If you are reading this you know someone with allergies. Everyone does now. Either it's you or a family member or both. Weird allergies too,like being allergic to cantalope or yeast. I know people who are allergic to almost everything, and others who are allergic to one thing, food preservatives or dyes, that is in almost everything. There are the really challenging ones like gluten/wheat, dairy and eggs. Our family has all three, plus the life threatening nut allergy. Eating can occur like a whole lot of No's to us, especially at a party or in the grocery store...just a sea of food we don't eat.
Recently we took Ben to an iridoligist (reading the health of the body through the iris) and found out carrageenan is now in the mix of no's. Carrageenan is a food thickener and it's in almost all the good stuff. Our son gets a red stain around his mouth and swollen painful red lips for a week..it's embarrassing for him and is affecting his self expression. Until now we didn't know why...but it's looking confronting...
Want to go to the park and enjoy an ice cream after ward? Opps, can't son. You are allergic.
Want to have a chocolate milk at your friend's house? Nope sorry.
Dressing on your salad at a restaurant seem harmless? No way.
Pepperoni on that pizza or lunch meat in your sandwich? No gonna happen.
Dip on that Chip? Whip Cream on that pie? Forget it.
Geeesh! I could just cry. It is so challenging to police every food. Plus, the iridologist could see immediately that the cause of all the allergies is that my eldest son's stomach is too acidic (and probably the others, considering they all have allergies). That means that 80% of his foods should be from an alkaline list, a list which makes no sense to me at all. There is no obvious reasoning to it. Blueberries are acidic but raspberries are alkaline. What? Lemons are Alkaline forming? HUH? I printed out 12 pages of food to meal plan with. Days of just throwing something together and the kids being happy with fries and chicken are over.
That's a good thing though, really. It's that laziness that got us into this situation in the first place. Giving them oatmeal for breakfast (highly acidic and can cause cavities), lunch meat sandwich, corn chips (and carrots which mostly come back uneaten) for lunch and a hot dog and fries for dinner and being okay with them taking one mouthful of peas to represent the greens, is what causes high acidity in people in the first place. Highly acidic people have immune disorders, multiple allergies, get sick a lot, are fatigued and have a slew of symptoms that you can check here:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/are-you-too-acidic-symptoms.html
and here
http://www.balance-ph-diet.com/acidosis_symptom.html
Some say it is the base cause for cancer. Others say it is the cause for all sickness and disease...disease is dis ease...the body out of balance, too acidic.
Under stress, acidic conditions cause the stomach (our first line of defense) goes on attack against more and more foods, most likely the ones that it is most exposed to...therefore making switching the diet extra challenging. Sometimes it even occurs that we crave that food, some kids who crave milk are actually allergic to it, but the body is under stress and relates surviving with the milk even though it is attributed with the stress. Ugh. I know.
So how do we take the stress out of surviving food today?
How can we come from a place of inspired eating?
As a parent it is up to me to create with my son. Today it is going to look like a high lighter and the twelve pages of foods. I will ask him to high lite his top twenty alkaline foods and his top ten acidic foods. He can still have the acidic ones in small amounts (less than 20%) but it will still be a big shift. When I think about a normal plate, 90% of the foods used to be acidic. Beef tacos with corn shell, rice, beans...all acidic. The smattering of shredded lettuce accounted for maybe 2% of the meal. Yikes.
Then I will meal plan with what we have and shop for the rest. An adjustment to our food budget will need to be made, and negotiations with the kids about not going to Del Taco and Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream will definitely need to be creative. Watermelon, highly alkaline, is going to be a daily food here.
See it can be managed, and...it can even be inspired. When I stop pulling my hair out I can see that this is actually the opportunity to shift the current and future health of my entire family for their life time. By being present. By creating!
"How you do anything is how you do everything." -T. Harv Eker
How we eat is how we live life. By being present to what we eat, planning, making food fun, and getting their palates used to fruit and greens as the main portion of the dish, they will be healthier in their twenties and thirties and beyond. We will all be more present to life, to what matters to us...and live a created life.
What if we made faces with the fruit and grew more food? What if we visited farms weekly and the kids picked out their favorite veges? What if they made up their own salad recipes?
It inspires me to think of what food choices they will make later in life by being aware of and responsible for their own alkaline and acidic levels. Rather than food tempting them and them succumbing to it repeatedly and having guilt and sickness afterwards, they are going to be masters of food, masters of their life. The future is then one of empowerment for them, for us.
It is my honor to lead them in mastery.
List of alkaline and acidic foods:
http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm
Foods with Carrageenan:
Ice Cream (except for Breyers)
Sour Cream (except for Daisy)
Cottage Cheese (except for Old Home)
Flavored Coffee Creamers
Chocolate Milk
Soy Milk
Redi-Whip
Pudding
Light Mayo & Mayonnaise
Salad Dressings
Slim Fast Shakes
Chicken (ex: pre-cooked chicken to put on salads, rotisserie chicken from the grocery deli, etc.)
Sandwich meat
Frozen entrees (ex: any entree with chicken, also random meals like Lean Cuisine's pumpkin squash ravioli).
Buitoni pastas
Chip and Veggie Dips (ex: french onion, dill dip, spinach dip, etc.)
And the adventure continues. What do you do to make life fun and inspiring even with food allergies?
Love and Joy to all,
Zen
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