Bob’s Red Mill now has gluten-free quick-cooking oats and gluten-free oat flour. This will simplify a few things, as the gluten-free whole oats are very, very chewy and take a long time to cook.
They’re having a giveaway, so if you’re curious about the gluten-free oats, or a cookbook called “1000 Gluten-Free Recipes,” head over to the Bob’s Red Mill blog for more information.
It’s been almost three months since we started this diet and we had some ups and downs.
Ups: It looks like chicken, basil, almonds, and Blue #1 are ok. Everything we can cross off the can’t-have list is a victory.
Downs: We’ve tried soy twice and saw reactions right away. Pork is not looking good either. We’ll wait a while and then try again, but those are two that we’d hoped to reintroduce with good results, just to create more options.
Gluten, rice, and beet sugar are on the docket in the coming weeks.
Last Sunday was the end of the three-week 39-food avoidance period, and when we were given the ok to reintroduce some things. We had decided that soy was going to be the first that we’d try.
For lunch I made the buckwheat pancakes that my son really likes, using soy milk, and we allowed him and the other kids to taste both chocolate and vanilla soy milk. (None of them liked either one.)
By Monday his eczema had really flared up.
In hindsight, we should have waited until Monday, because he also had a bath on Sunday. Although we use no soap, and we slather him with lotion after getting out of the tub, baths often cause a flareup.
Because both the bath and the soy were given on Sunday, we don’t know which of them caused the eczema to worsen. It may even be unrelated to those, as the air has become very dry with the cold this week, so maybe that’s what is causing the trouble. That’s what’s so difficult: although we are trying to be scientific and systematic in our avoidances and introductions, there may be unknowns that are causing symptoms as well.
It’s taken all week to get his skin back under control. If it’s looking good on Monday, we’ll try something new; we’re thinking we’ll go with chicken instead of soy again. Since we know he doesn’t like the soy milk, there’s no hurry for the soy now. Chicken is something our family has missed.
Lesson learned: Although I had put the reintroductions on the calendar every 4-5 days, this process may take much longer than expected as we find things that are possible reactive, pull them out, wait for the skin to clear, and then reintroduce again.
