Terrible, horrible, no good, awful chemicals in our food

It's an interesting thing, dealing with food allergies.  Our youngest daughter, almost 4, has intolerance to some foods, dyes and preservatives.  Once we got our daughter's allergies figured out she became outgoing and happy all the time.  Before figuring them out she would scream all the time. This isn't an over-exaggeration.    I stopped going places at night because, as an infant, she screamed horrible screams the entire ride. She cried almost constantly. She fussed all the time. She was a very unhappy baby.

As a younger toddler, 18 months-3 years, she was extremely clingy and refused to go to Nursery class at church almost every week. Most kids love being able to go play with toys and have snacks, but she didn't care.  After many months, she finally got more relaxed and comfortable just before she turned 3. Once she was 3 she was able to go the Sunbeams class.  That required that she sit through a 10 minute spiritual lesson called Sharing Time and about 30 minutes of singing time.  She was the ONLY child that did not adjust after a few weeks.  She constantly ran around the room. She refused to participate.  She climbed on my lap and snuggled.  She would dance and twirl, which sometimes sparked the other little girls to get up in front with her to twirl their skirts around.  It was cute and yet embarrassing too.

We had already figured out that she couldn't have gluten, food dyes, and dark colored clothing.  We also knew that she couldn't use soaps and lotions with dyes or gluten.  I switched to a calendula based diaper cream because the petroleum based creams caused her severe pain.

One day a friend sent me a link to a blog post about petroleum based food dyes and the preservatives that are also petroleum based and cause similar symptoms.  I read that and gasped!  The "treats" that we thought were okay might actually be causing problems.  I had to test it out; remove the preservatives and see how she responded.

When we eliminated gluten she became more happy.  People said she was like a new child.  When we removed food coloring she became even more happy. Again, people were shocked at how different she was. Then we removed the preservatives TBHQ and BHT.  The results were awesome! Just awesome!

I didn't think she could be any more happy, but I was wrong.  All of the sudden she was talking to people at church instead of screaming at them.  She climbed in peoples' laps instead of hiding behind me.  She smiled at people instead of growling at them.  It was fantastic!  Again, she was a NEW child! Or, in reality, she was allowed to escape her painful prison.  A prison no one knew was there.

Recently we had a few weeks where she became very sad and grouchy again.  There had been about 3 Sundays where she refused to go to class and she cried most of the time.  She became clingy and cranky.  I kept trying to link it to the weather because it had been rainy. The problem with that became clear when she was grouchy even on sunny bright beautiful days.  I was at a loss.

I began praying to know what was causing the problem because I have learned, over the years, that our moods can be directly linked to the foods we eat.  Food has a HUGE effect on us.  The answer to my prayer came as I pondered what we had been doing differently for food in the more recent past.  The Gluten free macaroni and cheese that I had been giving her from Walmart popped into my head,  She was begging for it almost daily. We purposely ran out of the macaroni and cheese and I told my husband that I was going to do an experiment to see if it was the cause. I thought maybe it was the annatto coloring.  I noticed that the annatto coloring was also in the Earth Balance butter that we use.  She had never had a bad experience with that before so before going crazy we just decided to see if it was something in the mac and cheese.

After about a week without this particular brand of mac and cheese her mood began to improve. It took approximately 2 weeks for the offending substance to leave her body and she began to be happy again.  We continue to use the Earth Balance butter with no issues.  What a relief!

I still don't know which ingredient caused the issue.  The list of ingredients on the Walmart Gluten free mac and cheese is rather long.  I didn't recognize MANY of the ingredients.  I should not have purchased it at all, but was trying to save money.  Ha!  This is why I don't like "crappy" ingredients or "junk" in my food.  Many of these ingredients aren't even food.  That's why I tend to purchase items with natural and minimally processed ingredients.  Ingredients that I can actually read and understand.  

And the joys of food allergies continue....

Don't be afraid to ask

Some of our favorite foods now list ingredients like "natural flavors" or "natural colors".  This catch-all phrase has now become a HUGE red flag warning to me. We love chocolate chips and recently, when I renewed our Sam's Club membership, I purchased a couple of large bags of Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Morsels.  They say they are "all natural" right on the front of the bag.  I decided I should re-read their label, as I had read it quite a long time ago.  There it was...towards the end of the list..."natural flavor".  

Littlest Miss LOVES to have almonds, peanuts, and a few chocolate chips as a treat, but I didn't want to risk causing even more screaming by giving some unknown ingredient to her.  I began searching the web for the information I lacked.  I couldn't find it.  I picked up the phone and called Nestle and after a little while was passed on to a human being.  (Isn't technology grand sometimes!) 

I explained that my reason for calling was to determine exactly what ingredients were in the chocolate chips due to a child's food allergy. He was very helpful...especially when I used the word allergy. Hmmm.  It took him a while but he finally came back on the line and said the ingredient is vanilla.  According to him, the FDA is now allowing them to list vanilla as "natural flavor".  Stupid FDA.  Wouldn't it be better, more beneficial, cost effective, etc to simply list all the ingredients as they actually are? But then that would just be TOO easy wouldn't it. We wouldn't want people to truly be informed, would we.  I guess that is why they have helpful customer service reps in place to help you determine exactly what is in your food.  Silly.

Anyway...I asked him to clarify if this ingredient was PURE vanilla or vanillin, which is artificial flavoring.  He assured me that it is indeed pure vanilla and that the company used to use vanillin but changed it so the ingredients could be natural.  He then explained that Nestle is going to be changing many of their foods to have natural ingredients.  I told him that was wonderful and thanked him for his help and we ended the call.

There you have it. Now you know which chocolate chips can be on your list of safe things to eat.  So, don't be afraid to pick up the phone and call a company to find out exact ingredients in their foods.  

Now...below is a recipe I got from one of the girls at church.  She loves to bake and is good at it.  They were out of graham crackers but she still wanted to make these treats that she was craving so her mom suggested she use oatmeal instead.  I stuck around to see the results.  Umm....YUMMY!  I don't normally keep graham crackers in the house because they all contain high fructose corn syrup.  Yuck.  This is a great alternative that is healthier.  I left the graham crackers on the list of ingredients but I would recommend that you try the oats first. I used quick oats and she used regular.  It tasted the same to me...I think because we both blended the oats in the blender first to make them into a powder.  

My other tip for the day is stay away from margarine of any kind.  I KNOW it's cheaper.  But it's bad for you.  Use real butter.  I like using salted but many use unsalted.  That's all personal choice.  

Peanut Butter Bars

2 cups of blended oats OR crushed graham crackers 

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup melted butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 ½ cups chocolate chips

4 Tbsp. peanut butter

In a medium bowl mix together oats, sugar, 1 cup peanut butter, and melted butter. Press firmly into a 9x13 inch baking pan. Melt chocolate chips and 4 Tbsp. peanut butter together and pour over the top of the oat mixture.  Freeze for one hour.  Cut, serve and enjoy!