GFCF Diet

With the holidays behind us and our lives slowly returning to "normal", I decided to start my family on a gluten free, dairy free diet to see if it would help Liam's development.  Despite a little protesting and drama from my big kids (husband included), I dove right in.  We are only on day 5, so in no way am I claiming to be an expert on this, but I wanted to share the experience while it's fresh.

The first 3 days I spent my waking hours researching recipes and ingredients, hunting through every grocery store in town and giving my KitchenAid mixer the workout of a lifetime.  I think I have literally purchased anything and everything labeled "gluten free" available in this area, except the stuff with dairy in it.  The funny thing is, my cabinets have never been so full of junk!  GF chocolate chip cookies, brownies, breakfast bars, chocolate almond milk, corn chips, etc.
Typically, our diet consists of lots of fruits & veggies, whole grains, low fat dairy and lean proteins.  Very little processed food or sweets.  I guess this was my way of proving to my family that this "diet" was not going to be the ricecake fest they feared.
The biggest hurdle was finding a substitute for sliced bread, as sandwiches are a lunch staple.  But I was lucky  to find a really easy sandwich bread recipe that I can substitute ingredients for regular sliced bread, herb bread or sweet breads.  Of course there were ingredients in the original recipe that the local groceries don't carry, but I made it work, and got a thumbs up from the fam. They are still bummed about the lack of cheese, but I'm working on that.

Breakfast and Dinner are actually going pretty smooth.  Typical breakfast foods for us are eggs, grits, smoothies, granola and sometimes turkey bacon.  So, other than making egg sandwiches on corn tortillas instead of wheat bread, not much has changed.  I did find a really good peanut butter breakfast bar recipe that the kids like.  Dinner isn't to bad either as I found a rice pasta and rice and potatoes are on the OK list.

Dining out is a beast of it's own.  We rarely eat out, but of course, we were invited out to dinner New Year's Eve.  We stuck to steaks, rice, sushi and veggies but 3 of us had tummy aches the next day, just sayin'.  We also had a birthday party and we brought our own bread and brownies, which went over really well and the kids didn't fight me for the cute owl cupcakes made for the birthday boy.

So far, so good.  Liam seems to be a little calmer, although, it maybe because we are all settling down after the holiday madness.  The true test will be the reports from his teacher when he goes back to school.  And other than the day-after-eating-out tummy issues, everyone else seems to be fine.  I know this will take time to see if it makes much difference in our lives and I am not expecting a miracle, but I am glad that we are all becoming more aware of what we are putting into our bodies and making a concerted effort to feel and understand the effects that our food has on lives.

I will post the recipes for the bread and breakfast bars in the next post.