won. Hubby was happy. The kids ate their liver. Mama was happy.

The verdict that day was that it was "okay" from Ani and "pretty good" from ZiZi. Zi had seconds and asked for "that special turkey," AKA liver, the next morning for breakfast. Hm. Perhaps better than "pretty good?" Then Zi went off to school as she usually does and when she came home we took a picnic lunch to the playground.

That afternoon at the playground ZiZi was talking. A lot. She also separated from me completely and ran around like a totally normal kid. I noticed. A fab Tribal Mama commented on how ZiZi was noticeably independent that day. I think her words were, "I've never seen ZiZi play so hard and not come sit on your lap for at least awhile." I reported the news about the liver debut the prior night and we all grinned. For one of the Mamas it was an all-knowing grin (she is GREAT at giving liver to her family). For the other Mama it was a grin of joy watching ZiZi run around. For me it was the grin of a happy and proud Mama.

The following week I added liver to the bottom of the pot when I made pot roast. Another hit! The girls *loved* it this time and ate all of the liver and none of the roast. Which is saying something, because the roast was amazing. Suddenly our once in awhile pot roast was so important it was promoted to "something so good it goes into the weekly rotation." Pot roast now has its own day every week on our food calendar. Only four dinners are so amazing they qualify for this honor, two of them are liver related. I am still accepting applications for the remaining three evenings.

Wouldn't you know it? The day after the "liver roast" I observed the same outcome for ZiZi. Her mood was good and her speech/communication skills were up. I noticed the uptick lasted for about 3-4 days which is about what it had lasted the time prior as well. So I decided to get it into her diet 2x/week so we would be all language explosion, all the time. She is currently working to learn her alphabet sounds and shapes. She works quite hard on each letter so anything I can do to help her in the language department is a worthy pursuit!

Mommypotamus (one of my favorite bloggers) gave me the inspiration for my next liver recipe, a pseudo beef/liver chili. The whole family loved it, especially me since it was perfect for nights that Ani had soccer. So it went into the rotation as well (on soccer Thursday). My experiment is a bit different from the Mommypotamus recipe so I'll post it at the bottom of this note.

So now that we have been eating a lot of liver every week (roughly 1-2 lbs / week for our family of four) I have noticed a few things over time. ZiZi has stopped mixing up pronouns (she / her / he / him) and has had a decrease in "word search" time, where she racks her brain looking for the correct word for some "thingy". She has also recently started asking what various words mean. ZiZi's specialist has told us that the communication disorder will be one of the later autism spectrum symptoms to disappear but that it should happen over the next 2-3 years. With the addition of liver perhaps we may see it disappear a little faster than 2-3 years.

I don't have a neat and tidy study to tell you "why" the liver is doing this for ZiZi. I suspect it is related to the nutrient density, particularly Vitamins A, B12, and folic acid. But who knows? Wish I could point to something for this one so if you find a great study somewhere let me know! All I know is that it is working for her.

For myself I have noticed that I consistently receive a bit of an energy boost the following day or two after eating liver. It is always welcome and helps me keep up with the two cuties. So try it, you might like it (or at least the side effects). Just ease in gently. Grind it up and put it in burgers or try it in a chili. But give it a shot. Especially if you have a neurologically / nutritionally sensitive child you may see big changes!

Mama's Lazy "Chili"

Ingredients
1/2 to 1 lb of grass-fed beef liver, thinly sliced
2 lemons
2 to 3 lbs of grass-fed ground beef
Onions, diced
Garlic, diced
Extra virgin olive oil
Bottle of spaghetti sauce
Crushed red pepper, optional
Chili powder, optional

Step One: Soak the liver
Before cooking with liver you want to soak it in fresh lemon juice for at least 4 hours. According to various sources (Nourishing Traditions cookbook, for one) this will help draw impurities out of the liver and improve the texture. We do this whenever we use liver for any recipe. I am not the best planner so sometimes my 4 hours is a little short and other times it turns into 24 hours. The liver is very forgiving. I soak it in the lemon in a glass dish in the fridge, with a lid on top.

Step Two: Saute onions and liver
Pour some olive oil into a pot (I use my dutch oven) and saute the diced onions over low heat until they are transparent but not caramelized. After they have cooked for awhile you can add the garlic. Then add the liver and let it cook for awhile, stirring occasionally. Once it is starting to cook a bit, begin mashing the liver with your spoon. I usually mash mine into a pulverized pulp or at least into bite sized pieces, depending on what I have time / patience to do. If you have a meat grinder you could grind it prior to adding it into the pot. This would save the mashing step but then you have one more thing to clean up. Your call.

Step Three: Brown the ground beef
After the liver is as mashed as you want it to be add the ground beef, crumbling it between your fingers as you do. Brown the beef in the pot.

Step Four: Dump, stir, cover, wait
Pour in the spaghetti sauce and spices, if desired. I sometimes use a sauce with olives, sometimes garlic, whatever I have or want to try out. We have never been disappointed and the best one we ever had was a Mama's homemade sauce that was acquired on a sauerkraut trade. Stir the mixture well, put the cover on the pot, and simmer for up to an hour.

My girls do not like spicy things so our "chili" ends up being more of a really meaty spaghetti sauce. But it still tastes great. I also throw in veggies sometimes (chopped broccoli or cauliflower, slices of asparagus, whatever). Served over spaghetti squash is also great. Play with this one, it is very forgiving!

GF Epic Fail

2011-11-04T16:09:00.001-04:00

A couple of us Mamas followed medical advice from various sources and put ourselves / our children on various renditions of a Gluten-Free (GF) diet prior to life on SCD / GAPS. My sample data pool is pretty darn small but interestingly the same thing happened with all three of us (the data set is me, ZiZi, and Stacylee).

When we went GF there was a minor uptick in feeling better / better energy for awhile. It seemed as though perhaps GF might be a piece to the puzzle but we weren't "so" much better off that we thought it was the answer. ZiZi and I both still needed iron supplements and all the neurological symptoms for both ZiZi and Stacylee were pretty much as they were prior to their diet change. Additionally, ZiZi continued to slowly slide off the height/weight charts. So, for ZiZi and me, I tried harder. We removed milk proteins (casein) as well and later tried even harder by further removing soy proteins and corn proteins.

After months / years of being GF we Mamas had "mastered" the diet. We had figured out which GF snacks the little ones liked and we had learned to make all kinds of regular foods (like pizza, breadsticks, etc.) so they tasted almost as good, or sometimes better, than the originals. I was proud of the dietary creative problem solving, particularly when people who did not need a GF diet said it was yummy and wanted recipes / mixes / brand names. Then other friends needed to go GF and I was a "go to mommy" and that felt great too.

However, there was something evil lurking just beneath the surface. Cue the "Jaws" music. The truth of the matter was we had replaced gluten with a lot of difficult to digest starches and sugars. The shopper in each household was buying a bunch of processed baked goods (or mixes - because that was "from scratch" cooking prior to this diet) filled with potato starch, rice starch, tapioca starch, amaranth, etc.. Go check a few labels for fun sometime. Processed GF is all sugars and starches. I even got handy and made my own GF mixes and threw in a little Xantham Gum for fun.

Perhaps predictably, within a year or so of the GF/GFCF/GFCFSFCF lifestyle, all three of us went downhill. Gut pain, bloating, gas, constipation, etc.. I even got a nice new diagnosis of IBS/IBD. No idea what the difference is there - it just hurt.

Now, I am not entirely sure that GF was acting alone. I think there were a few accomplices. First, oxalates definitely played a role in our household around that same time. But second, and perhaps the most important role as an accomplice, was a mother's deepest desire to keep things "normal" for her child. Can't have gluten, that's okay... here are a bunch of starches and it's all okay baby. Look, your friends even want to have some tapioca sticks with you.

Painful to acknowledge, when a doctor / nurse / nutritionist tells you that you may need to consider going GF what they are REALLY telling you (whether or not they know it) is that your bowels are having a bit of a time and need some healing. Guess what is not going to help them heal? All the GF goodies on the market or at that local GF pizza chain. Do you know what will help your bowels heal? A whole-foods diet, including any dips / sauces. Very little processing in your foods. Taking a load off your digestive tract by fermenting foods first (ala the Weston A Price way of cooking) so the first steps of digestion are done for you. Staying away from all processed foods and instead adding healing foods like broth and cod liver oil would also be a great place to start.

But few professionals in the medical establishment will say all that. Perhaps it's because their time is up with you but more likely, I think few have spent much time down this path themselves. Sometimes you have to have lived the experience and suffered the consequences to be able to warn the next guy. So here is my warning: judging by the explosion of GF baked / processed goodies, we are going to have an even bigger problem on our hands in another couple of years.

First Steps: Broth

2011-11-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

This post is dedicated to every Mama who wants the best health for her children and is looking for her first step on that journey. Broth is a great first step toward becoming an amazing chef and an amazing healer.

For centuries cultures around the world have used broth as a medicinal food. There is a reason besides the Campbell Soups marketing budget that chicken noodle soup bubbles to the surface of our minds when we hear someone is ill.

A well-made broth from a naturally raised animal provides tremendous nourishment to the body and building blocks for the gut wall. All the wonderful nutrients that animal used to build its strong body will be recycled into a medicinal broth for your body. Particularly for anyone whose gut has a difficult time extracting nutrition from solid foods, broth provides "bioavailable" (that is a fancy term for "even your sick gut can grab it") nutrients.

So here is my advice to any healing Mama early in her journey:

If you do not already have a copy of Nourishing Traditions, consider purchasing this cookbook. If I could only have one cookbook this would be it. It is so much more than a cookbook - it is a nutritional education + cookbook all in one. Also, the recipes are so simple they can be easily tweaked to meet any dietary needs.
So as not to slow down the process waiting for your copy of Nourishing Traditions read "Broth is Beautiful" from the Weston A Price website. No sense in me telling you my tricks - I learned them all from the master and this is the primary research document. ;-)
If the first two steps have not answered enough questions, if you once considered going into biochemistry, or if you have a little "Cliff" from Cheers deep inside you, here is the answer to "Why Broth is Beautiful" from the Weston A Price website.

After 14 months on GAPS I have finally figured out a thing or two about making the broths. I have a bit of a strategy that works for me and is not covered in the links above so here are my other tips:

Look at the timing of the particular broth you plan to make and work it into a regular schedule that works. I really like the 24-48 hr beef bone broths because I can start them late at night after the kids are in bed and then deal with them a day and a half later. Once you find a pattern / routine that works for you just stick with it.
Please know that you can reuse your bones for additional batches. If there is still bone there is still mineral content to be leached. You will not get the gelatin (unless you are using beef feet / chicken feet) in your broth past the first or second batch. But you will still have great mineral water which is wonderful for drinking or cooking.
Use a large stock pot (stainless steel, no aluminum) and make loads at a time. As a side note, I hear people talk about making stock in their crockpots and I chuckle to myself because I would need some sort of commercial crockpot for my lazy ways. Also, there is the whole "what is in the paint on that crockpot" and I cannot think about one more possible source of contamination. But I digress...
I store my stocks (and soups) in canning jars in the fridge. It is generally consumed so quickly there isn't a need to move it to the freezer. If you do freeze some, chill it first in the fridge and then freeze it in quart size canning jars (or smaller). Be sure to leave at least 1-2" of space at the top of the jar so it can expand during the freezing process. Note: Some people reduce it prior to freezing so it takes less space. Just mentioning that - I personally don't keep enough in the freezer to worry about that step (and an extra step is not generally welcome in my kitchen anyway).
Rather than use veggies in making my broth I use onion peels. I particularly like to use the onion skins / ends from yellow onions as they have a wonderful anti-histamine compound in them called quercetin. This compound is also in red onions but not white onions. For some reason red onions bothers my family so we stick to yellow. Anyhoo... As I (or Chef Steve) peel and slice onions, leeks, fennel, or whatever we save the scraps in a bag in the freezer. After I add the vinegar to the water + meat/bones and let it sit for an hour I add the veggie scraps at that time along with my herbs (usually just bay leaves + thyme + sea salt) and let it go. Just make sure you poke everything under the water as they can get burned if they are out of the water for 24 hours on a low boil.

When a broth shimmers while warm and shakes like Bill Cosby's favorite J-E-L-L-O when you take it out of the fridge, THAT is a very healing broth! So... time to give it a shot. Easy Peezy, Lemon Squeezy. This is your first step to introducing an incredibly medicinal food to your family. Get the gelatin in the broth, keep the fat in the broth, turn it into an amazing soup, do whatever. I'll put a note out soon about soups, but just get started. Your gut will thank you!

Pumpkin Seed Muffins

2011-11-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

These are a family favorite for Thanksgiving and birthday parties. We can't wait for an excuse to make them again soon!

Ingredients
2 cups pumpkin seed butter (made with coconut oil + sea salt)*
3 lg bananas, very ripe
4 duck eggs**
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp champagne vinegar

Blending:
Blend pumpkin seed butter and banana in food processor until completely blended
Add eggs and blend again
Add baking soda and blend again
Add 1 tsp vinegar and blend again

Baking: Divide into ~24 cupcakes, using paper lined tins. Bake @ 400 for 10 minutes, or until a knife that goes in comes out cleanly when you test it.

Enjoy!

*I make our pumpkin seed butter from seeds soaked for 7+ hours and then dehydrated. There is a brand of "sprouted" pumpkin seeds available called "Go Raw" so if I don't have time for the sprouting process this is what I use. I can get those at Whole Foods locally. The sprouting process makes the seeds more nutritious and more digestible. When I make the pumpkin seed butter (I use a Vitamix or food processor and I just use pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, and sea salt) I store it in an old coconut butter jar that is exactly 2 cups so I don't have to measure out sticky pumpkin seed butter when I make this recipe.

**Note on eggs: Using duck eggs will make these cupcakes rise better and remain "full" and beautiful when they cool. My experience is that even amazing PolyFace chicken eggs will look full until they cool and then the tops will shrink back / fall in on themselves. There is a greater "rising agent" in duck eggs so they are awesome for baking and regarding taste you will never know it isn't a chicken egg! Other eggs with wonderful rising action are emu and ostrich eggs, although you have to be a little careful with those - they may rise a little higher than you are bargaining for so don't fill the cupcake holders too full.

Crazy for Coconut Fish

2011-10-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

My kids are crazy for coconut, particularly for what we call "coconut fish." This is another easy recipe and not very exotic. But the kids love it and Ani has taken to reciting this recipe to other moms at the playground which totally cracks me up!

Ingredients
Tilapia
Shredded, dried coconut
Coconut oil
Sea salt

Step One: Cut (knife or kitchen scissor - both work) the fish into fish sticks. If you have kids (or a husband who likes to eat like a kid) this step can make all the difference in the marketability of the meal.

Step Two: Pour the shredded, dried coconut onto a large dinner plate. I usually pour out about a cup of coconut for a pound and a half of tilapia.

Step Three: Rinse the tilapia and roll it in the coconut shreds.

Step Four: Pour coconut oil into a pan over low heat and pan fry the coconut fish. Sprinkle sea salt on the fish as it is frying.

The sea salt is *crucial* to the flavor - we use the Celtic brand and without it this recipe is totally ho hum. But with just a bit of sea salt and the coconut crunchies it is a major hit. There are other kids at preschool who now get this in their lunchbox after jealously eying Ani's leftovers last year. Enjoy!

- Kati

p.s. Many thanks to my friend Kim for the inspiration behind this wonderful and simple dish. We eat it every Tuesday so if you ever need a taste test that is the evening to show up.

These Pancakes Are "Off the Chain!"

2011-10-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

Janice, you made my day when you wrote me the e-mail that said, "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG These pancakes are off the chain." So this one is for you, Mama!

To get to this recipe, we added together, rearranged, and changed two recipes (one from pecanbread.com and the second was e-mailed to me by my friend Molly). We tweaked enough that this shouldn't match anyone's recipe and if it does then it is because great taste buds ended up at the same spot.

Ingredients
2x 1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup honey
1 cup of butternut squash, already baked
1/2 tsp of Celtic sea salt
1/2 cup of coconut flour
8 eggs
vanilla, optional
cinnamon, optional

Step One: Put the first five ingredients in the blender in the order given and blend well. I'm sure this sounds like I'm micro-managing you. Here is my reasoning:

Put the flour in last or it turns to cement in the bottom of your blender. Even with a Vitamix. Also, use the 1/4 cup measuring cup twice for the coconut oil instead of a 1/2 cup measuring cup so when you measure the honey there is no time or honey wasted as it will come out of the measuring cup easily.

Step Two: Add the eggs and, if desired, vanilla and/or cinnamon. Blend well.

Step Three: Pour a good quantity of coconut oil into a large frying pan on low to medium-low heat. I have an electric stove and our magic number is between the 3 and 4. Another tip: two pans is even better / faster. Last tip: pour the batter into the pan in small quantities so the pancakes are easy to flip.

Pour and flip, check oil in pan, repeat.

Enjoy!

Grain-free Roast with Gravy

2011-10-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

If it's Sunday, it's gotta be a slow cooked meal! My dad is *the* connoisseur of all things gravy. I made this on a Saturday for dinner with my parents and he asked a lot of questions and seemed to be taking mental notes. I think he might actually try this sometime. So that leads me to believe I'm really onto something. LOL!

This is adapted from a recipe in Cook's Magazine which was adapted from a recipe from Mary Todd Lincoln (if I remember the article correctly). It is EASY and would be a great thing to serve if you have someone you want to impress. Just try it once first so you have some confidence on the day you are trying to impress said individual(s). I'm documenting the full set of instructions since some people are more experienced cooks than others and this is a GREAT recipe for a very novice cook.

Special Equipment
Dutch oven

Timing
This is an excellent recipe for a weekend. Start the liver soaking (optional) at least 8 hours before you want to serve and start working on the rest of it 4-6 hours before you want to serve.

Ingredients
Grass-fed beef roast (fatty cut) or short ribs
Celtic brand sea salt, coarse grain
Onions (+ fennel / leeks / celery / whatever)
Extra virgin olive oil
Liquid (wine / stock / water)
Champagne vinegar
Bay leaves
Thyme
Garlic (optional)
Liver (optional)

Step One: Soak the liver
Before cooking with liver you want to soak it in fresh lemon juice for at least 4 hours. According to various sources (Nourishing Traditions cookbook, for one) this will help draw impurities out of the liver and improve the texture. We do this whenever we use liver for any recipe. I am not the best planner so sometimes my 4 hours is a little short and other times it turns into 24 hours. The liver is very forgiving. I soak it in the lemon in a glass dish in the fridge, with a lid on top.

I am not a huge fan of liver but I am a huge fan of the nutrients it imparts and for some reason my body slowly begins craving liver now that I am eating it more regularly. Even if you do not like liver, try it in this recipe. The nutrients from the liver leach into the gravy liquid while the pot roast cooks. It is a sneaky way of making this gravy ultra nourishing. The bonus is that it turns out my girls crave the liver cooked this way. Even if you discard the liver meat after cooking you will have added to the flavor of your gravy AND boosted the nutrients you feed your family.

Step Two: Salt your meat
Rub about 1.5 Tbsp of sea salt onto the surface of the meat and let it rest on the counter for approximately one hour. I usually rub on the salt and about 15 minutes later I start prepping my onions. I definitely short change the hour and at other times get distracted and it sits for just over an hour. It is still always delicious (the best recipes are forgiving recipes, no?). I used to set the meat on a rack, per the magazine recipe's instructions but I don't like the extra cleaning of the rack so lately I just salt it and set it on the paper it was wrapped in and it seems to be fine.

If you want some yummy roasted garlic or want to impart a garlic flavor to your meat cut a few slices in the meat with a sharp knife and put a few cloves in the meat. I usually prefer just to put the garlic straight in the bottom of my dutch oven in step 3 but my dad is more of a "garlic nestled in the meat" kinda guy. Of course, this past weekend when he was here I forgot the garlic altogether, so that is fine too!

Step Three: Veggies
Cut off the ends of the onions, chop them in half, and peel off the dried layer(s). Set the flat side down and thinly slice the onions. I usually use around 2 very large onions. If you have some fennel or leeks or celery and would like to put them in as well then slice them thinly also. By thinly I am talking about 1/8-1/4 inch slices.

Add the thinly sliced vegetables and some olive oil (drizzle a time or two around the pan - maybe 2 Tbsp or so) and cook on low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently. You want to cook them enough that the onions start to turn translucent but you are not trying to caramelize them, which can take hours. They will begin to caramelize during the cooking process. I haven't decided whether the major importance of this step is in the beginning to cook down the onions or if it is just to reduce the volume of onions so there is room in the dutch oven for your roast!

Step Four: Prepare to throw it in the oven
When ready, pile up the onions in the middle and set the roast on the pile of onions.

This is probably the only important part of this recipe as the rest of the recipe is something that is in every experienced cook's repertoire. However, most of my friends do an extra step where they brown the meat and my big A-HA cooking moment was realizing you don't have to do that somewhat annoying and time consuming step. The pile of onions will keep your roast out of the liquid as it cooks and not let it stick to the bottom of the pan at the same time. You will get a browned roast without the extra work of browning it first. A-HA!!!

Add about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of liquid. I use homemade beef stock if I have it. Otherwise a little dry white wine or water will work. If you didn't use white wine then add about a Tbsp of the champagne vinegar. Finally, throw any herbs into the liquid you want to include. Bay leaves and thyme are my stand-bys but if you have other favorites feel free to add them too. Tuck the lemon-soaked liver into the liquid. Make sure it is in the liquid (versus the roast that you want to keep out of the liquid). This is also the time to drop in some garlic directly into the pot if you want to do that. Or set it on top of the meat if you want it baked. Yum!

Step Five: Slow cooked goodness
Put the lid on your dutch oven and pop it in the oven at anywhere from 275 (best temp) to 325. If I'm running late on time I cook at 325 and it takes about 2.5 hours for a 2.5 pound roast. If I have enough time I cook at 275 and it takes about 3.5 hours for a 2.5 pound roast. These times are approximate as my life is too busy to track these details carefully. But it is a very forgiving recipe and I've never been disappointed. If you pull the roast out of the oven and it isn't falling apart easily then give it another 30 minutes or so.

Step Six: The best gravy EVER!
All this typing is making me HUNGRY! Once your roast is finished then take it (and the liver if you added liver) out of the pot and set it on a serving plate and cover to keep it warm. Next, remove the bay leaves and any other herbs that need to be removed (I use fresh thyme and take it out here so I don't have to worry about the stems poking anyone in the gravy). Then get all the flavor off the sides of your dutch oven by using a wooden spoon and rubbing the onions on the sides of the pot to pull all the glutamates (the fancy word for yummy goodness) into the liquid for gravy. Finally, pour all the liquid / onion mixture into a stainless steel bowl and use a stick blender to blend it. Or pour it into your blender and blend it. Or do this step in a food processor, but a quick note that if you can keep it out of plastic as you do not want any chemicals leaching into your amazing food product.

Voila
So that's it!!! I'm sure I've missed something in this write-up so leave me a note if you have a question and I will edit the post as necessary. This is E-A-S-Y and you will look like a rock star. When people rave you can just sit back, smile, and give thanks to Mary Todd Lincoln!

Shifting Context

2011-10-29T01:00:00.000-04:00

Pick out the lovingly abusive parent:

A parent who does not allow their child to eat cotton candy but brought along a healthy snack to the school party. The child feels a bit left out from the festivities.
-OR-

A parent who knows a child will "go crazy" after ice cream and but takes her for a "treat" before an extra-curricular activity. The child is reprimanded for inability to pay attention during the activity.
Sooo... Whaddayathink? Both? First one? Second one?

For many parents and grandparents, one of the hardest things about this diet is giving up "treats" as the children have known them. No more technicolor goldfish. No more snack bags. No more special trips for ice cream. No more juice boxes after a soccer game. Giving back "goody bags" at a birthday party. You get the idea.

As a parent / grandparent, should you feel sorry for the kid? Do you feel like the "bad guy?" Well, you can but that is a pretty pointless use of emotional energy. If a child needs to heal a child needs to heal. YOU are not doing anything TO him or her. YOU are doing something FOR him or her.

This is a context that generally bothers a parent / grandparent during the early months of being on a special diet. However, if the diet is REALLY working and provides consistent evidence that the child truly needs the special / restricted foods the parent / grandparent will gradually find their context of "normal" shifts slowly over time.

Lest you think my context is perfectly shifted, I too have been recently guilty of wanting to be the "fun" parent. Just the other weekend we were at ZiZi's school party and they had the most *amazing* farm-fresh apples. I threw caution to the wind and let each of the girls have one. This was cruel to my daughter with the apple allergy. But it had been awhile since she had had one and it was a fun day so what the heck. Poor kid had a pretty bad potty accident at the event (one of her usual side effects) and was totally out of sorts for days. My bad.

Once your context begins to shift you will find yourself with no sympathy for the child any longer. This can actually be a good place to be. Allowing someone to wallow and be a victim is not a great way to support him/her on a healing journey. Giving the child language around the food choices that empowers him/her is the way to go. Not that I'm telling you what to do, of course.

The other thing that will happen once your context shifts is you will slowly start to notice how we have become a culture of sugar and brightly colored, "blingy" treats. The average social gathering has sugar as a main attraction. The governments have been busy fighting the war against fats, but I say bring out a bucket of fried chicken for the kids instead of some unnatural shade of bright blue cupcakes. Their minds and bodies will be better for it. It is as if we don't "really" believe that sugar (and the crazy food colorings + additives) cause problems for anybody. Kid has a birthday at school? Celebrating the last sports team gathering? Holidays? Book fair? Bring out the inflammatory substances and add a side of hyperactivity to it just for fun.

Once your context has shifted, you will start looking around and feeling really, REALLY sorry for many of the children around you. They are being poisoned by the adults who love them. Many, many of them are eating so many prepackaged treats that you have to wonder about the chemical cocktails they ingest every day. Not to mention the sugar, which is added to EVERYTHING. Even bacon. Sometimes when I see those kids it feels a little unfair that my sweet babe eats the cleanest foods and still struggles to learn her letters and numbers. But time will tell and although it will take Zi awhile to catch up to her peers, she will catch up. The kid sucking down a blue colored, genetically modified high fructose corn syrup laden "energy drink" at age five... We'll just have to see how it goes for him.

Mary Katharine's Story

2011-10-28T10:20:00.000-04:00

Our family started the GAPS diet after a string of events that started with our 2.5 year old daughter suffering a severe eczema outbreak. As a baby, I could tell that she was milk intolerant. While breastfeeding I eliminated all dairy (except my beloved cream in my coffee) and things improved. She had a rough go of teething and I ended up nursing much longer than anticipated, to 2 years old when I became pregnant with our 3rd. She was always very verbal, very precocious for her age, petite, and a little stick of dynamite! We joked that she never walked anywhere, point A to point B was always a sprint, even if just 2 feet away.

Thanksgiving of 2010 she was hit with a bad upper respiratory virus. Certain it was pneumonia; we went to the KidMed the night before our flight to visit family. It was just a virus, we were sent away with a nebulizer, some steroids and the all clear to travel. She did have some GI distress with the virus as well. She got better, but she did not feel well and was not herself for at least 2 weeks. During this time she ate and drank little.

Once recovered pre-Christmas and Christmas festivities were in full swing and we were eating like our lives depended on it. Sippy cup upon sippy cup of Horizon Organic Milk were flowing (we introduced cow’s milk to her upon the recommendation of our pediatrician at one year and she seemed to tolerate it). December came and went, January arrived and as we were getting back into the swing of things the eczema started. First in the creases of her arms, then the legs, then the chest…this is when I knew a dietary intervention was needed. We pulled the most obvious, all dairy and soy, first and things improved significantly but still lingered.

I would notice little skin flares after eating certain things. We saw a Naturopath and had the enzyme intolerance test done. She and I were both intolerant to potato and the sugar-fruit combo. Huh? Potato? Based on her blood type (o), the ND recommended a grain free diet as well. So now we are *basically* grain free except the few on the legal list like rice. Again, things improved but still lingered. She was easily potty trained at 2 years old,but now she was having early morning bm’s in her diaper. I was getting an up close and personal wake-up call every morning and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. Things were holding steady enough, I was about to have the baby, luckily my mom stepped in to cook and adhere to our current eating plan for now and in the back of my mind I was thinking that next I would pull eggs. What in the world was she going to eat?

Fast Forward to me “taking back over” after our baby was born. I was shocked at how the digestive situation had really declined. I was hearing about the messy poops from the family members but now seeing it with my own eyes really made me worry. She was clearly not digesting many foods. Some research led me to learn that she was having malabsorption issues. A checkup at the pedi showed she had dropped in weight percentile, nothing to worry about yet, she is petite, but something about that didn’t add up for me.

I had heard about GAPS from Kati about a year before, was abnormally intrigued by the whole thing yet stayed at an arm’s length because man, that diet is CRAZY! The whole time it was in the back of my mind though, and somewhere in the midst of all this I read the literature and just knew this was the only solution. There is an example in the book about 3 generations of women and their “ailments” and it was our EXACT situation. It could have been written about us. Nobody has any major disease, yet, but all the little quirky things could be chalked up to “leaky gut”. Since MK’s issues started so early, I knew we had to reverse things now to save her from years of lingering health problems and likely a full blown autoimmune disease.

The final straw was when the new baby had a quick and fast reaction to me “going off the dairy wagon” one post partum weekend with pizza and who knows what else while I was at it. His stool immediately changed. Another kid milk intolerant. Clearly they are all getting this from me. Me and all the crappy processed dairy I've consumed over the years.

We started GAPS intro in August 2011. The first 2 weeks were ROUGH. My son and daughter did the intro, my husband played along for the first weeks and was a big help and I started strict full gaps. They starved themselves, they puked, they lay lifeless on the floor napping and sleeping. The detox was intense. We psychologically tortured my poor mom who was in town to assist me. Then they started eating, quit fighting the broth and acted like pancakes made of squash, egg and nut butter were the best things in the whole world.

I started my 6 year old son on the program at the same time because he was also dairy intolerant but his symptoms manifested in different ways. He was chronically congested,generally fatigued and craved sweets, I mean CRAVED to the point that it was very frustrating. I had the same cravings and according to the GAPS literature if one child has a GAPS condition it’s safe to bet any siblings do too, they are just presenting different clues.

Shortly after intro we learned an important piece of the puzzle for MK. She had/has a yeast overgrowth in her upper GI tract. Our new pediatrician (yep, I switched) saw this in the back of her mouth at her 3 yr checkup. She prescribed Nystatin. I gave myself 3 weeks to try a non-pharmaceutical alternative. We saw immediate results in her digestion. Immediate. Things are consistently “normal” with her digestion and elimination. She’s put on 3 lbs in the last 2 weeks. Maybe she’s not supposed to be petite? We’ve had a couple setbacks here and there but trend is definitely in the right direction.

My son looks MUCH better, has better color, much better energy and his sweet cravings are completely gone. A piece of fruit is now a treat in our house and they enjoy it so, so much. We have months ahead of us but I am confident that following this approach will get us to where we want to be. My husband has even noticed things in himself from “sort of” following the diet with us. Like Kati said, the guys are reluctant to give up the beer J Who can blame them living with these crazy,driven, problem-solving, operating without a medical degree, self-diagnosing
crazy women?

Looking back, I know exactly how we got here:

Various food intolerance in me, passed down to the kids. They should have never
had a sip of cow’s milk and it wrecked havoc on their bellies.
MK had several early ear infections, treated by antibiotics.
I did probiotics, but not therapeutically and probably not each time. I remember the pediatrician told me they generally don’t recommend probiotics until the second round of antibiotics in the row. *growl* I knew better. After the 3rd EI, I saw an ND who helped us get on a non-pharmaceutical regime for fighting colds and EI’s and (knock on wood),
we haven’t had one since.
Lots of shots. We did a staggered schedule, but she still got them all. Lots of shots
on top of a compromised gut, even just from food intolerance, are not a good idea in my opinion. ( There is definitely some science to back that up too).
She had a horrible time teething. I put A LOT of stuff in her mouth. 95% homeopathic, but
still…..
Gave her cow’s milk at 1 year old, seemed to tolerate but I’m convinced by long term breastfeeding held off her body from having an immune system reaction. She was protected until I quit making the antibodies for her.
She got the flu mist last fall. I have a feeling this contributed to the yeast growth and/or healthy flora suppression in her mouth and throat.
The Thanksgiving virus and GI distress further damaged her gut wall, making her very, very
susceptible. Pour on top of a susceptible gut normal Christmas eating behavior and voila, eczema, the first sign of what was to come. If left unaddressed, what is next to come? I am finding that just in my circle of friends there is a huge link between baby/toddler eczema and ADD, ADHD, learning delays, asthma…yet all can be avoided with just one
simple thing. The right food.

In reality, we are lucky to have caught this so soon and that our current symptoms are physiological (although I have seen a DRASTIC improvement in behavior, focus and drama). I figure this crazy cooking and living in our weird food bubble for a brief time is a small sacrifice for setting up a lifetime of good health. Also, by eating more cleanly my husband and I have noticed food intolerances in ourselves that we would have otherwise ignored or not attributed to the gut. I’ve known I was due for a big dietary overhaul for a while now and was even discussing recently with a vegetarian friend that I could see myself going that route. I have to laugh about that now, I couldn’t be on a more opposite end of the spectrum with GAPS! Thank goodness I didn’t go veggie, that would have only worsened my particular intolerances. Not to say a vegetarian diet isn't perfect for some, it just wouldn't be the best for me at this moment.

I do worry that at some point they’ll end up in the same shrink's chair as Kati’s kids, talking about how “I had avocado as a snack at school while the rest of my classmates at goldfish, I was so left out” and “my mom made me eat soup and I hated it”. Oh well, time will tell!

PS: We have always been healthy eaters! We were not eating the SAD
(Standard American Diet) or even close. We did fall victim to convenience foods and that’s where we are all just screwed at the grocery store. Just because it’s “all natural” or “gluten free” doesn’t mean shit. If it’s in a box or a package, don’t eat it.

Maddie's Story

2011-10-27T22:14:00.000-04:00

Maddie is a beautiful young girl who has stolen my heart. Maddie's mom, Janice, is a friend of friends and now a friend of mine too. We initially connected via our mutual friends because they knew what I was doing to help recover ZiZi and couldn't help but wonder if it might help Maddie as well.

Maddie is almost five years old and has been diagnosed with autism. She is non-verbal and usually when she is at my house she wanders around, mouths on things, sometimes eats chalk, and does not interact much with the other kids. My oldest daughter, Ani, tries pretty hard to get Maddie's attention and I remember an early visit when Janice was surprised that by the end of the visit they were seated together. Apparently Maddie usually shied away from that sort of thing. But Ani has a way with people and like her mama doesn't always take "No" for an answer.

I met Maddie and Janice when we were in the "biomed" portion of our recovery. We were on a ton of supplements and spending a lot of money on labwork, but we were getting some noticeable results. I passed along anything I learned to Janice. At that time I talked to Janice about a gluten-free, casein-free diet and the importance of giving kids real food, not prepackaged snacks. That first step was a lot of work and Janice has three other children and a husband who need time from her as well.

Then our family started SCD / GAPS. It was a wonderful change for ZiZi and her communication skills skyrocketed. I started talking to Janice about this dietary option. I couldn't help but think that Maddie was "in there" in her brain and all we needed to do was unlock her so she could tell us what she was thinking. I said this out loud to Janice once when they were over and Maddie stopped her random bumping around. She turned and looked at me and stared into my eyes in a way that gives me goosebumps even now when I think about it. It was like she reached right out and grabbed my soul. I felt bonded to her after that day.

So I called Janice every now and then and checked in. I would not let go of the idea of Maddie on this diet. I was probably the crazy small, cartoonish dog hanging onto the back of her pants. Her life was intense and she had a lot of people who needed her. Her mom had a surgery. Her father passed away. Life was really tough. I felt so trapped in my own kitchen that I couldn't offer much. All I could really do was just let her know I cared about her and her daughter.

This summer, when all the dust had settled, I told Janice we needed to give it a shot. She told me that some professionals she trusted had told her that diet wouldn't do anything. I countered that there was no down-side to feeding her daughter really healthy food for a few weeks to see if it would help. The wonderful thing about this diet is that there is not much "risk" or down-side to giving it a shot. Particularly if you begin with the full foods menu rather than starting with the dreaded intro.

So around August Janice made the switch. It has been almost three months and although Maddie occcasionally gets some foods that are not allowed on the diet her mother is working like a maniac, trying to make sure she has what she needs.

In the past three months Maddie has begun to pay more attention to people and to her program (her school and therapy exercises to help her learn). She has even become more aware of her surroundings to the point that her feelings are occasionally getting hurt now, for the first time in her life. This emotional capacity is a very big milestone.

Maddie is also no longer pulling hair. This had developed into a big problem over the summer and her mother had to leave the park more than once because of it. Maddie is much less agitated and aggressive. She is now more affectionate and seeks hugs and kisses. She wants to play with her younger sister and they are able to laugh together.

Maddie is listening to the requests from her parents. When they say, "Come here" or "Sit down" she is focused on what they say and able to react appropriately. Janice called me a few weeks ago thrilled that she had told Maddie her burger was hot and to blow on it. She said Maddie looked her in the eye (like, "Got it, Mom!"), turned to the burger, and blew on it. This may sound like a small thing but it was a big change.

Maddie is also initiating communication via sign-language with her family members. She is able to communicate her wants and needs which is a massive breakthrough. And last, but not least, yesterday she used the potty for the first time.

Maddie's improvements are noticed not just by her family but also by friends and her therapists. The only thing that has shifted in her routine is her foods. Her body craves the healing broths. She happily eats sauerkraut and meatballs. Her mom, like many of us, can barely make it out of the kitchen long enough to take care of all the other things that need to happen in a busy household. But somehow she holds it together and dares to hope for what the next 6-12 months can bring for Maddie. Janice is my kind of hero. She may not be honored at some charity gala this year but one day she will have the sweetest reward of all. One day, I dare to dream, Maddie will tell her mom that she loves her. Out loud.

Elevator Speech: Our Healing Diet

2011-10-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

When we were preparing for our healing diet I took advantage of a couple of my girls' twenty minute epsom baths and spent that time drawing diagrams of the human digestive tract. We talked about intestinal villi, enzymes, food molecules, and that sinister villain, "the belly bug."

I don't always have an opportunity to speak to a captive audience (particularly in my bathtub) so over the past 15 months or so I have perfected my elevator speech for people who look at me questioningly as I pull out the cooler at a birthday party or picnic. I have found that it is best to generally stick to the science behind the diet and not get dragged into any of the reasons we are on the healing diet. Our diet can be boiled down to this in a nutshell:

Point #1: The human body runs on fat, protein, and carbohydrates. The bacteria in our gut utilizes the carbohydrates for energy. If there is a bacterial or yeast overgrowth the carbohydrates will continue to feed them.

Point #2 There are three main forms of carbohydrates (technically there are four but because I use the word "main" I am not going to split hairs on the difference between an oligosaccharide and polysaccharide):

Monosaccharide (think of this as a ball)
Disaccharide (think of this as two balls with a bar between them)
Polysaccharide (think about many balls strung together in different shapes, mostly long lines but also circles and star shapes)

Point #3 The human body can immediately use the single ball / saccharide without any sort of enzyme action or digestive process. The disaccharide must be split into to saccharide molecules before it can be used. The polysaccharide must be split, and split, and split, and split (you can keep going for dramatic effect). Unfortunately, some people have a deficiency in digestive enzymes to aid digestion of the disaccharides and polysaccharides.

Point #4 Anything your body is unable to digest and use will pass through the body. The carbohydrates you were unable to digest and use make wonderful food and energy sources for gut pathogens. To starve out the gut pathogens and allow for maximum healing our family avoids disaccharides and polysaccharides until our bodies are able to more easily digest them.

Point #5 This is a healing diet and after the healing is complete (six months past the last symptom) we will add back wholesome foods to see if our bodies can digest them.

From here you end up at a decision point on whether or not to go any further or tell any bit of your healing story, a friend's story, or whatever. Hopefully you read social cues well and are looking at your listener for those cues. Sometimes it is helpful to take a deep breath and wait for their social cue. I mean reaction.

If your listener has the slightest bit of interest in the science/background:
The basis for this diet is called Specific Carbohydrate Diet and it is the original diet from the 1950s/60s for celiac disease. It has historically been used for ulcerative colitis, IBD, IBS, Crohn's disease, and celiac disease. These days it garners a lot of interest and support for healing children from autism, ADHD, allergies, and asthma.

If your listener asks for a recommended book:
Recommend Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. All the other books do not explain the science well enough and do not draw all the parallels to the variety of ways this gut condition can present neurologically. Even if you send someone to check out SCD, this is the better book to read.

If your listener asks for a website:
If s/he is associated in any way with autism the pecanbread.com is the easiest place to start. It is an SCD website but tailored very heavily to parents of children with autism.

If s/he is just asking in general then I would usually just suggest the GAPS website as a starting place: gaps.me

If your listener asks for a video or doesn't want to read anything:
Here is a worthwhile 90 minute video of a presentation by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.

If you can perfect this short elevator speech you may find greater levels of support and a little less eyeball rolling. Some people are haters and are going to be eyeball rollers regardless so don't take their dysfunction personally (I never do). The vast majority of people, however, tend to be curious and generally want to be supportive.

It really is pretty simple. It is about the physiology of our digestive system and giving it time to heal before going back to a life of sourdough bread and gnocchi. Which, by the way, I hope to go back to one day.

Tales of an Intro Past

2011-10-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

At this point I have watched, assisted, and supported a number of mothers putting children through a formal "intro" for SCD / GAPS. There are a few consistencies between all the stories and they, strangely enough, match up pretty closely to an addict going through detox. I had never put that together until I was on the phone with a mom listening to her daughter scream, "I want pizza! I want pizza!" in the background. Her mother had a spine of steel and told me that she and her husband were both familiar with the cycle of addiction (from the professional assistance standpoint) and that she considered her daughter's behavior to be that of an addict.

Her comment really opened my eyes. I started thinking of the kids on intro a little differently than I had previously. Of COURSE their stubborn holding out for the old foods was addict behavior. Also, many of the kids got sick and vomited on intro and the reasons given were always: detox, yeast/bacteria die-off, or low blood sugar. I had previously assumed that low blood sugar was the biggest issue but what if it was more frequently toxins / detox?

So I started thinking back to some of the kids who had been on dietary "upgrade" journeys. The most severe detox reaction came from a beautiful young child with autism. Her journey toward GAPS was a long and slow one and there were many steps in between her previous diet and getting to 100% "Full GAPS" (she has yet to do a formal intro). One of the first phases of her journey was when her mother removed additives and preservatives from her diet. She screamed all day and all night for a week. She was nonverbal at the time and was unable to tell her mother how she was feeling but obviously she was not feeling okay. The detox from simply removing additive / preservative chemicals was intense. Today, when this same child has an infraction on "Full GAPS" she writhes on the floor in pain or is "off" for a few days while the offending substance clears her body.

My girls threw major tantrums when we first went on the diet. OK, OK, me too with my knife throwing incident. Our issue was the toxins from yeast/bacteria die off. Luckily for us we had been on a very clean diet for awhile before starting SCD and there wasn't any vomiting. For Stacylee the intro period was very, very difficult. The most severe I had witnessed up to that point. She was lethargic, pale, losing weight, and vomiting. Her mother was very scared. Stacylee came to our home on day three when she was vomiting and again on day six. On day three her presentation didn't seem too bad but by day six she needed some FOOD. She did start eating that day, but what parent thinks it is "OK" or "normal" for their child to vomit for days on end before being ready for food?

Because the intro is SO tough, scary, and lonely many people advise going onto the full diet first and then going back to the introductory stages after awhile. The double bonus is that whomever is doing all the cooking can get used to the new ingredients list / ways of cooking and stock up on ferments, broths, and veggie puree before beginning intro. The other thing they can stock up on is love, patience, and support. They have time to educate those around them and get them used to the changes.

Other parents feel pressed for time or are just "dive right in" kind of people. With no stock or ferments in their pantry and with family/friends who have no idea of the big changes ahead, they just get started. Those who find out what is "going on" may question whether it is necessary or healthy. Hopefully these chefs are doing intro hunkered down for two weeks or so behind closed doors because if their child is one of the kids who needs it the worst their child will go through detox the worst.

It is a long, soul crushing road but well worth the results achieved and the chef is generally rewarded very, very quickly. Here is a Facebook post from today - the little boy has been on intro for only two weeks:

[Name removed] has stopped 99% of his head-shaking... this is a form of self-stimulation done by people with "high-functioning" Autism. He's also stopped spinning and running around in circles and obsessively throwing himself against the glass sliding door whenever we get done singing the song he likes from "Wee Sing."

That is quite a change for just two weeks. Healing and sealing. Heal the gut, seal the gut, heal the brain. Soul crushing road, but worth it.

Soul Crushing Days

2011-10-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

I like to refer to the first stages of SCD / GAPS, commonly referred to as "Intro," as soul crushing. I do not say it lightly because intro is really tough. Really, really tough. And soul crushing.

It is tough on the cook (usually a mom) because all the food must be made in the home. From scratch. Nothing from a bottle except perhaps coconut oil / olive oil. Nothing from a box. Whether or not she knows how to make everything from scratch. No premade anything. It is intense.

It is tough on the patient (usually a kid) because their former favorite foods are almost guaranteed NOT to be allowed on the diet. What will they eat during intro?

Lots and lots of broth
More broth
Soup if mom is sweet and adds veggies to the broth (extra work)
Boiled/broiled meat
Perhaps a bit of cooked fruit (on SCD intro but not on the early stages of GAPS intro)
Perhaps some fresh pressed juices
Cooked vegetables (but not old stand-bys -starches- like potatoes and sweet potatoes)
Sauerkraut -- lots and lots of sauerkraut
Oh, and cod liver oil too

So, isn't this something you are EAGER to do?

For many of us who put young children on this diet, particularly young children with feeding challenges and neurological conditions, intro is what leads to liberation. Liberation from the daily challenges of coaxing a child to eat a little more (insert healthy food here) before they can have (insert treat or favorite food here). If all goes well, it also leads to liberation from a multitude of worries. When the brain begins to be nourished it is a game changer.

This time on the diet boosts healing and is a wonderful step to quickly seal and heal the gut. It is so effective that some people voluntarily go back to intro a second or third time for an extra surge in healing. Intro is also the time you can "break" a child's willfulness when it comes to food. For that reason alone I would encourage anyone with a very picky eater to consider an intro boot camp.

Changing a child's eating habits is a daunting task. They will cling to their favorites for as long as you let them. They will self select down to the least nutritious foods possible if you let them. If you start intro before doing the full diet, you will find that it is the time period when parents become the parents and children become the children. There is no confusion of roles and the child *knows* instinctively they have no control over the situation. Your child's personality will drive how long it takes before they succumb to this new truth. This is especially fun if the patient is your husband and you have to break his will too. My husband has not yet signed up for intro, perhaps because he knows I can be meaner than a marine. Intro takes a spine of steel.

For the kids who have some sort of "autism" symptoms, the feeding challenge can be even more intense because those kids can be SOOOO stubborn. Some of them have brains that want things to be the same way all the time and when you change something it is a HUGE deal to them. Tantrums can ensue. Or worse yet, a food strike.

However, it is worth every difficult moment because correcting a child's nutritional deficiency is THE answer to so many issues for our children today. Child not talking? Might be nutrition related. Child eating dirt? Definitely nutrient related. Child not growing very well? Definitely nutrition related. Child cannot sit still? Check those sugars and chemicals in their food. Child seems okay but struggling with dyslexia? Yup, nutrition may play a role. Good food and good sleep are the two requirements for any child to thrive (after love, which is the most important thing). It takes a lot of love to do this for a child so the parents who are willing are some of the most amazing, loving people I know.

The Proof Is In The Placenta

2011-10-26T16:00:00.000-04:00

For reasons having to do with the title of this post, this will have to be an anonymous posting. So, I have a friend who...

I have a fabulous friend who is very quiet about what she does with her family's diet. She is not out to convert the non-believers. She mostly sticks to her own business, tends not to talk too much about what she is doing for foods, and just supports people on their own personal food journeys. Happy to ask questions / answer questions but definitely not into converting people.

But it is a funny thing about leaders and leadership. Sometimes the quiet leaders move mountains. This is how I feel about her. She is the kind of person who made the decision to go on GAPS not out of desperation (as I did) or a well researched decision (as other friends did) or even out of hope after witnessing someone else's recovery (as still other friends did). She quietly read a book, considered the situation, and decided it just made sense and she would give it a try.

So during this quiet journey she was pregnant. I cannot remember exactly how pregnant when she began the journey but she was craving cheese if I remember the story correctly. So she began a "Full GAPS" diet for herself. She was open with the local midwife about what she was / was not eating and the midwife was mostly supportive but a little concerned.

Can you blame the midwife? I mean, how do any of us know what this diet will do? How do we know what is best for the baby? Is there a controlled test for pregnancy and GAPS? Of course not. So my friend, who was feeling better on this diet than she had felt with either of her other pregnancies (and keeping up with two young children, no less) paid more attention to her body than to the advice of the midwife. She read the book and believed the science, but mostly she just wanted to see where it led her since she was feeling good.

Our local midwife expressed concerns with her low weight gain toward the end of the pregnancy. My friend just stuck with "Full GAPS" because she was experiencing improved health and well-being. She did add some extra fruit and honey at the midwife's suggestion so she might gain a little extra weight at the end of the pregnancy, but otherwise she stayed on the course she had already charted for herself.

Then one day, her beautiful baby boy was born. He weighed a little over eight pounds. And then she delivered... the placenta of a lifetime. The midwife later commented that the placenta was one of the healthiest she had ever seen, and was thus deeply reassured that whatever this diet was doing was an awesome thing for this mama & baby. This from a midwife who has practiced for decades and seen thousands of placentas, is seriously worth noting.

Since then our midwife has had the opportunity to see three babies born while mamas were eating GAPS or mostly GAPS. All three babies are their mother's third child. As a friend of each of these women I myself cannot help but notice how large and healthy these third babies look. They have chunky thighs, big appetites, and are hitting all their milestones. In contrast, the second child for two of the women both had some health issues, some evident from a very young age. So it is remarkable to me that each of these three third babies are so healthy and large. Did I say large? One baby in particular is astounding to me, considering how tiny her two older sisters were when they were babies.

So the moms eat a lot of GAPS foods and fats and breastfeed their gorgeous beasts for babes. Lots of coconut product is being consumed and loads of egg yolks are being given as first foods. I will twist some arms soon for a good pregnancy round up + egg yolks to enhance language development posts!

But let's get back to the placenta. I'm not sure we gave it the attention it truly deserves.

There should really only ever be one particular opportunity for a woman to examine an internal organ and that is after delivering her placenta. It is the one organ that is expelled and just begs to be picked up, stretched, searched, and otherwise checked right after the baby is born. Women who are *really* into birth tend to be really into their placentas. Some people rub herbs into their placenta and leave it attached to the baby until it naturally falls away. Others encapsulate it and take it as a post-natal vitamin. Still others stick it in their freezer and throw bits into the blender for a super-health shake. I consider myself on the slippery slope to tribal but my second placenta is planted under ZiZi's special plant in our front yard and the new owners of our home next year will never be the wiser. But I digress...

It is said by experienced midwives that the health of the placenta is a good indicator of how well the child was sustained in the womb. If the placenta degrades upon expulsion, that kid barely made it out into the world with what he or she needed! Other times the placenta looks really healthy and the midwife may joke that the baby could have stayed in another week or more being nourished by that special organ.

So when a midwife says, "That is one great looking placenta," my ears perk up. This is important evidence to be considered and analysts are nothing, if not interested in analyzing the evidence! Our midwife's interest has been piqued by this evidence and hopefully we can begin a dialogue so that pregnant mothers in this town might eat healthier and deliver healthier babies.

In a somewhat related nugget of wisdom I was reading a neat passage to my oldest daughter a couple of weeks ago about how the Romans would decide whether or not a particular area was a good spot to build a town. They would kill a rabbit and check the health of its liver to determine whether the animal was healthy.

So if you use that sort of logic and consider whether or not the GAPS diet is a healthy one for the animal we call human beings, in our small population sample I believe the answer overwhelmingly is "Yes." Yes, you can grow fabulous placentas on this diet. Yes, your baby can be delivered at a wonderful, healthy size. Yes, you can breastfeed a baby and grow him or her to a wonderful, health, large size. And oh those chunky thighs. People will love to squeeze them. I'm talking about the baby's thighs...

Our Science Experiments

2011-10-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

Let's get really honest with ourselves. Looking in the mirror naked level of honest with ourselves. Raising children is really a science experiment, whether or not we want to call it one.

Some friends and I joke about the fact that our children will definitely end up in therapy, blaming us, at some point. We just hope it's for a perceived slight and as a feedback step in their maturation process. You know, something like:

My mom never let me eat sugar and now I find myself unable to stop dreaming about lollipops. She also kept me from eating grains and I will only date men with tractors and large fields of wheat. And oh, the potatoes. I am an artist and will only do ink stamped paintings with potatoes. I am obsessive about these things and cannot quite shake it. Do you think the Specific Carbohydrate Diet / Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet could have done this to me?

Well, I've put that fear to rest. Besides, there is a great article at The Onion telling me I'm doomed anyway. LOL! I am loving these children with every pot of stock I make and I hope that by the time they are teenagers they will make healthy food choices that support their bodies. They will be out on their own and you cannot control teenagers anyway (well, without some sort of hellish payback when they turn 18 and leave the home and run off with... let's just not think about those poor kids). So we talk about the science behind the healing and about the choices and outcomes. Once we had a huge histamine binge (watermelon, cherries, pork, avocados, sauerkraut, and more -- all in one day) and when they were itchy and losing their minds I was able to link it together and point it out to them. My youngest still looks at me a little funny sometimes but her older sister knows there is a method to the madness and a reason we are doing it.

As the girls begin to feel better and we meet other families healing themselves I notice, with particular interest that although the sample population is small, the results are 100% success in moving toward improved health. It does not mean that everything will be fixed via this diet, but the evidence is overwhelming that even given a short period of time there is improvement. Over longer periods of time the true healing can occur.

So now I sometimes find myself dreaming of a fantastic science experiment to prove that the SCD / GAPS diet is more successful than any other intervention. One that would divide a class of children into two groups and provide support to the GAPSters as they made the changes. For three months only one group of kids would be on the diet and at the end of the three months if the other families wanted to move to the diet they could do so. Wouldn't it be amazing if half the class was suddenly "coming alive" and the other parents couldn't wait to join the progress?

In researching autism spectrum and helping my daughter and other mothers, over time I have come to believe that for many children today what it really is, is a diagnosis of malabsorption and strange nutritional deficiencies. Add certain amino acids, the ticcing / stimming will stop. Get a kid the minerals he/she needs and the pica will stop. Decrease inflammation while supporting a child's body nutritionally and the language will explode.

You are what you eat.

Note for professionals who tell parents otherwise: Please come visit my home. Please speak with my child's teacher. Please drink two bottles of wine. Please try to pass a sobriety test. Then let's talk about how what you put in your mouth can and does affect your brain.

Gradually, we Americans are turning into a pile of toxins and cross-contaminated, genetically engineered, industry by-products masquerading as food. I call it PHood. As in. PHuey!

While I don't think that diet alone will take care of every child's needs, it is the place to start. Until you simplify a child's diet you cannot uncover the problems with the system versus the problems with the fuel in the system. It is the basic logic behind a controlled study. Control your variables so you can see what is actually changing.

In a scientific study you want a control group so you can compare the outcome of the group being studied to a "normal" population. When you are talking about a complex system like the human body, one that is unique to every individual, it is impossible to have a true control group. Its the reason we start with rats, conchs, or fruit flies. Simpler systems yield (supposedly) a greater ability to control variables.

With a set of neurological symptoms like autism, autism spectrum disorder, or ADHD every child experiences it a bit differently and has slightly different neurological symptoms. Not only that, but their bodies are different, their blood chemistries are different, and the same foods cannot necessarily be tolerated by each child. So how could you do a study with these kids?

I think the control has to be time. This way you could compare "normal" as the time before you introduced the change. Same system + different external / influencing factors at two separate times = controlled study. It seems to be the best control for this situation given the complexity of the system you are trying to control and the degree of difficulty in observing the progression of changes when only some of the symptoms are neurological.

Eventually our support system is going to cave under the pressure of all the children that need intensive therapies and the parents and medical community will be motivated to find another route to help the children before they are three years old. For many of them there were early warning signals - shots fired across the bow of the medical establishment. But nobody wants to talk diet and if they do dare to talk diet they tend to use general terms like gluten-free or whole foods (if you are lucky). My greatest hope is that in time our medical community will come up with a new diagnosis that reflects the root cause of the issue rather than just the neurological symptoms. That way it will not be "standard" to wait until a child is three to give an official diagnosis. If the root cause is found to be a digestive issue or a problem with the food given to the child and how that food interacts in his/her system, that is something that is present and available for diagnosis from a very young age.

One day we will all embrace the little, cuddly science experiments we call children and learn to read these early warning signs and symptoms. I almost feel sorry for our pediatrician because although I could go in and present the growth chart progress (or lack thereof) from when ZiZi dropped from the 75th percentile to the 3rd percentile in height and the 75th percentile to well below the 3rd percentile in weight, what would she have done differently? Few pediatricians know anything about this diet and even fewer still would dare to mention it to a parent. It is extreme parenting and the failure rate in the first week is high. But for those who make it past the first week the success rate is even higher. Many parents call this diet their most important and successful intervention.

We parents who have had these extreme experiences must go back to the pediatricians and to the medical establishment in their own form (studies, conference speakers, whatever) and give them new tools. Ultimately, if enough kids continue to have these issues and cannot handle the processed toxins we call PHood perhaps industry will even be motivated to join our science experiment rather than keeping us hostage in the sick experiment they have been conducting for a few generations. Their experiment is not going well. But the clean foods experiment is going very, very well.

Secret Sniper

2011-10-26T11:00:00.000-04:00

My husband has a secret sniper that comes out occasionally when things are not going well. I believe he calls in the sniper when he is under stress or feels as though I need him to play a stronger "devil's advocate" role. Regardless of the cause, I sometimes find myself running for cover from this unexpected and unwelcome visitor!

Our older daughter has not thrived on this diet as much as our younger daughter. She does not seem to get quite the same upticks as her sister. She will show a mild improvement or nothing at all when we layer in something great, like liver. She continues to have "poo" challenges (sorry babe - hopefully this isn't still floating on the web when you are 16). We sometimes waffle on whether or not this is the only thing we need to be doing for her. We sometimes still argue on the approach.

My husband has remained mostly on board but not totally on board throughout our dietary adventure. His secret sniper continued to pop up and take shots when I least expected it. Even when one of the girls was very obviously thriving. Finally one day when we were arguing I told my husband that until he read the GAPS book / watched Dr. Natasha's speech I was no longer going to argue with him. He was arguing from an emotional point of view and I was trying to counter with science and research. It wasn't working.

So he watched a video of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride and began to read the book. That day he met me at the door and told me that I needed to figure out how to do this on a bigger scale because so many children have terrible gut flora but, "How are mothers going to be able to do this?" He was finally on board.

But then a few months go by and we have a setback (or regression). Again the questioning. His back and forth antics were worse than Brett Favre deciding whether or not to retire. Not knowing whether we are on the same team on any given day is stressful. Judging by the many yahoo group conversations, plenty of moms doing SCD/GAPS for their children have this same conflict. Sometimes the men do not see there is anything wrong with the child anyway. They may say things like, "Don't worry so much. (S)He will grow out of it." Mamas *know* when something is wrong, but putting it all succinctly into words and convincing a husband is a skill many of us have not quite mastered. So there is conflict.

On a good day, when the sniper is on vacation and not available, my husband will say wonderful things like, "This diet works and is something that only a mother would be dedicated enough to do. It works, but dads just wouldn't do it." Those moments make me realize that he understands the difficulty and how deep the love goes.

Today my husband is mostly on board. There are still some challenges, particularly for Ani, that we will pursue. I keep thinking if I can support their bodies a little better that it would aid the natural healing process. Wouldn't it be great to be on GAPS for only 2-3 years instead of 4? Perhaps it is really a deep patience and trust we need to develop while we wait for the bodies in the family to heal.

Stacylee's Story

2011-10-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

Stacylee is a gorgeous, spunky, red-headed 4.5 year old that was diagnosed with autism (low to moderate level autism) when she was three. She has speech delays but is verbal. She has some motor planning issues and is a sensory seeker. Her strength is her physical coordination and strong will. Her other strength is an exceptionally committed and loving mother, Kelly, who keeps Stacylee's recovery a priority even though the dietary commitment is extremely rigorous. Kelly is a single mom who works full time and is involved in a local leadership program. Kelly reminds me of the saying, "If you want something done, ask a busy person."

In late June, Kelly did what she calls "SCD bootcamp" where she broke Stacylee down and built her back up. Prior to SCD, Stacylee was in constant motion and had very little attention span. Attention boosting drugs were suggested but mom thought she would give one more dietary intervention a try (Stacylee was already GFCF prior to going on SCD) first. The die off was tremendous.

Poor Stacylee was sick, lethargic, and vomiting off and on for the first four days. Kelly was very scared for her and tempted her with all kinds of wonderful SCD intro foods, but Stacylee just needed time for her belly to heal. Her body's intuitive wisdom told her not to eat. On day five Stacylee was no longer vomiting but was still not eating foods. On day six Kelly was very, very worried and took Stacylee to a local pediatric emergency group and happily discovered a very supportive doctor. Kelly explained that the food was being made available but Stacylee seemed to be starving herself.

The doctor told her she was doing a great job and to stick with it. He also told her (and I now repeat this advice to parents with a sick kid on intro, almost as a mantra) that as long as Stacylee remained well hydrated, most kids can go a couple of weeks without food before it becomes an emergency. Not that any of us ever wants to see a child refuse food for a couple of weeks, but it is good to know there is some leeway in the beginning of this diet when the kids refuse to eat! With his words alleviating her worry and some extra encouragement Kelly doubled-down and forced Stacylee to eat. She used Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy techniques to coax her into eating broth, chicken, and butternut squash.

Despite Stacylee's all-time low when she did not have the strength to physically walk to bathroom and had to be carried, the words began pouring out with remarkable clarity. Somewhere around day six or eight she said, "I want to fly the octopus kite" when she walked past her favorite kite in the garage. Prior to SCD intro she simply said, "Octopus, octupus!" Kelly counted up the words in the sentence and wrote it in a diary. To see the language skills increase even while Stacylee was physically weak gave Kelly strength to continue.

Applegate Farms nitrate-free bacon (less than 2% sugar) was the transition object that Kelly used for Stacylee. [Just to point this out, it is *not* an SCD legal food] Bacon was used to get Stacylee to eat broth and was a staple for the first two months. Kelly put bacon grease in meatballs and provided a bacon "chaser" for vegetables and fish. She used it only as a reward and eventually switched to an SCD "legal" bacon from the farmer's market.

Once Stacylee got used to the taste of broth her body craved it. She was eating 8-10 bowls a day. Kelly's biggest fear about going back to work was that Stacylee would not be able to self-feed the broth because of the fine motor skills needed. This was a big deal because Stacylee is in a special program with other kids and was not going to have the one-on-one attention her mother could give her during those first two weeks. Because of her motor skills and motor planning issues Kelly fed her like a newborn for 15 days, but Stacylee figured it out once her mom let her. One day Kelly turned her back to reheat more soup and took too long to come back and feed Stacylee. When she turned around, Stacylee was feeding herself.

Today Stacylee's language skills continue to progress. Kelly considers SCD the most important intervention she has tried for her daughter. Kelly reports that Stacylee is more present, clearer in communication, and more verbal overall. Stacylee has always been a happy child, but now is more at ease in social situations and seeks out interaction and affection. She is able to sit still and play her iPad, choosing games and navigating choices without requesting help.

Kelly also reports that Stacylee's speech therapist and occupational therapist both noticed the difference immediately after two weeks of SCD intro. They noticed and commented on the "light in her eyes" and her increased ability to sit still for learning activities. Stacylee is more open to learning now because she can physically sit for longer periods of time and her increased verbal ability allows her to also make more choices and process faster. For example, when her OT says, "Do you want to play on purple swing or the trampoline?" she immediately gives an answer and says "purple swing." Those choices previously were painfully slow and often did not materialize.

Stacylee's physical appearance has also undergone a transformation. She has gained another 3 lbs since late June and for the first time in her life has pink in her cheeks, meat on her bones, and the purple circles under eyes are gone. Kelly's mother recently visited them for first time since Christmas and broke into tears when she saw her. She said, "OMG, look how healthy she looks!" Today Stacylee still receives occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy, and some basic nutritional supplements to aid her recovery but Kelly credits SCD with the biggest change for Stacylee.

These days Stacylee has also developed a sense of humor. Prior to SCD she was so literal that her mother could not joke. But now she initiates jokes of her own, telling her mom, "Bianca is a baby!" and waiting for a reaction. Bianca is their dog so Kelly says, "Noooooo, Bianca is a dog, silly!" And to that Stacylee giggles with pleasure.

Kelly credits a few critical components for her success in implementing SCD: prayer, patience, and building a support network. To build her network she talked with others on SCD and communicated with everyone who would need to help implement the diet when Kelly was not present. An old African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child. Kelly has built this village for Stacylee and continues to make important choices for her daughter's recovery.

Burn the Ships!

2011-10-25T12:00:00.000-04:00

So, how do you start a diet like SCD / GAPS? Many people ease into it. They incorporate changes bit by bit and eventually they find themselves eating "Full GAPS" and after they have their GAPS wits about them they take the plunge into intro, the soul-sucking, will-breaking, level of hell in Dante's Inferno that it should have been.

But not us. No way. No easing in here. We went with the Cortez method of starting SCD / GAPS. We picked a date, educated the kids, and burned the ships. Nobody would be returning to the old world from our pantry!

Our local Whole Foods and natural foods stores were kind enough to take back all the boxed items. I stocked up on butternut squash at the farmer's market. I LIVED online in the SCD forums and at the PecanBread website as I learned the ins and outs of the diet. I gave away bags of things I couldn't return to the store. I think some of it is still sitting in my mom's pantry 15 months later.

I took a nice trip to Penzey's and purchased new spices. I bought fresh herbs at the farmer's market. I trapped my children in the bathtub daily and taught them about saccharides, di-saccharides, and poly-saccharides. We talked about the fact that they had "belly bugs" and that we were about to declare war on the belly bugs.

I took off a week from work and on August 1 we started. The first morning went okay. We ate some kind of weird intro foods and tried to take the kids' minds off things by having them play outside. My girls mostly ate what they needed to and nobody got sick (this is sometimes an expectation with the GAPS intro in particular). Perhaps because of the butternut squash they had enough sugars? Maybe it's because they had already been on a mostly whole foods, cooked at home diet? Who knows. The days went by. ZiZi picked at food but by the fifth or sixth day started eating with gusto. Anything. We. Put. In. Front. Of. Her!

This was huge! But I was DYING from all the food prep in the kitchen and so tired of boiled chicken. Yick! Somewhere between the fourth and fifth days I hit a wall. I have never run a marathon but I can only imagine day five on the SCD / GAPS intro is a bit like hitting the wall in the marathon. You want to quit. You must push through it.

I threw a temper tantrum. An honest to goodness temper tantrum. I was pissed that I even needed to be doing this diet - why me? My husband said something like, "Maybe it's just too much and we should stop." I know he meant that to be helpful but it felt like some weird undermining mind f***. I threw my most beloved and expensive chef knife in the sink and started yelling at him that this was the only way things would ever get better. He slowly backpedaled out of the room as though I were a wild animal and if he backed up slowly I wouldn't notice he was leaving.

So I cried. And I chopped. And I baked butternut squash. And I made it past the wall. I ended up taking off a second and then third week from work. I hit up CraigsList for some assistance - turns out you can get some help in your kitchen from a trained sous chef for about the price of a good babysitter. So we traded in our babysitting budget for a sous chef budget. But doing it alone when I travel for work two days every week was not going to work without backup. It took awhile to get it all down to a science and it was definitely a tough time.

All that aside... It was the most awesome thing we have ever done. By week two ZiZi was talking a bit more and by week four she was stringing sentences into short paragraphs. Things she had never done and development that previously looked like it would be months before hitting the milestone were suddenly being achieved. I took ZiZi to see her new classroom and her teacher, who had known her since she was four months old, was blown away by her sudden progress.

So was it the right approach to jump straight to intro? Who knows! I felt the looming deadline of the new school year starting and since I had a kid who was barely talking I thought we needed to just roll up our sleeves and give it a four week shot. It was awful, but we made it through and life hit a pretty consistent pace pretty quickly. Intro will be awful, regardless of when you do it. Now I'm just hoping that the homeopath we plan to visit does not tell us that we need to go back and redo it. But if he does, we will have to clear out all the contraband again (like honey) for the start. Because there is one really awesome thing about burning the ships. You don't go looking for a ride to somewhere else!!!

Our Diet Decision (Kati)

2011-10-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

As I read the book "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gotschall I started to cry. I knew in my heart that getting rid of the starches, sugars, and grains would be what I needed to do to heal my gut pain and help my girls to grow. I just *knew* this was the answer since the things that were not allowed on the diet were the same things that hurt my belly (and yet, that I had somehow been unable to stop eating).

My husband, however, was not so sure. One more diet change? We had already done gluten-free, followed by gluten-free + casein-free, followed by gluten-free + casein-free + corn free + soy free. Not to mention all the supplements and prescriptions the doctor had the girls on. He wasn't sure that pulling all the grains would be healthy, nor was he sure that this would be the magical answer we needed. We argued. I cried (I'm not usually a crier). He acquiesced. Maybe because of the tears? Who knows.

So with a doubtful husband we began the journey. I did a LOT of research and basically lived on the PecanBread yahoo board for a couple of months as we started. We set August 1 as our start date and for the last two weeks in July I researched, planned, and educated my two girls. Bath time should have been called "you are a prisoner while I draw diagrams of the human digestive tract" time. I cleared the pantry, restocked the pantry, and finally August 1 came and we started. The first two weeks were awful. I took more time off work. I worked harder. We *thought* we noticed a difference in ZiZi's language skills around day five. We were sure there was a difference by day ten or twelve.

I told my husband I thought it was definitely working and that I needed to hear it from him. He confirmed with, "If it hadn't been working we would've stopped it by now." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was totally his style to say it that way.

For a little fun and flavor we have thrown in components of the Low Oxalate Diet (LOD) as well. Somewhere around day 20 we realized my youngest had an oxalate problem. Then I did a little oxalate research and suddenly realized that I had symptoms of an oxalate problem for a full year and had not known what it was called. Thank goodness we have the internet - where would my medical degree be without it?

In addition to layering in some of the LOD information we have also slowly moved more toward LOD meets GAPS. A friend of mine was on GAPS while we were doing SCD. I had always been a big fan of the Weston A Price research and the Nourishing Traditions cookbook prior to going on SCD. Once I read Dr. Natasha's book I realized my hundreds of hours of internet research to come to the same conclusions could have been avoided. Doh!

So our family combines SCD / GAPS / LOD and it is nothing but fun in our kitchen! The girls and I have improved, although it is never as fast as I would like. ZiZi's improvement has been the most dramatic, mine has been decent, and Ani's has been minor. Although ZiZi had the most neurological symptoms prior to the diet (and strangely, they have healed faster than her gut symptoms) according to much of our testing Ani's gut was in worse shape. So I try to keep that in mind when I am frustrated with how slowly Ani's healing is going.

Slow and steady wins this race, but sometimes we get impatient waiting for the progress. So I will soon layer in another couple pieces to this puzzle (we'll give homeopathy and NAET a shot soon) to see if I can't shave off some time from my kitchen sentence for good behavior!

ZiZi's Story: Three Years to Present

2011-10-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

By age three ZiZi was doing well. She had finished a year in a small Montessori classroom (about eight to ten students) with two wonderful teachers. She was not much of a talker and rarely initiated social interactions, but she was a sweet child and other kids initiated with her. After adding in the supplements and epsom baths we noticed that ZiZi was interacting more and more with other people.

Trial and Error Approach to Finding Solutions
Working with ZiZi's behavioral specialist we tried various intervention combinations to speed her recovery. We were assured by the pediatric specialist that we had caught things early and kept her so highly functioning that she would be completely recovered by second grade. So we had great faith and tried a few different things.

We added Enhansa, a turmeric compound, as an anti-inflammatory. This resulted in good gains for ZiZi and it became obvious that the doctor's comment about gut inflammation and brain inflammation being linked was true. As this took down the inflammation in her body ZiZi began using more words.

We also tried Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) which is used as an immune modulator for children with autism. It is also used for patients with Crohn's, cancer, celiac disease, and other various issues in which the immune system is involved. Again, the validity of the link between the immune system and her neurological symptoms was supported. Within days of being on LDN ZiZi initiated conversation with strangers for the first time. It was also the first time she stopped shying away when someone talked to her that she didn't know.

We added things slowly, one by one, so we could tell what the impact was from a particular supplement. Some of them we saw virtually no impact and others were immediate wins with big milestones suddenly being met in a way that I did not believe was coincidental.

We kept pushing, kept supporting our daughter, and I kept researching. At this same time that ZiZi was having some good results with her neurological symptoms she was still having a lot of digestive symptoms. She was on the GFCFSFCF diet but was still gassy all the time and had more diarrhea than seemed normal. My digestive problems were very bad by this time - perhaps from the stress of our multi-year journey or perhaps because I had been trying to make food "normal" for my kids even though we were GFCFSFCF. This meant we ate a lot of starches for our baked goods / carbohydrates and my body was not tolerating it whatsoever.

One day on an autism yahoo forum a parent was rejoicing over their family's success with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I started looking into it, as I had looked into all other favorite treatments mentioned on the forum. This diet was also listed in the literature given to us by the pediatric specialist. Turns out it was the original healing diet for celiac disease prior to the discovery of gluten. I, myself, had a celiac diagnosis so I researched further, bought the book, argued with my husband about it, called the doctor, and decided to go for it. Other parents reported it as their best intervention. What did we have to lose? Andrew and I agreed to a four week trial run, as most people could tell a difference in that timeframe and that was about how much time we had left before school started.

We started the diet on August 1. ZiZi had always been a somewhat picky eater and the beginning of SCD was no exception. As hard as it was, by day five or six she was eating things she would not have eaten before. By day ten her language skills had increased and when I took her to meet her teacher and see her new classroom around week four she yelled out in delight, "Ani, come here. Want to show you something." Her teacher, who has known her since she was about four months old, was totally floored. Her jaw dropped further when she watched my girls consume a HUGE snack of cauliflower/cheese/egg "pizzas." ZiZi was finally eating large quantities of food and her verbal skills were increasing at a level I finally considered a breakthrough.

Prior to this diet, every gain was a hard-fought, slow win. Once we added SCD the gains just kept rolling in. School started in September and ZiZi transitioned to her new classroom. One of her classmates was particularly attentive and they became "best friends." She looked forward to seeing her friend every day and they did almost everything together. This was a bonus for ZiZi because her friend was a year older and tended to do harder work in the classroom than the kids ZiZi's age. As a result she got some extra time with the numbers and letters.

Throughout the year she continued to progress. Her thighs looked healthy and chunky. Her cheeks were pink and round. She looked healthy! Transitions continued to challenge her and my travel two days a week obviously bothered her routine. She cried easily during transition times, but was also a very hard worker in the classroom. Her teachers told me repeatedly that she was a very focused worker. She works harder than her sister ever had to work to remember names of letters / numbers but she makes progress, slowly and steadily.

We continue to tweak her diet and supplements. Over time we have migrated to a combination diet of Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), Low Oxalate Diet (LOD), and Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet. As I add more probiotic foods (hot pink sauerkraut is a favorite), gelatin and fat filled soups, and nutrient dense organ meats like liver, ZiZi rewards me with an uptick in progress with some neurological symptom. Anytime we battle the belly bugs with natural anti-fungals / anti-bacterials, ZiZi again rewards me with an uptick in progress. It is easy to keep up the crazy when the results are so visible. I love comparing notes with ZiZi's teacher because she notices the upticks. It is fun to watch her blossom.

I have recently begun talking to ZiZi about how special she is and how she brought the gift of healing our home needed so badly. We talk about how she used to be unable to tell us what she thought and how now she is able to tell us all kinds of stories and jokes. We talk about how our friends and friends of friends also benefit from her gift of showing us the way to heal our bodies.

She is a gorgeous child, full of life and giggles. Not the sad baby who was always frowning because she never felt good. She is still a little more reserved in personality than I think she will be in a few years, but we've only been doing this diet for about 15 months and it takes time to starve out all the pathogens. We no longer worry about ZiZi's future. Just yesterday she came home with her first set of math problems, right about the same age her sister was coming home with math problems.

ZiZi's Story: Two to Three Years

2011-10-24T13:00:00.001-04:00

Just after ZiZi turned two, her leg muscles were noticeably different in size. Another bizarre symptom. She had also broken out in a weird rash on her leg and above her diaper area just a few days after the swollen forehead incident. The rash persisted (still does, to this day). She learned to compensate for her loss of balance and it was difficult for people to notice that she had any sort of balance disorder. However, she was in constant motion, rocking back and forth on her feet, because it was easier to control her balance while moving than standing still. As parents we noticed her catch her balance many times a day, although it came and went and there were good days with fewer / no catches and bad days when she would be quite frustrated. To friends and neighbors who couldn't see what we saw, we probably looked like we were after a phantom diagnosis for a kid who was fine, maybe just a little clumsy.

Although she continued to have ataxia, she had gained a little bit of height / weight on the GFCF diet. Her energy level had picked just enough for me to notice and by her 24 month checkup she was back on the height weight charts: 5th percentile for height and 3rd percentile for weight. This was wonderful news, although it didn't budge from those percentiles for a very long time.

However, bulldog that I can be sometimes, I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't as though she was suddenly thriving. She still needed an iron supplement and her coloring wasn't great. I kept looking. I cooked more / better. I implemented a Weston A Price approach to cooking in the household based on a cookbook recommendation (Nourishing Traditions) from our midwife.

Midway through the year we "upgraded" our diet again, this time to a gluten-free, casein-free, corn-free, soy-free diet. I had some allergy and inflammation testing done for myself and my nurse pointed out that frequently if gluten is a problem, corn and soy usually are as well (particularly with all the GMO crops in circulation - don't even get me started). So I put ZiZi on the same diet with me, all the while continuing to let Ani and Andrew eat gluten/casein/corn/soy snacks in moderation when ZiZi wasn't around.

Throughout the year we continued to have speech therapy and cranial sacral therapy appointments. At some point during my research we added omega 3s to the mix, along with wild blueberries which are a good anti-oxidant. At that point Zi's speech picked up suddenly and she had words. She didn't talk a lot but she could "read" her favorite book. She read it to the speech therapist and was released from speech therapy a little after age 2 1/2.

Search For A Diagnosis

Although the home cooked meals and therapies took time from our schedule, the real drain on our family's happiness was the continued search for a diagnosis for ZiZi's ataxia. It sometimes seems as though ZiZi lost her second year of childhood to being a lab rat. Virtually the entire year was spent going from specialist to specialist, test to test, searching for a diagnosis.

The neurologist was focused on the ataxia and the loss of physical skills that appeared with the strange forehead swelling. I was focused on the ataxia AND the diminutive stature she maintained. While continuing to test and meet with the neurologist about the ataxia I also set up an appointment with an endocrinologist, not so much to talk about the ataxia as about the failure to grow. The endocrinologist chided me for feeding her goat's milk instead of cow's milk and ordered a growth hormone test which turned up our first unusual lab result. ZiZi had plenty of growth hormone but basically no IGF-1. I went back to discuss results and he told me that the problem was with what I was feeding my child.

I was IRATE. If he had said something about malabsorption that would not have offended me. But to be told it was the foods I fed her, particularly when I was working my @$$ off feeding her a whole foods diet, was insulting. The note he wrote to our pediatrician's office even made our beloved PNP annoyed. She said it was a waste of the paper he wrote it on. We never went back to that endocrinologist but the seed was planted that perhaps something digestive was going on and was the cause for both the ataxia and the failure to grow.

After the fabulous assistance from the endocrinologist, I went up to Johns Hopkins for a second dose of medical expertise. "I see what you are talking about and I think it's something weird but not something horrible. Keep on your same path with Dr. T down in Richmond." Great. Thanks. So glad I took time off from work and dragged my husband up here to have you be too sleepy to even look at the videos before you poo poo our concerns.

So we went back to our (wonderful - seriously I do love her) neurologist at MCV. Because of the IGF1 result she changed course. She had been pursuing a theory that ZiZi was suffering from mini-seizures but now she mentioned something called mitochondrial disease. She wanted to do a spinal tap. We balked. I didn't even have epidurals when I birthed my two babes. I wasn't sure I could put a needle into Zi's spine just to get the right name for a diagnosis. So we stalled out and said we needed to think about it. When talking about the spinal tap the neurologist said she was looking for something that was usually associated with autism. Not that she was calling my daughter "autistic," mind you. Just whispering the word.

Meanwhile, I kept researching on the web. I was driving my husband crazy. I was probably driving myself crazy too but I was too worried and busy to notice. I picked up a lot of tidbits along the way (thus the addition of the omega-3s and wild blueberries) which helped to tweak things here and there. I went back to our fantastic Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and told her I had a hunch that this was all "leaky gut" (a somewhat medically controversial term, thus the quotes). I thought it too much of a coincidence that I had gut problems worsened at the same time Zi's medical issues that continued to worsen. So our PNP mentioned a local autism specialist. Again, that word. She said that she was the one in town who knew the most about "leaky gut" and it would cost us nothing but money and time to get her input. Seeing as how we had already wasted a lot of both money and time and had nothing to show for it, why not?

So we went to the pediatric behavioral specialist. She examined ZiZi, asked some questions, and then asked very specific questions about my health and my family of origin. It was like she knew the answers before she asked the questions. She explained the link between metals sensitivity, leaky gut, neurological symptoms, and more. She also said something about mitochondrial disorder and autism spectrum. I am sure there are doctors that would argue with her approach and statements and others who would support it. All I know is that the conversation with the phrase "high functioning autism spectrum disorder" was extremely helpful to my research! She ordered a bunch of tests (blood, urine, poo, and hair testing) and put ZiZi on a number of supplements after she got results. She had us add epsom baths to our routine and complimented us on the omega 3s and GFCFSFCF diet. She said that it was her opinion that the reason it took so long to find out *what* was going on with ZiZi was that we had worked so hard to keep her so high functioning that she didn't present like other three year olds would have presented with her situation.

Diagnosis
So the spring before ZiZi turned three we had a phrase "highly functioning autism spectrum" to research, a GFCFSFCF diet, and a bunch of supplements + epsom baths to help recover our child. We did them all diligently and continued on with the cranial sacral appointments as well. ZiZi was released from speech therapy shortly before she was 2.75 years old so we were on a good track. Things were progressing, albeit slowly.

I began reading up on the collection of symptoms for ASD and realized a lot of ZiZi's strange behaviors that we had observed since she was younger actually had official terminology. She had a couple of "stims" or self-stimulating behaviors. One had developed when she was about 6-9 months old and the other had developed around age two. She was very particular, almost religious, about tidiness. If food / drink dropped on the table it had to be cleaned up before she could continue eating and she would freak OUT if we were going to leave it there. She hated getting dirty. Her room had to be clean before she could go to sleep. Oh, and the closet door had to be closed too because that is the way a closet door was supposed to be.

All the little quirks our cute, sweet daughter had displayed were covered in a listing on autism spectrum behaviors. When she avoided eye contact and would not participate in a gymnastics class? Spectrum. When she did the same thing over and over and over with an obsession that no other child in the class would match? Spectrum. When she flicked her fingers out of anxiousness? Spectrum. When she had difficulty finding the right words or communicating? Spectrum. Obsession with the swings and spinning? Spectrum. It was eye opening and in some ways a relief.

Some parents fall apart when they hear the word autism. I embraced it with open arms because I had lost over a year searching (in vain) for an appropriate direction to help my child. My attitude is that it is just a label and who cares? It is a label on an insurance form used to explain a collection of behaviors. It isn't what defines my child and it doesn't tell us what the future holds for her anyway. Honestly, there are days I think it isn't the "true" or ultimate diagnosis we will reach for her after she has had time to heal and there is (or is not) anything left to diagnose.

Labels do not matter one way or the other. They are available for our simple minds to categorize the symptoms so we can set our expectations for behavior and treatment. I was glad for the label in that it helped me to understand ZiZi's mind better and understand how to better support her recovery. Strangely, I am deeply grateful for the phrase "high functioning autism spectrum disorder." Almost as grateful as I was the day she "lost" the label.

ZiZi's Story: Panic at 23 Months

2011-10-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

On April 20, 2009 ZiZi woke a little later than usual. Ani had already gone to school and my mom was over to take care of ZiZi so I could work. Zi woke up crying (not uncommon given her wet diaper every morning) so I went up to get her. I leaned over the crib and saw something that freaked me out. Her forehead was swollen, and I mean SWOLLEN. Think Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Panic
I called my mom who also gasped and said, "That is really odd." So we called the pediatrician, fed her breakfast, and took her in. By the time we got to the pediatrician's office her head swelling was down to 1" x 1". Our fantastic Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (we had switched to her after the doctor who missed the "failure to thrive" situation) asked a lot of excellent questions and called in the physician for a consult. We only then, when being asked questions to assess the situation, noticed that ZiZi was losing her balance. Not only that, upon reflecting, we realized that for the prior two weeks ZiZi had been more "clumsy" than usual.

In an abundance of precaution we went downstairs at the hospital for an Xray. While we were in the waiting room her balance was so poor that she dropped to her hands and knees, fussing because she couldn't stand up and keep her balance. When she was crawling she looked up at me and fell over as well. That was it. My poor baby who had worked so hard to walk could no longer walk and was falling over while she crawled as well. I started freaking out.

The next few days are a blur and yet seared in my memory. There were two visits to the pediatric ER at VCU's Medical College of Virginia. There was an MRI. We consulted with a doctor about the possibility her hip (she had always crawled a little funny on the one hip) could be a contributing cause. We consulted with a neurosurgeon about the results of the MRI. He said the MRI was read as normal but that he saw something in a temporal lobe. However, that should manifest as seizures, not as ataxia (losing your balance). That did NOT make me feel any better.

We consulted with a neurologist who then set her up for more tests and put her back into physical therapy for a few weeks so she could get a thorough assessment from the physical therapist. The swelling in her forehead would come and go and her ataxia would come and go. The physical therapist saw the same thing we were seeing and wrote up a lengthy report for the neurologist. Just for fun, here is a short excerpt:

Zoe has had 6 weeks of PT where during four of those sessions she was noted to have significant balance issues resulting in her inability to stand without support, walk across a room, kick a ball, catch a ball, pick up items off the floor and return to standing, and walk up and down the steps safely and without support. During all 6 sessions, the PT repeated many of the same games and skill tests to determine if it was the skill that was the problem or if it was Zoe’s balance issue that made it hard to complete the task. It was determined that on the 4 weeks where Zoe had a very difficult time keeping her balance during any task including PT, it was not the task that was the issue but whatever was causing her to lose her balance. During the 2 weeks where Zoe had minimal to no issues with balance, She was able to complete all the above mentioned tasks with ease and more than 10-20 times each without support and without falling. This PT concludes that Zoe’s trouble with balance that has her family so worried and is affecting her daily play and life is not due to an issue that is correctable by PT at this time. There seems to be some underlying cause creating these issues with balance and swelling of Zoe’s forehead. The PT at this time refers Zoe back to her pediatrician and neurologist for further consultation.

The months of April and May for the year 2009 were the worst of my life. I was still traveling two days a week for work and constantly worried that my baby could succumb to whatever bizarre thing was going on in her body and slip away entirely. She was working so hard for minimal progress in speech therapy and then suddenly she lost her ability to stand still. It was dramatic but the answers were slow to come.

ZiZi's Story: Twelve to Eighteen Months

2011-10-24T11:00:00.000-04:00

The twelve to eighteen month phase of ZiZi's life was a time when we knew there was something wrong but thought we could get her caught up to her peers via intensive therapies. We worked on gross motor milestones and speech milestones. Luckily, her fine motor skills were fantastic so we did not need occupational therapy as well.

Around her twelve month checkup her blood work indicated she was anemic so we added a gentle iron supplement. We put her on a gluten free diet even though her blood testing was negative for celiac disease, since obviously something wasn't quite right with her digestion. I was already eating gluten free so it was an easy change to make and wouldn't hurt her to do it anyway. Her energy was low and it picked up a bit after we switched to the gluten free diet. Unfortunately she continued to drop in height / weight percentiles. By eighteen months she was down to the 3rd percentile in height and less than the 3rd percentile in weight. This from a baby who was born in the 75th percentile for both.

At thirteen months ZiZi was evaluated by Early Intervention and physical therapy started a month later. She started speech therapy around sixteen months of age. At a little younger than a year her first word had been MaMa and she had, at some point, had a few additional sounds like Ba and Da. However, by sixteen months she had regressed to just one sound, "Ba," which was her universal word and the only sound she used. We had taught her sign language starting when she was about six months old but she had learned only three signs. This was a stark contrast to her older sister who had 80 words at 18 months. ZiZi had one sound and three signs.

ZiZi had quite a bit of Early Intervention sponsored therapy. She had one therapy every week, rotating speech therapy and physical therapy. This was less than some kids in Early Intervention but more than any of my friends' babies, none of whom were getting therapies and treatments. She made progress quickly on gross motor skills and was walking by about the time she was sixteen months old. Her communication skills were much slower to develop. We watched hopefully at her progress and assumed all would be fine eventually.

Around the time ZiZi turned fifteen months I sought answers for her small stature and hypotonia. I consulted with a friend of a friend who was a nutritionist in the DC area. She did some muscle testing, reviewed our family medical history and put ZiZi on a Gluten-Free,Casein-Free diet that did include goat / sheep milk products but excluded cow dairy products. She thought ZiZi had some sort of leaky gut and recommended a protein shake, flax oil, and George's aloe juice.

We also continued with weekly cranial sacral therapy. I didn't know what to be more worried about: the money flowing out of the household, the time I spent coordinating appointments for my one-year-old, or the pending concerns that she was still undersized and not talking. Life felt crazy because I traveled two days a week for work and I also needed to coordinate school and social outings for my older daughter, Ani. Thank goodness my mom lives in town or I am not sure I would have made it through this time of my life. Honestly, I can barely remember these months because I was also struggling with a hypothyroid situation of my own. It was an intense time.

By eighteen months ZiZi had caught up on most of her gross motor skills and had therapy once a month to track her progress. Her therapy continued once a month until she was released when she was twenty-one months old. Everyone was thrilled with her progress and we breathed a sigh of relief. Other than working on speech / language issues and figuring out why she wasn't growing we thought things were back to some degree of "normal." Enough that we could even book a nice tenth anniversary vacation and leave the kids for a few days!

ZiZi's Story: Six Months to Twelve Months

2011-10-23T14:00:00.000-04:00

Somewhere around six to nine months, my "curious" observations turned into concern. My daughter was a sweet, sweet little baby, but she did not progress as she should have given the context of our families' genetics.

Concern
Six to Nine Months
Given her older sister's progress, my progress as a baby, my husband's progress, and our four siblings' progress, in the six to nine month range ZiZi should have been sitting up, pulling up, crawling, and possibly walking. Her sister walked at the end of nine months. I walked at nine months, and my husband walked at ten months. Nobody in either family was a late walker. However, at her nine month checkup she was really only sitting up. She was not pulling up and she was not crawling and she seemed very far away from walking.

Besides her gross motor skill delays, nighttime was difficult. She wanted constant companionship and did not sleep as much as she should have been sleeping. She would sometimes be awake for a few hours in the middle of the night. She was also not growing nearly as well as she had when she was a young infant. The general feeling of panic I had during my pregnancy was back. At her nine month check-up she measured in the 10th percentile for height and the 5th percentile for weight. She had dropped another standard of deviation for both height and weight in a three month period. I was worried and again I mentioned it to the pediatrician. She reviewed the growth charts, the family history of height, and again told me things were probably fine. She talked about bell curves and how people expect younger siblings to be similar to their older siblings. I told her my opinion that ZiZi's genetic bell curve was not the same as the general public. I have three brothers all over six feet, one who is about 6'9". Nobody was a late walker. I was worried, but she talked me down from the ledge but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was really wrong with our daughter.

Nine to Twelve Months

Around eleven months ZiZi's torticollis was resolved using cranial sacral therapy. Also resolved, unexpectedly, via the cranial sacral therapy was her chronic constipation. There is a funny story that ends with ZiZi naked in a sink at a public library in Northern Virginia. This was the day after her cranial sacral therapy appointment but before I realized the constipation was no longer an issue so I had given her the usual prunes with her oatmeal.

However, even with these two issues fixed she was still growing very slowly and not gaining skills. At her one year checkup she was not pulling up, much less walking. She remained in the 10th percentile for height but had dropped below the 3rd percentile for weight. I, again, expressed concern so the doctor ran blood tests for celiac disease and lead poisoning. She also ordered an X-ray of her hip since she pronated a bit and one of Andrew's aunts had hip dysplasia. None of the testing provided any helpful information. The pediatrician thought we should wait until 15-18 months to see if she was walking and thought her height and weight issues were reasonable because my husband and I were not very tall.

I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was really, really wrong. I talked to some girlfriends one night and they told me about a federal program called Early Intervention that will assess a child who is not growing or hitting milestones like they should. I also called my best friend from college, a pediatrician in New York. I reviewed ZiZi's growth history with my friend and she said once a baby drops two standards of deviation in the growth chart (ZiZi had dropped four in height and 6 in weight) she considers it a sign that there is an underlying issue.

So I called our pediatrician and we had a very short conversation about my friend's concern about an underlying issue. Ultimately, I told her that either she could call Early Intervention or I would. She suggested I go ahead and have ZiZi evaluated but thought it was premature and we should wait until ZiZi was at least 15 or 18 months.

So at one year of age, my daughter showed a number of signs for "Failure to Thrive" but did not have an official FTT diagnosis. Early Intervention reviewed her case and signed her up immediately with a physical therapist. The intake case worker also suggested I should find a new pediatrician because when a mom is worried and when the child is falling off the growth charts it is, indeed, an issue.

ZiZi's Story: Pregnancy to Six Months

2011-10-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

My youngest daughter, ZiZi, has been an incredible gift of health to our family. I have a deeply held belief that every child is a gift and each brings something special to the family it joins. Her sister brought us laughter and she brought us better health. Her medical mysteries also helped me to learn my true roles as a mother are really: head chef, nutritionist, researcher, advocate, and cheerleader.

Our journey with ZiZi had a few distinct phases that I can only assume are familiar to others with medical conditions:

1. “Curious” observations
2. Concern
3. Panic
4. Search for a diagnosis
5. Diagnosis
6. Trial and error approach to finding a solution**

**Technically, our trial and error approach to finding a solution started somewhere in the observations / concern phase so I will point out some other things we tried (GFCF, biomed, therapies, etc.) before we had great progress with Specific Carbohydrate (SCD) and/or Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) dietary intervention.

“Curious” Observations
Pregnancy / Birth
When I was pregnant with ZiZi I noticed the first of many “curious” observations. She was not very active in the womb, which seemed odd. I thought that every baby was active in the womb, at least when they had all the room to rock-n-roll that they needed. This went on throughout the entire pregnancy and once around week 36 when the midwife found an exceptionally low heartbeat I thought, "That's it. I've finally lost her."

But she checked out okay the next week and on the day of her birth it was a beautiful, peaceful, uncomplicated, natural birth. She was a wonderful size at twenty-one inches long and 8 lbs 6 oz (75th percentile for height and weight). She was born sleeping peacefully and when she woke up she fed easily so I breathed a sigh of relief and figured I had been the victim of pregnancy hormone paranoia. She seemed to grow quickly those first few months so I relaxed and enjoyed my baby. She fed well and watched our mouths and faces constantly. She was working on making sounds early like her sister had also done as a young baby. At her first and second month checkups she remained on the 50th percentile for height and weight. At her four month checkup she was in the 50th percentile for height and between the 25th and 50th percentile for weight. Since a heavy / wet diaper can heavily influence the weight of a young baby I just assumed all was fine. There was one kind of funny thing, that mostly I was thankful for at the time. Although she was exclusively breastfed she never had any of the infamous blow out diapers. She really only pooped once a day and sometimes not even daily. Also, her poo wasn't as liquid as her older sister's had been. I mentioned it once to the doctor who assured me that if a baby is exclusively breastfed everything is fine and they will poo as much or as little as their particular system needs to. She had six children and said one of hers only pooped once a week and everything was fine.

4-6 Months
Somewhere around 4-6 months of age she suddenly stopped watching our mouths and making such wonderful eye contact. It slowly shifted and I barely noticed until later when I was reflecting on *when* things had shifted. At this age she was sick a few times and on antibiotics twice. She also had a tear duct that had not opened and was frequently infected. She cried a lot and needed to be held almost constantly. Putting her to bed became a challenge around five or six months old.

She had a strange way of turning her head when she slept, which later I would find out is called torticollis. The torticollis was something we would eventually fix with cranial sacral therapy rather than physical therapy.

In the four to six month range is where she started to drop in her height/weight percentiles. At her six month checkup she was down to the 25th percentile in height and her 10th percentile in weight. During a 5 month visit to the pediatrician’s office there is a note about loose ligaments, low muscle tone, and that a bone seemed to slide. Hypotonia is the word that would later be used in her medial records. She also was not progressing with gross motor skills the way I expected. However, the pediatrician reminded me I wasn’t "that" tall (5'6"), my husband wasn’t that tall (5'8"), and you should not compare younger siblings to older siblings. So I left her office reassured.

Given the horrendous dietary intake of the average American, the pediatrician had nothing but praise for what we were doing. My binges were on things like an organic avocado, tomato, onion, and lime salsa. We ate at nice restaurants when we ate out. At home, dinner was usually one meat + two vegetables, grass-fed meats and organic veggies. Eggs or oatmeal were pretty usual for breakfast. ZiZi was exclusively breastfed until somewhere around 4-6 months when we introduced a few veggies and baby oatmeal. We tried the standard rice cereal but it was terribly constipating. Even the oatmeal was a little rough for her so I rehydrated some prunes and mixed them with her cereal every morning to make sure she pooped at least daily. Somewhere along the line I added in a little flax oil as well which was also helpful.

In retrospect, there were many gentle signs and symptoms of what was to come. Losing more than one standard of deviation for height / weight by six months should have raised a flag. ZiZi had gone from the 75th percentile to the 25th in height and from the 75th percentile to the 10th in weight. But what would any pediatrician have said, given our dietary habits at the time and the fact that she was breastfed? Interestingly, I think the constipation was a key symptom from day one, but was never a topic of conversation at an appointment and since I was managing it with prunes and flax oil I think almost any medical expert would consider it a non-issue. But perhaps it was the biggest, gentlest, red flag of all.

The Tribe

2011-10-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

In this day and age, to quote a very thoughtful friend, "We have lost tribe." As she sadly said it out loud, she was reflecting on a time when communities were tightly knit. When families lived together for generations, when neighbors were families and friends with shared histories, and when people were so deeply interconnected that a child knew any adult on the block (and possibly the town) would take care of him or her.

Prior to "the great panic of 2009" and the search for answers that ensued, I was very independent. I enjoyed my neighbors but didn't "need" them like I do today. Independence is a deeply held value in America, but like all deeply held values it can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes you must let go of a value to see its dark side. For me, it took my daughter's medical situation and the intense time and cooking requirements of SCD / GAPS to let go of my independence.

This diet brought me to my knees. Actually, it brought me to my first temper tantrum since I was about fifteen years old. (That was about day five of intro in case anyone is wondering what to expect). But I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and kept on going. That August (2010) was a major triumph - ZiZi began talking in complete sentences and short paragraphs. But during that first couple of months the daily grind began to wear on me.

Little did I know that about 4 blocks away there was an amazing mom going through much the same situation. Her oldest child had a milk allergy and she was pregnant with number three. Our kids were roughly the same ages and so we started getting together once a week for a playdate where we would ask questions and try not to let each other know *quite* how crazy it was at our homes. But over time the walls came down and now we are very comfortable admitting just how funny and insane things can be!

So began "The Tribe."

Before we started this journey a good friend of many years was over for lunch and observed the feeding difficulties we had with ZiZi. She ate very little and would not talk. My friend had not realized what was going on, and the degree to which it was going on, until that lunch. She was back a few weeks after we started the diet and was really impressed with Zi's progress. She began to dabble in the diet to help her son with his impulsive behavior. She embraced the full diet the following summer (2011) but she is definitely an original card carrying member of "The Tribe."

Early into our adventure came Chef Steve, almost exactly a year ago today. He has helped each of us in our kitchens and been a part of the healing journey. Turns out his lovely girlfriend had a boss with a daughter with autism. The little girl was on a gluten-free diet but the results were not nearly the home run her mother hoped for. So she too eventually joined our tribe.

Then another girlfriend whose second child had a lot of similarities to my two girls, health-wise, began to explore the diet for her family. She was pregnant with her third and our local midwife mentioned this diet to her. She also is an official Tribal Mama!

Then came a friend whose son was in class with my oldest daughter. She was also pregnant with number three (same midwife - Richmond is a big city but a small town!). Her second child had eczema and she had been trying various solutions and then one day she called and said she had done more research and was going to give our crazy diet a trial run.

Then came a woman we took yoga with whose daughter had tremendous allergies. Then another friend of friends who had another little girl with autism. Who will be next, we never know. But any mama willing to do this level of work for herself or a child will most assuredly be welcomed into our group with loving arms. Fathers would be welcome too, but they seem a little reluctant to give up the beer!

So the daily grind continues to wear us down, each at a different time. Nowadays we pick each other up, dust each other off, and make jokes about strange bodily functions. The discomfort of swimming against the tide is bearable when there are others swimming with you.

There are people all around us going through much our same situation in their daily lives. Frequently the same solution will help us all. But it is only when you open up and tell someone what is going on that the similarities will be found and wisdom can be shared. So here is to sharing the wisdom. If you have not yet found your tribe you are welcome to join ours!

Going Tribal

2011-10-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

We are a group of mamas on a long journey of healing for children and ourselves. This journey is some sort of slippery slope that seems to lead to an unlikely destination for this group of city dwellers. The running joke between us is it seems more and more likely that our healing journey may end with us living in some sort of tribal village. Wearing loincloths. Although perhaps somewhere besides Richmond, VA since it is a bit chilly in the winter here!

I remember a day when the "craziest" thing in my medicine cabinet was a neti pot. Many of my friends or family had not heard of it and I loved to tell them how well it kicked out a pending cold. That was exotic. But that was then... ah, the blissful nature of naivete.

Now my medicine cabinet contains homemade toothpaste, a rock for deodorant, baking soda and apple cider vinegar for washing hair, and various essential oils. My kitchen pantry has taken a funny turn as well. Luckily, if you met me on the street you would have no idea. Well, perhaps you would start asking questions when you noticed I was carrying a bunch of food in a cooler because we don't eat anything prepared outside our home.

An intuitive person once said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." When it comes to food, ingredients, and chemicals a little knowledge should be a required thing. Hospitals should be teaching THESE items to expectant mothers rather than "how to pant." The primal part of my brain would have figured out how to birth. That only took a day out of my life. It's the day after the birth when the rest of it all started. A ton of new decisions to make: which mattresses are safe, what food is healthy / safe, which chemicals are okay to use for soap, is BPA toxic or not, can I put fruit but not meat products in plastic if I *have* to, etc..

Once you know a little more about the food and chemicals being sold (even at great chains like Trader Joes / Whole Foods and possibly even your town's natural foods store) you will realize you have inadvertently been coating yourself and your babies in questionable substances. Then if you spend a few minutes with your BFF Google, you determine the alternatives are simple. Next you find yourself whipping up a batch of toothpaste and before you know it, you realize almost everything can be better and cheaper and we just don't need what we thought we needed. Then you start looking around for more things to replace, and before you know it... you are GOING TRIBAL. Or at least on the slow path to crazy! Or, as a friend's husband once said, "You are a scientist who reviewed the evidence and ended up a hippy." I love that one!

So, what kicked off this journey for our families? Why do we choose to spend time researching better ways of cooking broth and other such nonsense? Each of us is using a healing diet (either the Specific Carbohydrate Diet or Gut and Psychology Syndrome's revision of SCD) to heal our children and ourselves from a long list of health issues. Our chosen lifestyle doesn't feel quite so much like a choice as it does a requirement of motherhood. Our kids need us. We just try to laugh and stay semi-sane while on this journey.

The medical issues many children and families face today are HUGE and amongst our seemingly "normal" crew these issues include:

Adrenal Fatigue
ADHD
Allergies
Anxiety
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autoimmune Conditions (Celiac Disease, Hashimoto's Thyroid, and others)
Chronic Ear Infections
Depression
Eczema
Gastroparesis
IBD / IBS

A pretty impressive range of medical maladies, no? We are currently about 8 families strong in Richmond, Virginia. We have huddled together to ride out this storm and are bonding together every step of the way. Because our results are pretty outstanding (who KNEW that food could be so incredibly powerful???) we find friends and strangers interested in finding out about our shenanigans. We have put together a wonderful set of collective knowledge and would like to share what we have found (good, bad, and the ugly) with others in our city and anywhere else. Join us on this amazing road to recovery.

If you knew a little more about the foods and other products you eat, spray, and rub into your body every day, you would make different choices. I guarantee it!