Saturday, June 16, 2012

Failsafe cooking...Thermomix?

We have a history with food allergies and intolerances.

Through hives from being kissed by someone who has eaten eggs, to peanut anaphylaxis and onto dairy and gluten intolerance - my son has been through it all. He is allergic to dustmites, pollen, cats and sometimes we think just 'life' generally. Born 3 weeks early (induced for toxaemia and low amniotic fluid) he had severe jaundice (almost requiring blood transfusion) and suffered from recurrent ear infections, tonsillitis and eczema, mouth ulcers, styes and more.... he suffered massive hour long tantrums sometimes 3 or 4 times a day! Some days were really tough. He was obstinant, a late crawler (one year), late walker (16 months), late talker (2 1/2) but could pick up a raisin at 6 months, complete jigsaws in the dark when he was only 18 months old and starting drawing the most amazing sketches while his peers were scribbling in circles! He suffered from physical/verbal tics, resisted all attempts at toilet training. Used to bang his head on floors, walls until he would have huge lumps on his head, one time he threw his head back so hard on a hearth he cut himself. We suspected that artificial food colours were causing hyperactivity and aggression. There is nothing more heartbreaking than trying to hold your child to calm them and prevent them from hurting themselves, but to prevent yourself from being thumped and slapped you have to do this with them wrapped in a blanket. Everyone said, "He'll be fine once school starts", "He'll grow out if it"! At the age of 3 we embarked on a diagnosis for ASD (Aspergers) and discovered we were coeliac gene carriers so gluten was eliminated from our diet.

Our son changed overnight and was a calmer, happier more responsive soul - we were astounded!

A few more years on and things were better but I knew there was more. As a consultant for Total Learning I used to sell Sue Dengate's Fed Up book and of course read it but decided that as we were already gluten, dairy, egg and nut free that FAILSAFE would be too hard and the Elimination diet impossible. Wish we had been stronger then.

Two years ago we went failsafe and did the elimination diet. We eliminated as many environmental nasty chemicals as we could, we reduced our intake of salicylates, amines and glutamates (natural food chemicals) and eliminated all artificial food colours, flavours, anti-oxidants and preservatives. The withdrawal was terrible - we nearly quit after 10 days because everything got worse but we made it through the two weeks to experience the best health and behaviour ever! Apparantly the worse the withdrawal the more you need to continue with it. After a few weeks at elimination we did our first challenges: salicylates (we ate all the high salicylate foods we had been avoiding and paid dearly within a few hours/days can't remember now), we challenged amines too and faired a bit better! Glutamates we never bothered trialling because most of the glutamate sources were high salicylate and amine anyhow and no-one fairs well with MSG!

Colours, flavours etc we continue to avoid but since moving to Australia we have let some preservatives into our diet. We have also been letting the kids try small amounts of dairy and eggs - eldest son (nearly 7) especially is starting to look very pale, thin and his temperament could be better. Had blood tests done to satisfy myself we didn't have vitamin or mineral deficiencies from our restricted diet over the past 7 years. All good - just need to check Vitamin D levels after some recent research I read.

So, we are about to embark on elimination again and get back down to baseline.

How does this post relate to ThermoMix?

Many failsafers have one because we make most products from scratch and this machine does it all with ease allowing you to: chop, beat, mix, whip, grind, knead, mince, grate, juice, blend, heat, stir, steam and weigh with ease!

I want one but need to seriously think about how to justify $2000 for a kitchen appliance which admittedly is the equivalent of 10 different machines!


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