I have been eating primal/paleo since September 2011. We stick to it for the most part with some indulging. I never switched the kids to this style of eating because I didn’t really have the energy. I know that is a totally lame reason but there you have it.
Well, Owen has been “sick” since before Christmas. We thought it was a cold at first. One that just never went away. He never had a fever and just always would sniff his nose. It was never really drippy enough to even bother with blowing it. Recently he has started to clear his throat a lot. He was starting to sound like an old man. I finally broke down and took him to the doctor to see what was up. Turns out he has some allergy signs. Massive post nasal drip being the big one. Our doc is awesome and she gave us some all natural chewable pills to help him out. Well, he totally hates them and fights us crying every time we try to get him to take them. So, I start doing some research.
I know that grains/gluten are not good for our bodies and I also know that dairy can really be bad. The dairy causing extra mucous and the grains/gluten causing inflammation can either trigger allergies or mimic them. So, we made the decision to put the entire house on a strict paleo eating plan (oh, and we figured out about a month ago that Miss Faye cannot tolerate dairy or eggs in my diet…crazy skin issues), no grains, no chemicals, no dairy, as much all natural and fresh foods as possible; total clean eating. Plus, I would rather change how we eat and correct the problem than to start constantly drugging my 3 year old. There are times when drugs are appropriate, I do not feel that this is one of those times. Owen is also getting some apple cider vinegar every day (that stuff is just awesome).
I started out by telling the boys that we were doing this. I gave them a week’s notice. We talked about it every day. How some of the foods we were eating were causing Owen to not feel that well. We told them what they will no longer be able to eat and we gave them a huge list of what they WOULD be able to eat. I made sure to talk with the school so they could encourage the boys while they were there.
We are on day two, and so far it is going great (I’m knocking on every piece of wood I can get my hands on here). Breakfast is the hardest for the boys. They were used to getting up and having cereal or a fruit bar on their own. I’m having to direct them to the copious amounts of fruit and veggies that are now in our house; as their go to “fast foods”.
Tonight for dinner I made a simple dinner of chicken, carrots, and spinach. The chicken was just cooked on the stove top with some seasoning and about 1T of bacon drippings. The carrots were just boiled then had a bit of salt and garlic added (I know this is like the worst way to make carrots. I usually like to roast them but just didn’t have the time…I am doing the single parent thing tonight while G is out of town for work). The spinach was cooked as if it were creamed spinach but I used chicken stock in place of cream. I thicken it with almond flour.
The boys were not fans of the spinach (I was though…it was awesome),but loved the chicken and carrots (full disclaimer here on the chicken…Hugh HATES meat. The fact that he ate 5 bites of it without complaining and then asking if we can have it again tomorrow night for dinner just about blew me away. Our policy for eating is that the boys have to have one “no thank you” bite. After all, how can you say no thank you if you have not tried it to see if you even like it. They also have to have that one no thank you bite every single time a food is put in front of them. They also do not get something else in place of that food, if they are still hungry then they must eat what is on the plate).
So, without further ado…THE picture (I so want a better camera)!
Fantastic! If you haven't been to http://nomnompaleo.com/ do check it out. She has loads of paleo recipes and her kids are paleo, too. Maybe you could do a "parfait" sort of thing the night before for the boys – whipped coconut milk, fruit compote, with crushed nuts on top?