First Test: Passed!

This post will have two themes: part rant, part patting myself on the back, all obnoxious. ;)

Patting myself on the back

My first big test of my commitment to the clean eating plan that I've been doing was my night out with the girls. Every week we go out, exercise and then stuff our faces with yummy homemade food. Generally this is good, homemade food with the occasional pizza thrown in (on busy weeks!). This week, nothing was planned so, the possibility of going out was looming over our heads. I dutifully packed my "clean" coleslaw, zucchini and scrambled eggs with an ice pack and headed out. As I suspected, after the workout, we spied a poster advertising daily specials for members of the gym at the restaurant. (The gym is part of a hotel, so there is a restaurant very close!) We hemmed and hawed - I was about to give in! But the hemming and hawing lasted a nanosecond too long and I slammed my foot down.

"NO!" I exclaimed.
"I brought my dinner and I'm going to eat it!"

And that is how I stuck to my guns, ever so shakily, and ate my coleslaw and scrambled eggs. Now, part of it was cheapness and the sheer fact that if I didn't eat the coleslaw, it would have to go into the compost and  that would have been a huge waste of money. But I stuck to it. Going out with friends can be the most difficult aspect of changing one's eating behaviours. Happily, my friends are extremely supportive and don't (openly) mock me.

Ranting


As I've worked my way through the meal plan, I've mixed and matched. I haven't always been able to eat exactly what is listed for a given day because of time (or a toddler who ate my bananas ;) ), but I've always substituted with an equivalent from another day. As I planned my smoothie for tomorrow morning, I was so grateful that clean eating doesn't eliminate dairy. I love dairy. Which of course got me thinking...I've been reading and hearing from friends again about recommendations to quit dairy full-stop.  As you probably know, if you've read any previous posts, my little guy has a dairy allergy.  To all the moms out here who may have stumbled across my blog, I want to share this:

My guy is allergic to dairy. I cut dairy out of my diet for the entire time that I was nursing him exclusively and reintroduced it at about 9 months. My guy also had eczema. There is absolutely NO correlation between my cutting out dairy and his eczema. Even when I hadn't had a lick of dairy for 6 straight months, his cheeks would flair up for days at a time. The eczema went away at about a year old - no rhyme or reason. It was NOT related to dairy in any way.  I struggle so much with his snacks. It breaks my heart now that he can see what we're eating and he reaches up for it. I hate worrying that I may have taken a sip of my coffee with milk, so I don't want to kiss him. Now that he knows he's missing out, I'm wondering if my husband and I will have to adapt our diets.

I just don't think it's worth it to toss out dairy. My son is quickly becoming a skinny little guy and I know that if I could just give him some yogurt, he would get so much of the nutrients that would do him good. It doesn't help that many other protein sources are also off-limits. I don't recommend a dairy free lifestyle if it's not absolutely necessary. It's so much hassle for what benefit really? Sure, try it out, see if it makes a difference but if there is a real allergy, it will be very obvious. At the very least, take your research beyond the internet and talk to medical professionals before tossing out an entire food group rich in nutrients and good stuff for your (or your child's!) body!

That's my rant. I'm absolutely sure I posted the exact same rant about four months ago. It's something I feel rather strongly about.

An Experiment

I think I'm going to take this blog in a new direction. (Who am I kidding, really? There was no direction before!) I'm going to subject you all to my cooking exploits. Muhahahaha! But first, a rant.

My little guy has allergies. Real honest to goodness, please, for the love of god don't come any closer with that peanut butter sesame bagel with cream cheese because otherwise it's the epipen and [another] ambulance ride to the hospital for us. I hate it. I hate reading labels, I hate planning different meals for the three of us and above all, I hate that niggling little worry in the back of my mind that at any moment he might get his hands on something that could, to be all dramatic, kill him. Especially since the last reaction he had was to a food that we had no idea he had an allergy to. Scary times chez nous.

All this hate makes me ask myself, WHY oh WHY would people willingly put themselves through the hassle of not eating a specific food group just for the heck of it? What the heck am I talking about? Perhaps you haven't heard, but dairy and wheat are the new trans fats. New devil foods for the new decade. Now this is a phenomenon more prevalent in hippy type circles - circles on the fringes of which I tend to hover. (Oh, that was awkward. I didn't want to end my sentence with a preposition, but that's tricky!) Ok, fine. You think dairy and wheat are horrible foods? Never mind that the "data" that backs these claims up is often of dubious quality and ignore the fact that humans have been consuming both of these foods for thousands of years - they are indeed evil. You know what humans haven't been consuming for thousands of years? Big macs. Hot dogs. Kraft dinner.

My biggest problem with these groups (admittedly my own problem - I can see when it's me that has the problem!) is that they claim that it's so easy to avoid dairy and/or wheat. Only stupid, lazy people would be inconvenienced by the health of their families. Excuse my while I revisit that hunk of cheddar I scarfed down earlier this evening. It's difficult. Cooking for someone with allergies is a PAIN IN THE FREAKIN' ass.

Enter jeneke. My new plan is to blog the recipes that I make for the family. We have one kidlet with a bazillion allergies, one hubby who is a few pounds away from being taken away from me by Husband Aid Services, and one wife/mom who needs to lose 50 pounds. Why haven't I hired a live-in chef yet?

Come back soon for my blueberry coffee cake! :)