Vocal Voices

This ones going to be a challenge for me. I haven't said much, but hubbys been crook for a year, and not getting better, and the doctors have no answers, so now we are trying a naturopath and he is feeling a bit better. She wants him to follow a gluten, corn, diary free diet. Limit tomatoes, capsicums (peppers?) and cane sugar to no more than once a week. No wheat, rye, barley, oats. No msg, and no 102,124,124,132,142. Some of those colours are banned in the uk, but not here and I discovered a 1/4 of my panty contained one or more of those numbers.

I said we would start Monday. At the moment I'm feeling like a fish out of water.

Crikey Weka, that does all sound very restrictive, and not easy to incorporate into a family routine! Have you looked at the Stone Age diet online, that cuts out a lot of grain as it wasn't around for cave people? Mostly based on meat, veg, that kind of thing? Can he have potato flour? That can be used for pancakes etc...

I hope he feels better soon xxxx

Weka, I was put on a restrictive diet after an illness in order to 'reset' myself, but it was a bit too restrictive for any long-term plan. I then tried the Caveman or Paleo diet as an alternative.

You can eat loads of veg, meat, eggs, and some fruit and nuts, but you are not to touch dairy, grains, ready meals and sugars (inc alcohol). As someone who makes meals from scratch using fresh ingredients it was quite an easy transition. I drank lots of water with only a few cups of coffee or green tea. However, be warned, it is NOT a weight loss diet by any means and after a while you might find that a reduction in portion sizes helps on that score.

Good luck to you all, no matter what you choose. xx

Gosh Weka - sorry to hear your hubby's been poorly.

Good luck with this restrictive diet...and hoping he'll feel better soon. xx

Sorry he's not well Weka xx
I'm sure that naturopath doesn't have a busy life with two small children and a weird diet to worry about!

If you look back probably on here but also maybe the health board, I have written about eg intolerance diets before (including re Missy I think), there should be some things of use.

It's always really hard when you have a list of what not to eat, so the first thing to do is make one of what is ok
Eg it sounds like meat, chicken, fish, almost all vegetables, peas/beans and lentils, fruit...eggs?
Then there are nut milks, coconut milk drinks (as milk I mean, not as in cooking in curries); rice also not excluded?
Rice cakes as well as rice milks etc.
Chickpea flour (aka gram flour), if potatoes allowed then potato flour, there's also rice flour...loads of Indian recipes using those, and lentils.

Make a start with what's definitely allowed then see what you can come up with.

But I also have to say. If it was you that was being advised to follow this diet, you'd be making all the food and meals you normally do for your husband and children as well as figuring out what to have yourself.
It would seem more than fair, if husband wants to get well, for him to work a lot of this out for himself, then you can feed you and the children and he can sort out his own. Some meals would easily overlap, especially main meals - chicken/meat and veg is pretty normal and if he's not allowed the gravy or whatever then tough
Certainly get him to investigate what he could make bread out of, and get on with it
Good luck xx

Di, you have just about encapsulated what I did when I came off the very restricted diet.

Once I had worked things out I had the list (in my head) of the things to avoid and so I left them well alone when shopping. My version allowed potatoes in small amounts and also white rice, but not pasta.

I bought a three tier steamer for cooking root vegetables and some fish and meat, but I also got a v.small pressure cooker for red meats and pork. If you throw in a lump of carrot, some celery and onion the cooking fluid makes a tasty gravy and arrowroot is fine as a thickener. I once did a whole small chicken and it was to die for. A slow cooker also works, but takes longer.

Arrowroot! That may be my saviour.
Everything in the supermarket I look at has at least one thing on the banned list. Maize seems to be in absolutely everything, even the gluten free breads.

We have been saying to the kids for 6 years now that we all eat the same thing, so I'm going to have to put the effort in here.

Actually I need to check up on chillies, if capsicum not ok, I think they are all the same family.

If capsicums are out then so will chillies as they have the same active ingredient: capsaicin.

If you still want hot and spicy you could try fresh ground black, white or sechuan pepper, wasabi (pure), horseradish or English mustard. If you are using them in something like curry the other spices will mask their flavours somewhat.

Thanks WM. That is what I feared.

I was planning on 3 months of Thai food. but I may have to rethink that.