Gluten Free Day

Hey all.

So after following House of Vegans, Kirstiie's (www.houseofvegan.wordpress.com) gluten freeness on facebook, and reading about the positives that have come from eliminating gluten, I decided, on a whim to give it a go for 24 hours. I got my son (who shall be named W) involved too. Although he is only 20 months old, he seems to have major buddha belly at the end of the day. I understand that it's quite normal...but seriously,  it's huuuuge. I just wanted to trial it and see if elimination changed that. Also, I think he is possibly prone to allergies as he was covered in eczema at 6 months old.  He was put on a dairy and soy free formula and the eczema cleared almost immediately. He eats dairy now...but he wont drink milk on its own and refused it from 12 months...I see this as some sort of unspoken message that he was trying to tell me something. I'd like to add that W has a raspy chest all the time. I don't know whether this is because of desert living, sand in the air, which is heavily polluted (Qatar's air pollution is six times over the permissible limit) or whether it is something else, it doesn't really effect him on a day to day basis, but I don't like to hear it :( .

I had planned to cut out dairy from his diet for 24 hours too.

I also appreciate that 24 hours is probably not long enough to see major results and I am sure there is some sort of detoxification process that comes with it. But I just wanted to see if we could actually achieve 24 hours without too much trauma.

So being quite underprepared for this last minute decision, my first challenge was breakfast. It came as a smoothie/soft serve type of breakie. It consisted of frozen bananas, strawberries ground seed and goji berry mix and water, all thrown into the blender. The frozen bananas make like a soft ice creamy/frozen yogurt type of texture. It went down well...so far so good.

We then went shopping, to get a little bit more prepared, and we came back with LOADS of stuff. Gluten free muffin mix, gluten free bread mix, flours, falafels cereal. I was pretty impressed with myself and thought this was going to be a breeze!!

Lunchtime!! Brocoli and chickpea soup with a side serve of grilled Polenta. I really enjoyed the lunch. I'm not too sure about polenta, but it was edible. W spat the whole thing out and refused to eat any of it!! Grrr

Grilling Polenta!

Dinner, went even better...not!! I made a goooorgeous roasted pepper and carrot humus and put it on top of a baked sweet potato. I thought this was going to be a winner as it was all very sweet tasting....nope, spat out and refusal to touch any of it!! In a desperate attempt to make sure W went to bed on a full tummy, I made him a bowl of gluten free puffs (like rice krispies) with almond milk, topped with coconut palm sugar....he had 2 bowls!! 

Roasted Pepper and Carrot Hummus

By the end of the day, we were both fed-up, tired and grumpy!! This wasn't the flowers in your hair,  running through fields with the long grass running through your fingertips type of day that I had imagined... bundles of energy, lot's of laughs...nope, instead it was hard work, lot's of tears, and not a lot of fun...and to top it off I felt bloated!! O dear!!

So here is what I think went wrong!

First of all, W was teething, this became more and more apparent during the day, with his rosy red cheeks, and when this happens he's not really interested in food, especially cooked food.

Secondly, this was day 2 of Daddy being away. He always gets irritable when Daddy isn't home (does this happen to your kids?)

Thirdly, we had a couple of days of very early wakings (4.30...WHAAAT!!?) probably because of his teething, so we were both VERY tired.

and Fourthly, W just WOULD NOT take a nap that day. He was adamant and I was too tired to fight it in the end, so he had been up for waaayyy too long, and this also makes it harder to get anything inside of him!! 

I think I had basically set my expectations really too high for this little man and to have expected such a dietary change so suddenly was a little unfair. I also timed the change awfully. Tiredness, grouchiness, teething all contributed to the bad day we both had. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed everything I made (it was all from scratch!) but had circumstances been different, then maybe it would have been easier.  I also forgot to mention that during the day, I gave W some cheese as he was tugging at my leg going 'cheese, cheeses, cheese,' and as he hadn't eaten much I decided to give him some.

On the positive side, I had noticed that W wasn't raspy, even though it was a windy day and sand was blowing everywhere...there was no rasp!! So that is something to think about!! 

So, today has been 2 days since the DAY! And although, I have pretty much remained gluten free, I have decided that I will make slower changes for the rest of my family, for example, tonights dinner, Sweet potato curry with Quinoa...although W spat it out and only had about 2 mouthfuls, it's a step in the right direction. I, however, am trying to keep going,

although I did have a small piece of bread today...ooops!!