Gluten Free Gold Mine!

photo by Suat Eman

The Gluten Free Diet is something of a mythical creature.  It's the "Autism Diet", the "ADHD Diet", the prescription for those with celiac, and good for weight loss (it's Atkinsesque).  All just by cutting out gluten.

Yet it tends to be the last resort for ADHD, when medication after medication has failed and caused nasty side effects.  Because going gluten free often seems as uncatchable as a unicorn.  It seems like absolutely EVERYTHING has gluten in it.  Bread, yeah sure, but also soy sauce, beef jerky, corn flakes, potato chips, baked beans, ice cream, Twizzlers, beer, chocolate, soup, heck even communion wafers!

What is there left to eat?

Why I Hate Art

Each year we try to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas and not just Christmas Day itself.   Makes for a somewhat less frantic early December when you don't feel like you have to cram a year's worth of joy and Christmasy-ness into two days.  We've been doing alot of yummy Christmas baking the last few days, socking away a little bit of each batch in the freezer for our Twelfth Night party, but mostly just gobbling it down as fast as we make it.  We're also making time for lots of the things we really love,  like board games, feeding the wildlife, thrift store shopping, movies, video games, theater, and today ART. 

Art is one thing I feel like I really don't do enough of with the kids.  I am a big old scrooge when it comes to any art other than drawing really.  The thought of clay, paint, and the like just makes me cringe.  All that mess and chaos... ugh!  Don't get me wrong, I love to do art myself.  I LOVE it, love love LOVE it.  But I tend to be kind of lazy when it comes to breaking out the messy stuff for my brood.  Or I thought it was laziness.  Today I'm thinking it is more like self-preservation instinct.

I was reading a Deep Space Sparkle article describing a lovely winter trees project involving shaving cream and thinking "I bet the kids would get a big kick out of shaving cream".  So, figuring it was the season for fun things, I got a couple of cans of shaving cream and cleared off the kitchen table.

Things started out innocently enough...

They were swirling colors and dipping papers...

Even the baby got to participate...

Don't worry, hers is whipped cream, not shaving cream...

If you want a fun blog post to inspire you to art projects of your own, stop reading now.  Get some cans of shaving cream and have fun.  If you want to hear our horror story however, read on.

At this point things took a turn for the worst.  Mitchell was really enjoying the shaving cream.  Enjoying it so much that he started rubbing it all over his stomach.  I sent him to go clean up a bit and while I was getting him to clean up, the other two decided to follow suit and start spreading shaving cream all over their bodies.  So I sent them to the bathroom.  While they were cleaning up, Mitchell decided to stir his shaving cream as fast as he could so all the colors mixed into a really putrid olive green.  So much for lovely swirls.  Then the little two came back from the bathroom and Henry decided to make his also a solid greeny mush.  I started to get a bit irritated that they were ignoring the whole concept of making beautiful art and instead were just focusing on the smoosh factor.  I tried not to let it get to me.  Intellectually I KNEW that boys will be boys and that they were having a great, fun, tactile experience even if they weren't making art as I had planned.  I praised Violet's lovely swirls because they really were lovely and the boys ended up asking me to help them have swirls too so we added more color to their green shaving cream.  In the end I was a bit frazzled but everyone had fun and had some swirly art.  Now, we could end the story there, but as you may have noticed, this last section didn't have pictures to go with it.  My hands were full of shaving cream and I was just too crabby to take any pictures of the green goo.

There also aren't any pictures to go with this next section. 

Once everyone had made several swirly art pictures and I was sufficiently out of patience, I started to get things cleaned up.  While my back was turned, setting pictures out to dry...

...Violet started rubbing shaving cream on her tummy and the boys started to dive into the shaving cream up to their elbows.  Their laughter started getting that crazy sound to it.  You know, when it starts to shift from joyful, delightful giggling to insane, overstimulated, maniacal laughter.  Plops of shaving cream started landing on the floor, on the chairs, on clothes.  Things were officially out of hand. 

I will admit, this was not my finest moment.  I yelled a bit.  Tossed out some choice phrases that had no business being said to children.  Maybe "yelled a bit" is being too kind.  I screamed.  I really lost it.  All I could think was that I had spent all this effort trying to do something fun and special with them and they were almost literally throwing it in my face.  Mitchell especially got the brunt of it because he is the oldest and "should know better" and his innovative little brain started all the mischief.  Everyone except the baby got sent to bathrooms.  The baby was wondering what the HECK all the fuss was about.

But another round of whipped cream stopped her wondering and she got back to business...

As the baby was getting round #2 of whipped cream, shenanigans started breaking out in the various sinks.  Thankfully, at that moment, Daddy walked in the door before I could strangle anyone.  He bustled the little kids off to the bathtub for a thorough cleaning, Mitch was sitting in Grandma's bathroom where I had exiled him, and I was left with a table to wipe up and a moment to catch my breath.

After a few deep breaths I went in to talk to Mitchell.  I apologized for screaming, told him I shouldn't have said the things I said.  Then we talked together about where things went wrong.  I asked him if he was at school, would he have taken the art supplies and started rubbing them all over his body?  He laughed and said "no!".  I explained that I was angry that they had misused the art supplies like that for me.  And he said, "But the shaving cream just feels so good!".  I started telling him how there is a time and a place for whole-body art.  And the time and place is outside in the summer, where they can be hosed off afterwards and not wreck any hardwood floor finishes or anything.  Then I had a light-bulb go off.  "The other place for whole-body art", I said, "is in the bathtub.  Where all the mess can be rinsed down the drain.  Hop in."

So Mitch continued his art exploration and I went to bathe the baby.

Bathing the baby always cheers me up.  And Fergie helped with the clean-up...

So, what is the moral of this story?  The moral is, I need to approach art with no expectations except mess.  Expecting any kind of aesthetically pleasing results is just setting myself up for disappointment and stress.  I mean, the whole point of art, in my opinion, is to enjoy the process and not worry too much about the end result.  I kind of lost that as I gazed at the Deep Space Sparkle pictures of magical snowy trees and imagined that we too could make something so preciously cute.  The kids didn't lose sight of the purpose though.  Their entire aim was to enjoy the process, so kudos to them.  And I apologize for raining on their parade.

Underestimating the amount of mess that can be made with two cans of shaving cream was a grave error in judgment on my part.  Frankly, I think all art should be done in the bathtub in the future.  It's really the perfect location.  Actually, we have an unfinished room in the basement with a drain in the floor...  shall we tile that sucker up for a whole-body art studio?  A very tempting idea actually...

And today as I reflected on what I could have done differently, another factor popped into my mind.  I had forgotten that the day before had been Mitchell's birthday.  We had promised him that a special ADHD diet didn't mean he could NEVER have the food he liked again.  We said on his birthday he could eat anything he wanted.  And boy he did.  We had McDonalds, pizza, donuts, the works! 

The thing about Mitchell's food sensitivities is that they generally don't affect him until the next day.  It's not an immediate thing.  So planning a messy art project the day after he stuffed his face with preservatives, gluten, dyes, milk, and high fructose corn syrup was just asking for trouble.  Mitchell said it best when he shouted as I took away my knitted stocking he was trying to unravel, "Geez, I'm just trying to do something INTERESTING!".  When he is off of his diet he has a desperate need to keep his brain stimulated at a very intense level all the time.  If we aren't providing something stimulating enough he will find a way to stimulate his brain himself.  Usually that involves pinching, tearing, shredding, bouncing, making noises, smacking, pushing, or in this case smearing things.  Art is fun, but not enough for him, so he has to involve more of his senses in the experience.  Staying on his diet really takes the edge off of this and brings it down to a much more manageable level.

So - note to self - don't try to do ANYTHING the day after Mitch has blown his diet except manage his symptoms.  Since he has been on his diet, I've started to forget how out of control things used to get back before we started the diet.  I started to forget why I needed to use numbers like the Crisis Nursery line or Crisis Connection hotline.  We haven't really had any days like that in a long time, but yesterday, our art day, was a throwback to one of those days.  One of those bad bad days before ADHD drugs and before elimination diets when we were trying "play therapy" (what a joke). 

So, while it wasn't one of my finest moments, I think yesterday was not without merit.  Everyone got bathed, swirly art DID get made, and mama learned (and re-learned) a few lessons. 

Note: The bottle of vodka and the shot glass in the pictures were not mine.  This time. :-) 

Mr. Independent

I am very proud of Mitchell today.  He wanted cookies today and you know what he did?  He made them himself.  At first he wanted us to make them together, but I was in the middle of a math activity with Henry and Violet and said I wasn't in the mood to make cookies.  I told him if he wanted cookies he could make them himself though.  So he did.

He threw a bit of a fit at first because he wanted help reading the box and I wouldn't come in the kitchen, but eventually he brought me the box, I gave him a few pointers, and away he went.  That all by itself was an accomplishment.  Often, when he tries to do a big project, as soon as he comes across a bump of some sort, he gets derailed and moves on to something else.  I didn't think he'd actually make the cookies all by himself without me at least directing.

Imagine my surprise when not only did he make cookies, but he was also very benevolent in involving Henry and Violet in helping him AND they cleaned up all the mess when they were done!  He almost got distracted after the first batch went in the oven - 8 minutes is a looooong time for a kids with ADHD (or any kids!) to wait - but he managed to make it through and when they came out he was there to smell and taste and prepare another pan to go in.  After they were done, there was great feasting and I was the proudest mama in town.

I Could Never...

I hear this quite a bit when chatting with other moms about some of our "lifestyle choices".   Like "I could never do cloth diapers", "I could never do a GFCF diet", etc.  Yeah, it can be overwhelming to think about switching to things like that, but i've found that the day-to-day practice of it is no where near as tough as what you imagine.  For example here is what we've been eating today...

Breakfast: Nothing much - I was feeling overwhelmed and crabby so I told the kids to get their own breakfast so they had (I think) brownie Clif Z-bars and apples.

Lunch:  Tortilla chips topped with leftover taco meat, chopped tomatos, and chopped cabbage (I was out of lettuce, they never knew the difference) and then blueberries on the side.

Dinner:  We have chicken breasts defrosted so we may throw them on the grill with some potatoes and green beans in the microwave.  If I can muster the ambition we all really love chicken fried rice (just chicken, rice, scrambled eggs, chopped onions, minced garlic, and soy sauce brawling in the wok) but I haven't been feeling very chefy lately...

So really, not hard and not a bunch of weird foods (though we have been eating more weird stuff lately).  They usually have water to drink or juice.  I usually wait until they are done and have left the kitchen and then chug Cherry Dr. Pepper and eat a spoonful of Skippy peanut butter and their leftovers but that's a whole other story.  I know for me, hearing about the day to day routines helps me more than just "how-to's", so maybe it would be helpful to some if I regularly posted about what we were eating?  We'll try that for a while.  That makes it easier on me too because then I have more fodder for posts.  It's a win-win :-)

Chocolate Nut Balls

I tried and tweaked a new recipe today.  Vegan chocolate nut balls.  I know, it needs a new name (got any ideas?).  As usual, Violet loved it and the boys were so-so about it.  Violet is really taking to all these new foods and flavors much better than the boys.  Probably because she is so young.  I thought they were pretty tasty too so here they are for you...

Mama's Vegan Chocolate Nut Balls


Ingredients:
Cookie dough:

• 1 3/4 cups ground raw cashews
• 3/4 cup ground oats
• 1/4 cup Agave Nectar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• Flake coconut

Chocolate chips:

• 2 Tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 5 Tablespoon agave nectar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Dough: Grind up raw cashews and raw oats in a food processor or blender. I did mine in my coffee grinder, which worked but probably wasn't good for the grinder.  Place all wet cookie dough ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Add dry ingredients except coconut and mix more.  Refrigerate dough.

Chips: Mix all chocolate chip ingredients together in a medium sized bowl except cocoa powder. Add the cocoa powder and mix well.  Roll the dough out onto parchment paper and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
When the chocolate is frozen, cut into chips. I used a pizza cutter but you can use whatever.  Mix chips into dough.  Roll dough into balls of whatever size you'd like (I like mine bite-sized but then you have to roll a ton of them).  Roll the balls in coconut.

Place in fridge to harden.

Mitch said he mostly didn't like the chocolate chips (they have a dark chocolate flavor) because they were too bitter for him.  He wanted me to make some without the chips.  I'll try that for him, and i'll also try making the chips sweeter for him too or maybe just using our store-bought GFCF chocolate chips that I know he likes.  Or maybe I should just chalk this up as another failed food experiment.  I figure if Mitch won't eat it, what's the point?  He's the reason we're doing this whole thing in the first place! Grrrrrrr...

Diet Problems...

So we've been trying an elimination diet with Mitchell and it was seeming to help, but i'm not sure if this is going to work.  Every time i'm not around, well meaning people are constantly giving him all kinds of things on his no-no list, often without realizing it.  For example someone told Grandpa it was okay to give Mitchell beef jerky, but since he didn't actually read the label, he picked out a brand that had wheat in it (you wouldn't believe all the places they stick wheat).  Even my husband (whose idea this whole diet was) is guilty of not reading labels all the time and accidentally giving Mitch stuff he shouldn't have.  So lately his behavior has been worse and i'm not sure if it is because it was just a fluke and the diet isn't really helping him after all, or if its because people have gotten more lax lately and there have been lots of food accidents.

To complicate matters, he just got back from camp, where for three days he ate all kinds of no-no foods.  His counselors said he did great and his behavior wasn't a problem.  So that says to me that the diet isn't a big factor.  But then again, it was the perfect environment at camp too.  He was with all kids his own age or older, hanging out with a group of boys and teenage boy counselors, doing fun outdoor physical activities.  That's the least likely time for him to act up anyways.

So i'm just really confused.  I liked what was happening for a couple weeks there but we seem to have lost it.  This week we are starting a renewed commitment to Mitch's diet, but we are not going to try to cut out gluten anymore and see how that goes.  We are thinking that should be an easier diet to follow, and part of the battle is having a diet that you can live with day after day and stick to.  Neither the Feingold diet or Dr. Jay Gordon's ADHD diets eliminate wheat so I think doing a diet that includes gluten still has a shot at working.  We'll just work on eliminating dairy, added sugar, HFCS, MSG, dyes, preservatives, and pretty much anything artificial that we can.  Whole and homemade foods will be the order of the day (and pretty much have been anyways lately).

The hard part about these elimination diets is not so much the follow through as it is the uncertainty.  I mean, if I could have a doctor tell me 100% that such and such foods are bad for Mitch and that eliminating them would help him, it would be much easier to enforce the diet.  But when I'm always second guessing myself and I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, it makes it tough.  It's hard to stand your ground when you're not sure if it can even hold your weight.

Another GFCF hit! Rhubarb Crumb Cake

So - to assist us on our journey of GFCF living, we've bought a share from a local CSA this year.  Actually we're splitting a half-share with my mother since I wasn't sure if we would be able to be very successful using all those new fruits, veggies, and herbs.  We got our first box of produce last Monday, the second round is coming today, and we've had a great week of new recipes.  We tried quinoa for the first time this week.  Grandma made 2 different quinoa recipes, one of which was just so-so but the other was delicious.  Unfortunately the kids were not loving the quinoa.  It was really tasty though, so i'll post it later for you anyways after I get it from Grandma.

We've got lots of lettuce from the CSA, with more to come this week, but unfortunately our old standby dressings (ranch and western) are no longer options for us.  So I bought three different GFCF organic dressings from the store and we sampled them.  I liked the Annies Lemon and Chive, nobody liked the raspberry vinaigrette I bought, but we struck a chord with the third dressing - Annies Poppy and Papaya.  It had a very similar sweet taste to western (but better!) and it was orange like western (important when convincing kids).  Henry and Violet both ate it up but we were 0 for 3 Mitch.  We'll try some more dressings next time I go to the store.  Mitch loves salad so we need to find something he can slather on his greens.

Another thing they liked was the rhubarb crumb cake I made this morning.  It wasn't especially healthy (2 cups of sugar and 1/2 cup shortening!) but did have some positive ingredients (multi-grain drink, rhubarb, nuts, coconut) so it's a treat I can feel good about giving them.  Again though, Mitch didn't like it, while the other two scarfed it up.  Oh well, we'll keep trying, and that's fine with me because all these new recipes are fun!

GFCF Rhubarb Cake (I'd like to ditch the shortening - any good substitutions you know of?)

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose gluten free flour 
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole grain drink (would also work with rice or soy drink)
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 cups finely chopped fresh or frozen rhubarb

Topping:

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup flaked coconut
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions

• In a bowl, cream shortening and 1-1/2 cups brown sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl;  In another separate bowl combine multigrain drink and lemon juice; add to creamed mixture alternately with flour mixture. Fold in rhubarb.
• Spread into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. For topping, combine brown sugar and cinnamon; stir in coconut and chopped pecans. Sprinkle over batter. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes. 

Enjoy!

What the heck is THAT??!!!

I have been hearing this particular phrase fairly frequently lately.

In an effort to find a way to help Mitch cope with his ADHD symptoms without medication we have been trying a sort of elimination diet.  Depending on who you listen to, children with ADHD can benefit from a variety of diet related changes.  Homeopathic detox remedies; casein and gluten free diets; eliminating HFCS and all artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives; identifying food sensitivites and avoiding the offending foods: all of these are on the list.  And depending again on who you listen to, these changes may need to be followed very strictly to show any benefits at all, or just vaguely avoiding these things can help quite a bit.  One never knows where to start.

What we've decided to do is this:  a casein and gluten free diet seems to be pretty widely regarded as a good place to start for kids with ADHD so we are trying to be very strict on this one.  Additionally, we are also trying to keep his intake of HFCS and artificial ingredients very low.  Soy and white potatoes have also been identified as possible culprits for Mitch so those are things we're keeping low.  And of course, too much white sugar isn't good for anyone so that also is something we're avoiding.

So once you remove all those things, what is there left to eat?!  As it turns out, plenty, but many are things we've never tried before like dates, rice milk, quinoa, garbanzo beans, and grits.  I've been pretty surprised at how receptive the kids have been to trying new things and how many of the new things they are liking.  Yes, I said kids (plural) because if you try to give one person something that no one else is getting, that is just a recipe for a brawl in our house.

The first morning we tried this diet we offered Mitchell gluten free granola with rice milk while the other kids had their usual cheerios with honey and milk.  Whooo!  THAT was a mistake!  Henry and Violet were yelling because Mitch was getting "a special breakfast" and Mitch was yelling because "I hate rice milk!  No fair - they get real milk!".  I dumped out all the cheerios and served gluten free granola with rice milk all around and breakfast ended up a success.  Mitch tried the rice milk (he was hating it before tasting it) and discovered he actually liked it and the little kids were thrilled to also get the special breakfast.  So ever since then its been the family diet for the most part.  When Mitch is around we all stick together and eat together.  When he isn't around the regular rule we have of "Different people at different times and different places get different things" goes into effect.  I think it's been good for everyone.  Even my husband has been branching out beyond his basic meat and potatoes and mountain dew diet.

Here's a decent recipe for gluten and casein free white chili that all the kids like (but not until after saying "What the heck is that?  We HATE chili!!!").  It's a little bland, but that's why the kids like it.  Any suggestions on how the grown ups can kick up the flavor a bit would be most welcome.

White Chili

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon coconut oil
2 cooked chicken breasts, cubed
1 can white corn, drained
1 can cannelini beans (white kidney beans), drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can green chilis
2 cans GFCF chicken broth

Saute onion and garlic in oil until tender in a large stock pot.  Add the rest and simmer 30 minutes.

Enjoy!