Quote from Sarabeth on May 6, 2022, 8:35 pm

Three years ago this month, my family was a total mess. I say this because a family is really only as strong as its weakest member, and our weakest member was a total mess, tantrumming regularly and long, refusing food and requiring spoon feeding at every meal, and our numerous health problems and allergies faded into the background due to dramatic behavioral issues but were nontheless fairly debilitating.

To say that Low Vitamin A eating turned things around is to understate how AWESOME it is to inhabit my body and take care of my family today. Six weeks into the experiment, our daughter remarked off-handedly that she was SUPER hungry, and could she have seconds on dinner? (My husband and I looked at each other, because neither of us could remember her ever asking for more food at any meal, ever.) The eating disorder vanished that week without a trace, as our daughter picked up her own fork since we weren't feeding her fast enough, and hasn't required feeding since. (For seven years, this child had refused food with more or less vigor - at times we had to all but force enough calories in to maintain her barely nourished body. Now she will laugh and tell you that she remembers a time, a long long time ago, when "food didn't taste good, and you fed me that STUFF." Yup, darlin, that "stuff" was meals!)

Mental, physical, and behavioral health in our household has greatly improved. Some of us have shiny, thick hair where once it was brittle. Some of us have better energy. One of us has barely noticed anything at all, but hasn't felt worse, so we take that as a decent signal. Overall, we can eat more foods than we used to (beans, for example, are now eaten regularly by 6/7ths of us, who love and thrive on them. One of us can't stand them, and never eats them. Some of us can tolerate sourdough wheat bread, although unfortunately I am not one of them).

And of course, there is always the long tail. There are still mysteries, and some symptoms that are stubborn. My gums are inflamed and painful and prone to (herpes?) lesions. My teenager's gums are scarily similar, and I don't want him to head down the same road to surgery that I have already been down (and now, my expensive surgically "improved" gums are scarily worsening again!)

Some of us suffer from frequent daytime urination, and one of us still consistently wets the bed...with occasional respites of up to three or four weeks, before the nighttime peeing begins again with a vengeance.

Some of us have greatly improved our tolerance for allergenic substances, specifically mold, but this has not been across the board. Our guts have improved, but are not perfect - some have alternating D/C, and the baby is a very happy fellow except when he or I eat dairy, corn, wheat, or pork (the latter was causing an enormous rash on his bottom).

I would like to tune things up - to both eat more foods for flexibility and fun, and to understand how NOT to initiate new deficiencies or overdo toxins. I want my kids to learn to listen to their bodies, AND it is very difficult to allow them to eat "intuitively" if that means "different from everyone else's meal."

We currently eat either beef or pork for breakfast, along with steel cut oats, raisins, and sometimes apple or pear.

Lunch is usually rice and beans and meat and mushrooms.

Dinner is also usually meat (beef or chicken), plus sometimes a lettuce/cucumber salad, mushrooms, rice, beans, homemade sourdough/gf bread. I use small amounts of spices like cumin, coriender, dill, rosemary, ceylon cinnamon, onions/garlic, etc. We use beef tallow, avocado oil, and small amounts of butter. We have a small amount of raw cheese on homemade white pizza once a week, plus occasionally yogurt or an egg. I make sauerkraut, and we sometimes have bits of celery, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus in season, peeled cukes, etc. I use cassava, arrowroot, tapioca, and lots of different kinds of beans (but no kidney beans). I make soaked granola, sourdough oat waffles and pancakes, birthday cakes with maple syrup or honey.

I think about this as a marathon for sure, and possibly guidance for diet for the rest of our lives. I don't want to make my children feel like they cannot go anywhere, but I also want them to know WHY their hair is now shiny, and their skin is so smooth...while also having an understanding that there are no guarantees in life, and we are in charge of our own health destiny, which is so freaking important to us.

And that's my update for tonight. 🙂 I would like to spend more time on this forum, and I wish I had more to add, but then I also have sooooooo many meals to cook, so please forgive my long absences. I appreciate all your voices and ideas!