Happy Thanksgiving--and new post

My new post is up on "get born". In which I am neurotic, per usual.
xo
-L

Blogging for get born

Finally, I write something...somewhere else. I'll be blogging for the awesome "get born magazine" on the 25th of every month. This month's post is up at http://getbornmag.com/2011/10/turning/.

Free to Be

Long story short: My kids have tested "probable" for allergies. And definite for yeast overgrowth. And mitochondrial dysfunction. So we're going on an elimination diet.

What's out:

• Sugar
• All sugar-subs and sweeteners, save Stevia
• Yeast of all kinds
• All fermented foods (raw apple cider is okay)
• Alcohol
• Gluten
• Wheat, rye, and the like
• Dairy
• Chicken eggs
• Cucumbers
• Peanuts, pistachios
• Starches (except in very small amounts, for cooking--1TB or less)
• White potatoes
• Melons

What's still in:

• Vegetables (except cukes)
• Meat
• Nuts (except peanuts and pistachios)
• Duck eggs
• Unsweetened almond, soy, or coconut milk
• GF flours
• Legumes
• Whole grains
• Sweet potatoes, yams, tubers
• Stevia
• Fruit (except melons)

This is going to be a challenge, to say the least. But the kids are taking it fairly well. They are having the most difficulty with the idea that they can't participate in school treats; eventually I'll be able to plan ahead for that type of thing and send them something for themselves, but at this point, I'm not that well prepared and there's only a week left. Of course, learning young that eating isn't a necessary part of socializing will probably serve them well.

For breakfast, I made almond-flour pancakes, following the recipe in The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. The only flour I have at the moment is Bob's, which the author does not recommend, but I figured since pancakes are easy to adjust if they end up too runny or thick, I could risk it, and it turned out fine. I ended up adding some almond milk because they did turn out much thicker than I wanted them, and I substituted a few drops of liquid stevia for the agave nectar, and used alcohol-free vanilla flavoring rather than extract (which contains alcohol). Since we can't have syrup, I boiled some frozen raspberries and fresh blackberries in a little water, with a few drops of Stevia, a pinch of arrowroot starch, and a bit more vanilla. Next time, I'll try using coconut flour, rather than the starch, to thicken the syrup.