Saturday, July 19, 2014

A new way of eating for us: the Rotation Diet

The first zucchini from our garden!

Homemade zucchini bread that my husband can eat!

Delicious pumpkin muffins made with many substitutions.

My dear husband has endured food allergies his entire life. He has known that he is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs, and gluten, but it seems like his body has become more and more sensitive to more and more foods and he now reacts to many different foods. After seeking the aid of an allergy specialist and also a nutritionist, Jesse had several tests run and we've found out that he has over 30 food sensitivities on top of the main allergies listed above.

One hopeful solution to help his body heal and potentially start to add some more foods back into his diet is to try a 4-day rotation diet for 3-6 months. Basically, only certain foods can be eaten each day and then rotated so that he isn't eating the same food consistently, but only once every 4 days. 

Since he can only eat meats, certain produce and grains, and certain oils, all on a rotating basis, my grocery budget has gone out the window... or at least has tripled since this time a year ago. But, I have come to terms with it (as hard as it is for me) and know that that's okay if it is helpful and necessary for my husband who never complains about such a lifelong "thorn in the flesh."

I also eat gluten-free as it has significantly helped my own health and digestive problems over the past year, and I try to maintain a gluten-free diet for the kids when they're at home (if they're served crackers or something at church functions or cake at a party, I let it slide). David is allergic to egg however, so we have to be careful with baked goods and other outside food for him.

I would share my 4-day menu with you, but I don't want to bore you too much with detail. But as an example, day 1 is beef, day 2 is chicken,  day 3 is turkey/salmon/elk, and day 4 is pork. Also, each day has certain fruits/veggies, as well as oils that I can use. It seems that day 2 is best for baking as it is rice day (rice flour) and I can manage to bake a few recipes that are gluten-, egg-, nut-, dairy-free and meet the requirements with the oils and fruits/veggies. We put pumpkin and zucchini on day 2 also, so I have been baking pumpkin muffins and zucchini bread this week (which, excitedly, we also have had some zucchini growing in our garden).

I'm also freezing any leftovers (or at least any that I can grab before they're ate up) for that crazy time in a few months when we're due to have a newborn in our house and ready-made food is such a help!




6 comments:

  1. Oh wow, 70 pounds! I believe it... we are trying to find ways to add fats into my hubby's diet because there isn't much he can eat. Right now, it's mostly adding various oils to his food. Bacon fat, too. The thought of a new baby in the house in a few months makes me a little nervous to how well we'll do with planning meals for Jesse, but I'm going to try to freeze his meats in advance (a bag of beef patties, a bag of turkey patties, a bag of pork patties, etc...) for him to be able to grab and cook. Thank you for the new recipe and ideas, it's always nice to be able to hear from someone else going through a similar experience! :)

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  2. I have been gluten free for about a year now. I would love the recipes for your zucchini bread and pumpkin muffins.

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  3. I used the recipe found here for zucchini bread: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/moms-zucchini-bread/

    But I used substitutions to make it work for us and it turned out well (rice flour instead of regular flour, flax seed instead of eggs, no nuts, and safflower oil instead of vegetable oil). I'll post the pumpkin muffin recipe on my blog! I hope you enjoy these!

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  4. What my husband does right now, is take one pound of meat and make 2 "burgers" then cooks both, eats one and freezes the other so that would be easy to do. He has written in a food journal sometimes mapping out which days he can eat which foods. I dried/not quite jerkeyed some meat for a trip he had. He liked it but I haven't done it again. One of the easiest meals for us is to roast a whole chicken using whichever oil he's using that day. :)

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  5. Thank you so much for the help! How do you dry the meat? Jesse likes jerky, but most store bought kinds have other additives he can't eat. I love roasted chicken, too... we're having that this week and I may make homemade broth with the bones for a future soup night.

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  6. I thinly sliced turkey (boneless turkey cutlets) and steak. I placed the meat on cookie racks over cookie sheets. I tried to salt the meat. Then placed in low degree oven (?180) and propped the door open with an oven mitt. I kept turning the meat over and salting it some more and alternating the cookie sheets until the meat seemed dry but still a little bendable. I looked up drying meat and jerky recipes. Then I took the meat and put it in a Ziploc bag that uses the pullout the air thing. I may have put the bags in the fridge so it would stay a little fresher for his trip. (Just checked back in today.)

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