eating around allergies

It's been around two weeks since I had to change my diet around Nathaniel's allergies, and my chosen things to avoid. Here's what we're avoiding:

- eggs
- dairy
- soy
- peanut
- sugar
- refined flours


The top four are because Nathaniel's allergic to them; the bottom two are because my research keeps showing that those two things are killers--literally--and I don't want them in my diet anymore. So while I'm making huge changes to my dietary life, I might as well eradicate them all.

Full disclosure: so far I have been allowing myself to have dairy every Friday for Chipotle Night, which is a family tradition. I have my burrito bol with sour cream and cheese. Maybe I shouldn't but it's what gets me through the week. All two weeks in.

So: how exactly does one live without eggs, dairy, soy, peanut, sugar, and refined flour?

Well, here's how I've been doing it.

I now make all of our own bread out of whole wheat. I'll blog the recipe later, but the ingredients include: whole wheat flour, water, yeast, and honey. I add a plash of oil as well, though I'm not sure what impact that has on the bread. I make 2-3 loaves per week.

That bread is great with sunflower butter (a recent discovery) and cookie butter (another recent discovery). I happened across these butters while I was at Trader Joe's, trying to find something new to spread on my bread that Nathaniel wasn't allergic to. Sunflower butter is pretty thick and dense, and has a strong taste: I spread it very, very thin on my bread to keep from being overwhelmed by it. The cookie butter violates my no sugar rule, but given that it's just about the only thing left in my diet with straight-up sugar in it, I feel okay about that.

For breakfasts I've been having my bread with spread, and strawberries and a banana.

For lunches, I usually make some kind of vegetable--mostly baby bok choy, since it's so easy. I saute the baby bok choy in sesame oil with garlic, and it's delicious. I usually eat it with carrots, or a banana, or an apple, or strawberries, or something like that.

For dinners, I've been making meat dishes with sides of vegetables. Sometimes I'll have some leftovers the next day.

So far, it has been moderately difficult, but not impossible. I do feel healthier now. My body is still adjusting to dietary change, but I think in another two weeks things will have gotten a lot easier.