Going grain-free.

I recently found this site that does Grain Free Meal Plans. The mother who owns the site has a child on the autism spectrum. I'm feeling very drawn back into changing Jake's diet to this one, which is very similar to the SCD or Specific Carbohydrate Diet (the site PecanBread has good info on it too).

When Jake was first diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, we tried the SCD. He was mostly breastfeeding, so I did the diet. I lost a lot of weight and felt really good. But with two toddlers and everything we were going through with trying to give him enzymes, I got discouraged - most of his required cystic fibrosis medications were not "legal" on the diet. Ultimately I abandoned it as too restrictive. He ate a ton of wheat and cheese as a two-year-old; in fact, I think those were his main foods. When he was diagnosed with autism at three years old, I took him off gluten and casein. We did that diet for three solid years.

I've been going back through my past a bit lately, and not pursuing grain-free and SCD, or even just continuing gluten- and casein-free, is one of my regrets. I just didn't understand fully what benefits could be seen from doing that with him, and I had "given up" on a cure. My perfectionism got in the way; I couldn't possibly manage all the supplements and complicated regimens and cost of seeing a naturopath/DAN doctor, so why try at all?

Well, now that I've gone primal/paleo, especially with this 30-day challenge I've been doing (and blogging about at my Primal HCG blog), I've also been reading about the health issues that come with consuming grains. I'm getting back on the grain-free-for-the-whole-family wagon. It's going to be tough; my husband does all the cooking around here and although he's very much gone primal with me, he does not like to eliminate entire food groups and he's had a strong resistance to letting go of rice and corn. I think I've finally got him to let go of gluten, but his habits are tough for him to let go of.

So, it's going to be a process. But I am going to do a lot of reading and plotting. Jake's diet would not be hard to modify to grain-free, and I think I could even do an "intro diet" of just boiled meat with him over a few days. Chicken is his go-to protein and I don't think he'd mind just eating it. He loves sliced apples, bananas, and grapes.