Recently our kids have cheated on their diet and we quickly paid the price. It was however a very valuable lesson.
We are only humans and we make mistakes. But – we have also learn from them. Today we know, that when it comes to fixing health issues it is extremely important to not let the cravings take over. In our case the circumstances where quite unusual but still it is best to be prepared for any occasion and not slip of the track.
What exactly has happened?
We were on a plane. I did not expect for lunch to be served. On short distances usually there is not much food offered if any at all. But one moment I smelled some cooked food and got so confused what do to. I opened my eyes widely and looked at Kris with a bit of a panic. They were serving some chicken and pasta and it smelled all over the plane! Of course everybody was having it and there was no alternative choice! I was really surprised and not prepared for the occasion, there was nothing up my sleeve for once.
I noticed quickly that food is served with orange juice and a little white bun on a side. I quickly decided to eat only bread and drink the juice. I knew just from the look on our kids faces, who were used to eating these foods and not so long ago they were following standard diet. They were possibly missing it too, just normally like everybody else. I just wanted that flying experience to be really fun. I am talking about Maya and Travis. Troy did not care too much for it. My decision wasn’t so bad but it wasn’t good either. But the problem was solved. They got so excited they could eat bread, they did not care for anything else. Everyone was happy. I was relieved. We got home and I thought that our little cheat will just pass through their body quickly and will not be noticed, since they haven’t eaten gluten for over 1.5 year. (You can watch the situation on our you tube, from 2-3 weeks before, episode 36) It was just little, tiny bun. Actually two, because we offered them ours as well.
The consequences.
I did not have to wait too long. Two-three days after returning I have noticed on Maya’s face, on her right cheek few pimples, like acne. It quickly multiplied and soon her entire face was all covered in those and became inflamed. Travis’s symptoms were different, but the same as he had in the past – dry patches on his back, legs and buttocks. At first my worry was that it is lack of sun, change of water, foods, air, but it was weird that it happened so soon!
Since the skin was inflamed only on Maya’s face and neck, not on hands etc. I started to suspect allergic reaction and decided to wait and see, keeping the diet back on track.
It was inflamed for about another 5 days and looked quite bad, but finally slowly started to go away. Today it has been 21 days since consuming forbidden food and I can tell the reaction is mostly gone. There are still tiny patches left, but the flare up is not visible anymore. It wasn’t as bad as eczema she have had in the past, not even close, but if she kept eating this way it would quickly returned I think.
The lesson.
We have learned that allergy to gluten, wheat and other foods is still there. However Troy has eaten more then a half of his bread and had no reaction at all. Travis’s reaction was much smaller than Maya’s and went away faster. I can tell from my observation, that the healthier the inside the less reaction it was.
It takes up to two years to heal the intestines and Maya’s are just not healed yet, letting food particles to pass through it’s walls and cause the reaction. We know that in order to keep healing process on, we need to stay focused and keep the menu clean.
The advice to everyone who is serious about healing their body with this diet and wants the results:
As far as our experience was, I could actually clearly tell what was the problem and we saw the reaction in very obvious way. Maya’s skin was perfect before and I knew I must have done something really wrong.
But if you are during healing process, when the skin is still inflamed and you have no clear picture, it could be very confusing. Waiting for results and eating even a little bit of something forbidden could costs you weeks of delay. You also could feel like there are no results and the diet is not working! Which is not true. It seems that so little portion does not matter. But when body is on a clean diet it becomes so much more sensitive and detects things even better. I highly recommend to everyone during the process to keep the diet 100% raw and not reaching for even a little bite of processed or cooked foods.
One more thing about tricky cooked foods:
Before that happened, while still in Portugal, the kids sort of had a bit of crisis with their foods. It was probably lack of my creativity I guess, but it is quite normal that we get caught up in some sort of patterns and falling into a routine. Maya’s skin was doing great and I have decided to add some steamed potatoes to their salad at dinner to keep them happy. At the same time I increased the amount of salad 2-3 times then usual. Which I thought was a win-win situation. Travis had the most difficulties with eating his salads before, and I have always had to use different tricks for him to like it. But since I added a potato, he was so happy to eat the casual salad once again. Both of them, every evening shared big head of lettuce together along with their steamed potato bites.
But the happy stage lasted only about 3 weeks, till I noticed a patch of dry skin on Maya’s cheek and neck again. We talked to the kids and explained that probably it is for the best to go back to fully raw diet and we will add back some potatoes or rice later on. They agreed, I started to be a bit more creative and everything went back to normal. Maya’s skin started to clear up after a couple of weeks really nicely. I knew it was the potatoes.
The other foods that can be tricky as well are also NUTS. It is good to know, that commercial nuts in bags are all cooked. So eating more then 1-2 nuts is going to affect the diet. If you have a source for nuts straight from a tree, dried naturally in shells, it is probably best option. We get some from my Mom’s – walnuts and hazelnuts. We were also able to pick some hazelnuts from some tree in Portugal. I use a tactic of giving my kids nuts in shells, so they get them out themselves and they can eat as much as they can open. This way I am pretty sure they will not overeat on fats and proteins. It takes their time and effort, and also they have some fun and stay busy too.
