10 Foods That Saved My Soul

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In 2010, my youngest daughter, Sammi, was diagnosed with a disease called eosinophilic esophagitis. Though it turned out that this diagnosis was incorrect, we didn’t learn that for three more years. During the first year of her diagnosis, we had to eliminate dairy, soy, eggs, nuts, and wheat from her already-vegetarian diet. During that time, these ten foods became the most important staples in my kitchen, making me grateful beyond anything I had ever known before. If you or someone you love is following the “six food elimination diet,”  these foods might be just the things you need, too. Continue Reading…

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What You Brought Home

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Dear Sammi Sunshine,

On the day that we brought you home from the hospital, we were nearly out of the parking garage when I remembered the milk — my milk, your milk, stored in the infant intensive care unit freezer. I’d been waking up every three hours for over a week to pump it and bring it in a little cooler to you each morning. I sprung out of the car, wincing from the cesarean section scar still healing on my abdomen, and went back into the hospital for it. It was the first thing you brought into our home — you, your tiny perfect self, and twenty-six ounces of expressed breast milk. Continue Reading…

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What I Was (Not) Thinking

In the fall of 2010, my younger daughter began kindergarten on a dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, wheat-free, nut-free, vegetarian diet.

In late October, she got to add eggs back into her diet on a trial basis, and I learned how incredibly, incredibly useful eggs can be in managing a diet as challenging as hers. When we added back eggs, it made it possible for us to make these ridiculous — and I mean ridiculous — “pizzas:”

everything-free-pizza

Continue Reading…

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On Raising Bodies

When my first daughter was brought to me, pink and hot and smelling like something elemental and metallic, I could hardly believe how thrilled I was to see that she was a girl. It turned out that I’d wanted a girl more than I’d been willing to say. I loved everything about it: choosing her name, buying her cute clothes, and saying the word “daughter.” I assume I would have felt the same way about a boy, once I saw him, but I never got that chance. I have two daughters, defying my pregnant instincts and imagination both times.

The truth was that I was afraid of one monumental thing when it came to parenting daughters: screwing up their relationship with food. Continue Reading…

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One Day on the Six Food Elimination Diet

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Between June of 2010 and May of 2011, my daughter Sammi progressed through the six food elimination diet for a rare inflammatory disorder called eosinophilic esophagitis. In an effort to determine which — if any — of the most commonly allergenic foods might be irritating the tissue inside her esophagus, her gastroenterologist asked us to remove dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, and all nuts from her diet, which was already vegetarian. One by one, we added foods back in as endoscopies and biopsies guided us as to the foods that seemed to be safe for her.

On this blog, the most popular post is called Practicalities of the Six Food Elimination Diet. It was my first effort to write the content that I wish I could have read while Sammi was on this diet — a lot of empathy and even more practical, straightforward advice on where to start. So much information on elimination diets online focuses on adults who can, for the most part, understand that what they’re doing is for their own good. Adults can sit in front of uninteresting, repetitive meals for weeks on end and make their peace with it. Children often don’t have that same ability.

As I’ve seen how popular that original post of mine has become, I’ve wanted to add to it, to provide more information to families who are struggling to feed their children with both attention to the restrictions of the diet and with love and compassion. To that end, I wanted to share a typical day for Sammi — who was five years old at the time — when she was on the full elimination.  Continue Reading…

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