Today's dinner

Was a success. L ate the beef cakes with liver ... I was so excited but did not react. When he was done with 1, I quietly ran to the freezer, took another one out, warmed it up and put it in his plate. He had baked sweet potatoes, carrots, 1 fried egg, bone broth lassi and 1.5 beef cake. Then he ate a banana and 3/4th of an apple ...
Phew!!!
Where does all that food go??
Going grain free takes planning ahead but I think I am getting into the groove of it.

His teeth look so good but every day I check to see if there are any changes or if his gums are getting swollen.

Sigh ....

I had a bone broth accident. Mum made a huge batch for L before she left and I froze them in bottles. I checked them today and found this:

So, 3 bottles of precious bone broth sit in the trash today :(

In other news, my first batch of komboucha is ready. I will give some to L tomorrow. It is fermented tea that is supposed to help the gut flora. I used to do this before I had him and then stopped it, but I have started it again ...
Here is the new mother on top of the old:

I put the old and new in with the freshly brewed decaf tea and it will sit in here for 15 days. Warm and dark cabinet over the heating vent.

This is what the finished product looks like. It tastes pretty good.

Also, in other news, we were supposed to go with L's school friend for spring break week. I was looking forward to it quite a bit. Well, the mother called today and said that it would be too stressful for them to deal with our diet so uninvited us from the trip :(

I understand . .they want a holiday that is stress free and if they have pancakes for breakfast, L will also want them .. she did not want to make any change to their diet. I offered that perhaps we can come for a few days and then L can eat whatever they are eating but a week with grain would be too much for us, so another option would be to cancel our plans? She said "lets cancel - its too much stress"

Sigh ...

Incredible - I was uninvited from a much anticipated trip because of our diet. Fortunately, I did not say anything to L about it, so he goes about his day happily and merrily ...

Diet goes on ...

Husband is getting on board slowly and is now helping me with grain free dinners. I bought sprouted lentil pasta from Amazon.com. A company called Tolerant Foods actually sprouts the lentils and makes pasta.

We alternate between cauliflower/broccoli pizza, baked squash, pasta for dinner.

At times he does not want to eat and wants bread ...

I feel that perhaps something is going on in his little gut, some imbalance? But I have years of mistakes to correct, I used to let him have bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner and hence we are where we are today ... So, this change will take time for him to adjust to ...

I reduced the amount of xylitol gum as his constipation came back and I wondered if the xylitol which is antibacterial for the mouth/teeth could be killing gut bacteria as well? so, I have started him on a probiotic and reduced the gum.

I also limit him to 1 ripe banana/day. If he had his way, he would eat bananas, bread and sugar all day.

So, we go on with bone broth smoothies, and lassis and probiotics, and baked vegetables and liver and beef and we hope for no pain and cavities to arrest ...

Time will tell ...

Sigh ...

I spent 2 hours yesterday - blended cauliflower and broccoli into crumbs, baked the crumbs, made the pizza dough, baked it. A made the sausages so we could make him a 3 finger sandwich ..

He ate 2 bites and was done. Yesterday was a little different though ... A took his mother shopping so could not bake the crusts for me as I bathed L, so by the time I came down to bake them, he was famished and ate 1.5 banana, some apple and a carrot ... so when the pizza was done, so was he ...

All that work, no exercise time ...  for 2 bites ...

Sometimes I wonder why I make things so hard on myself ... why not just take him for root canals/fillings and then every body go back to eating what they like ... why do all the research, why fight for xrays, why fight father and son to change diet for 5-6 months ... why struggle to research new recipes, shop for ingredients and figure out how to adapt them to our GF nightshade free kitchen ... why?

The hardest thing for me is to fight A on our diet changes and while I fight him, I also research recipes and shop and then try and convince L that the food is great when his father sits by wanting to give him bread ..

Some days I just want to crawl into bed and cry ...

Here is the squeezed cauliflower being put into the cheese/spice mix

Broccoli flower after baking and before being squeezed dry in a cheese cloth:

Squeezed broccoli in the cheese/spice mix:

 Sprouted corn that might soon be dry enough to try popping:

Baked cauliflower crust:

Baked broccoli crust:

All that work for 2 little pizza crusts ..

3 finger sandwich that the mother in law enjoyed

Squash pizza

L misses pizza.

I found a recipe online for squash pizza.

Squash is now baking in the oven. Lets see how it goes.

Update from later:

L and father ate the pizza and loved it. Too much cheese for me, so I ate the squash plain. Squash is a great source of phosphorus, it has protein and is low carb ...

I drank the 3 cups of squash water that I squeezed out of the baked squash.

Here are pics of our food experiments

Bone Broth - we boil the bones 4-5 times at about 10 hours each and get several iterations of the soup. Makes the bones very cost efficient.

Here is my sprouted corn which is now drying in the oven. I will try to pop it after it has dried - then L and his father can have an enhanced movie watching experience not inhibited by my fear of phytic acid.

Here are the beef and liver cakes

Sprouted almonds drying up

Soaked walnuts drying up

Squash pizza before the oven

Squash pizza after the oven

Ta-da!

Coconut oil mouthwash

We ran out of the dentist recommend ACT a few days ago. Today I asked L if he would try and new mouthwash. I gave him a few crystals of xylitol to taste. He approved. Then I gave him a teaspoon of coconut oil and xylitol and had him swirl it in his mouth. The plan was for 2 mins. He asked me if this was safe to swallow. With the ACT mouthwash I had told him repeatedly - no not swallow - this is poison .. uugg ..

So, today he asked me worriedly if he could swallow this? And i said, yes, this is fine if you swallow by accident. Remember that we are spitting it into the trash can and not into the sink.

So, he and I sat on the edge of the bathtub ... my little boy and I .. and I held him and kissed him as he swished the coconut oil and I sent good thoughts and the force to his little teeth ... willing them to heal ...

Then I forgot to check the time as he was playing with some beads which fell down and while he and I were picking them up, 3-4 minutes elapsed.

I will try next to add clove oil or goldenseal to it as that is supposed to keep abscesses from forming.

Today we did not have as much success with the liver/beef cakes. He had one but I had to push it.

I will get him a probiotic tomorrow as I feel that he is a little constipated.

On another note, I found sprouted lentil pasta and bought a pack. Lets see how it goes ...

Liver success

So, the boy claims to be vegetarian ....

How do I get liver pate into him? and grass fed beef?

Bone broth is camouflaged in the lassi and veg smoothie so we are good there.

I made him liver pate with bacon, he would not eat it. I hid it in his sprouted lentil soup, he was having none of it.

Today I bought ground beef. I made a puree of garlic, celery, carrot, apple, basil leaves with stems and everything, 2 whole eggs, .5tsp cinnamon, .5 tsp pepper, 1tsp cumin, 1tsp salt, my remaining liver pate, added in the beef and fried it.

Success!!! he loved it and chowed down 3 or 4.

Even I ate one .. I really liked the taste of it, I could taste the liver and  I DO NOT LIKE BEEF ... but in the spirit of doing what I make the boy do, I ate 1.

I made a batch and have frozen it.

The diet goes on

So, we go onwards with our attempt at a grain free diet. It is hard, so very, very hard .... Extended family does not understand and it leads to weird situations ...

Yesterday, we had a movie night at home. I invited some of L's friends. I told them not to get anything knowing that whatever they got would 100% have grain even though they know that we are a GF household.

Right enough, one family came with mini-icecream cones and the other with Swedish fish.

I had baked pear for dessert. Organic pears with .5tsp of honey or sugar + .5 tsp of GF vanilla essence.

I hid the icecream and did not offer the fish. Neither did I offer lollipops or chips or popcorn. I had the children watch the movie without stuffing their faces.

The husband said I was a meanie-killjoy ... killing the experience of watching a movie...

Stuffing your face with phytic acid apparently enhances this process of movie enjoyment ..

I ignored him and offered the children my pears at half time.

They enjoyed them and never knew the difference.

Dinner had grain - white rice, butter chicken and steamed green beans.

Here is what L's typical diet looks like:

Breakfast: Bone broth smoothie (.5 cup bone broth + 1 stick celery + 1 carrot  + 1 boiled egg yolk + .25 cup fresh pineapple + .5 banana), 2 calcium tablets.

Snack at school - veggies

Lunch - Unknown, but he claims to have pasta and bread - UGGGG

Snack - fruit and crackers

Pick up from school: Bone broth lassi (.5 cup bone broth + 2tsp maple syrup + 1 cup raw milk yogurt)

Dinner - bone broth sprouted lentil soup or baked sweet potato or burger without the bun, .5 avocado, sugar snap peas

Fingers crossed this will work. I examine his teeth and gums every day. All seem to be ok for now ...

We have the FCLO + butter oil WITHOUT fail and I brush and floss twice a day followed by xylitol gum to clean out what the flosser missed ....