A Journey.

So our family has been on a little journey.   A few years ago I found out I had a gluten allergy as well as a dairy allergy.  The day I gave those things up my life improved.  But oh how quickly we forget.  So like human tendency, as soon as I was feeling better, I slowly started eating gluten and dairy daily.  So now I haven't been feeling so great.  I wake up sore, tired and cranky.  Then my youngest, my baby, who rarely gets sick, started getting recurrent strep infections and tonsillitis.  This has been going on for the last 7 months.  So we took him to our naturopath in hopes of getting to the bottom of it and treating what's going on instead of removing his tonsils.  The result?  We found out he is allergic to eggs and oranges as well as gluten.  This is major.  He drinks orange juice daily and usually got some form of gluten and egg daily.  We also found out that he has a yeast infection in his stomach (from all the antibiotics).  These things are weighing his immune system down so that is why he can't get rid of the strep.  We're trying to be balanced though and if he needs his tonsils removed we'll be on board.  We just hope we don't have to go that route.  It will take a few months to see hoe his body responds.  So far so good.

Finding out these results has had a tremendous impact our family.  I'm forced now to avoid these things too which is good since I too have an allergy and we all feel better.  I'm learning to cook with egg substitute and my sweetheart of a husband bought a bread maker with a gluten free setting and I have been making the most delicious gluten, dairy and egg free bread ever.  We don't eat a lot of bread, but it's a must have for almond butter sandwiches for school.   And this year there school has banned sugar!  YAY! No more junk, no more candy.  We bring our child's own snack and they have water bottles instead of germy drinking fountains.  This could not have happened at a better time because last year they were given unhealthy snacks and candy everyday.  Now I'm on a mission to make healthy gluten & dairy free lunches everyday and get creative with it.

On a side note, despite the debilitating heat we have had ALL summer, our little garden did really well.  I haven't watered it since we got back from Cali and yesterday I pulled off a few tomatoes as well as a cucumber and we have more growing.  Yay me!  I put a lot of peat in the soil this year and made my own blend so I think maybe that's why it's doing so well.  The peat is holding the water.  That means a bigger garden next year because my Whole Foods bill just went up a little ;)  I'll post some recipes soon :)