I promised more info on Eli and I’d like to get this down before I forget. I do hope to forget some of this, you know, eventually. I hope the bad behavior will become such a distant memory that when I read these old posts, I’ll feel sure I was writing hypothetically or about someone else’s kid. Fingers crossed. Because look at this kid.
Before.
It became pretty common, as in daily, for Eli to have total meltdowns. These were prompted by anything and nothing, and I never knew when they would happen. If I gave an answer he didn’t like to a question, said no when he felt I should have said yes, asked him the wrong question, blinked at him wrong, etc, he would fly into a rage.
The meltdowns often manifested with bouts of increased stubbornness. Now, this boy is no stranger to bullheaded behavior, but he can really kick it up a notch or twelve when he sets his mind to it. I would try to talk through something with him, but he wouldn’t answer. He would cross his arms and absolutely refuse to speak to me. If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know how infuriating such behavior is and he knew that it would set me off. So we’d do battle. It would turn into a hollering match and he’d screech things that he didn’t mean at me and when I’d leave his room he would scream out, “You’re stupid!” until he was blue in the face. He’d throw anything he could find, the heavier the better, at his bedroom door. He’d get spanked and spanked and sometimes the spankings would snap him out of it and sometimes not. I think you can see why this behavior was less than desirable, totally unacceptable, and also completely heartbreaking. I could plainly see he was out of control; this wasn’t my sweet baby boy, but I didn’t know why he was doing these things and I didn’t know how to fix it. To put it in my favorite way (that of an 83 year old version of myself I like to call Gertie): I was at my wit’s end.
During.
Ok, to be fair, “during” and “slightly after” are nearly the same thing, because this is all very new. Everything happened quickly, because once I read up on Feingold, I was convinced we needed to give it a shot immediately. As I’ve mentioned, the kids were nervous. They didn’t want to give up the variety we are able to have now, nor did they want to lose the fun random stuff that was strictly forbidden on Paleo. I swear, that’s a bad word in our house now.
Once I arrived home with things like Snackimals, Pringles, the ingredients for Chickpea and Kale Soup (weirdos, I know), and Annie’s mac n cheese (among lots of other things), they were relieved and excited.
Slightly After.
We began to see results shockingly fast. Within a day he was slowing down to slightly less than warp speed, which was a nice change. He started actually listening to me. I could ask him to do something or ask him a question or even discipline him and he would remain calm (for the most part) and react appropriately. It was weird and awesome. We’ve been at this for about a week, and he’s doing so well. He’s had one meltdown this entire time, with a few moments of impatience/tears that we were able to quickly resolve. I am so relieved, both for myself and for him, because you can tell how much better he FEELS. One day, early in the week, I gave him something to eat and he was concerned about it.
“What if I go crazy?” My heart kind of did a cross between a melt and a shatter. I hated to see him so worried about being out of control again, but the fact that he stopped to think about it and that he recognized that he had stopped being crazy was so encouraging.
He’s got better focus during school time, and much better recall of information. I really couldn’t be happier.
The end. (For now.)
After a little more than a week of the Feingold Diet, things are looking good. Some things I’ve noticed:
- My skin is clear again. Paleo and Feingold have this in common: no artificial crap, and to that I’m attributing this complexion. I’ve gone back to using pure olive oil soap to wash my face and virgin coconut oil to moisturize. 1 week = clear, vibrant skin.
- Eli is much calmer. He has his moments still, and there was one hell of a meltdown, but overall, so much better. Will write in more detail later.
- I feel more focused, less anxious, less randomly irate.
- Brian’s heartburn is gone.
Stage 1 of Feingold excludes natural foods high in salicylates as well as all artificial colors, flavors, fragrance and preservatives. As stated on this website, “Salicylates are chemicals that occur naturally in many plants – they’re a kind of natural pesticide – to protect the plants against insects and diseases”. One very interesting factoid from that same page:
Research shows that about 20% of adults with asthma1, 60% with of people with food-induced itchy rashes, headaches or migraines, 70% of people with irritable bowel symptoms2 and 75% of children with behaviour problems3 may be sensitive to salicylates.
That is exactly what we are trying to sort out with our kids, and with ourselves. It stands to reason that if one or more of our children is sensitive to salicylates, Brian or I may also be sensitive.
Anyway, I don’t know what things are like in your neck of the woods, but Fridays around here are Pizza Night. I make it from scratch every week and it is super yum. However, tomatoes are a no-no in Stage 1, so I was a bit nervous about how we would be able to still make this happen. Luckily, my handy dandy Feingold packet has some recipes, one of which is an “Un-Tomato Sauce”. Color me both skeptical and very skeptical. It’s made from beets and carrots. I’d never had a beet before tonight, but I had not heard positive things.
I’m happy to report that my concerns were unfounded. The kids loved it, Brian loved it – even I loved it, mostly! I’m going to share my little concoction here – I used the Un-Tomato Sauce recipe (with fresh, instead of canned, ingredients and slight modifications) as a base for my usual pizza sauce, which I found online at some point pre-Feingold. It’s a sweet sauce, just the way I like it, so keep that in mind.
Un-Tomato Sauce (slightly modified from Feingold Association recipe)
- 3 large beets, peeled and chunked
- 3 large carrots, peeled and chunked
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp basil
- 1/2 tsp white sugar
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, allowing to simmer until veggies are very soft. Add more water as needed. Mash it up by hand as it cooks. Continue simmering until sauce begins to thicken (took about an hour). Let cool slightly, then puree. I had to do mine in 2 batches in the food processor. I put the first pureed batch into a large bowl, then started the second batch. To the large bowl I added my additional pizza sauce ingredients.
Pizza Sauce (slightly modified from brew.cook.pair.joy)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp dried basil
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (throw these into the food processor with the rest of the Un-Tomato Sauce to get crushed)
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
After batch 2 of the sauce is done blending, add it to the bowl and stir well. Pop it in the refrigerator until you need it.
Full disclosure: it’s kind of an electric fuschia color, which is a bit off-putting, though the kids didn’t seem to mind in the least. The sausage pizza was better than the cheese, also. I think the sausage kind of helped hide the fact that it wasn’t standard pizza sauce. With just cheese on top, the texture is just different enough to be kind of…weird.
And just to round things out, I’ll share my go-to pizza crust. I found it on allrecipes.com and it’s a keeper. Fast and easy!
Pizza Crust
- 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and oil. I like to use my hands for this.
- Add the flour mixture to the yeast and mix well. I use my hands for this also. Really work it together, squeeze it between your fingers, knead slightly. It should become smooth within a couple of minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan or baker’s peel dusted with cornmeal. Spread with desired toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let baked pizza cool for 5 minutes before serving.
And that’s it! It probably seems like a lot of work, but it’s really not. And it’s so worth the results! Yum yum.
I’m happy to observe after 1 week that things are improving, slowly but surely, and we haven’t had to sacrifice. We can still eat “junk food” – just has to be the right kind. Honestly, I’ve just kept some processed food in the pantry so the kids don’t feel like this is some weird thing, Paleo 2.0 or worse. We haven’t changed what we’re eating drastically, and we’re still eating delish food. Win win, chicken din!
I have now opened and closed this window about 13 times – finally, I have given in and I’m just going to write a stupid post already. I can’t promise that it will be good. It may be annoying and stupid, because there are many things going through my head right now. Instead of letting myself be overwhelmed by those things, I’m just going to start writing. Consider yourself warned.
We have recently begun a new diet, the Feingold Diet, wherein you remove all artificial preservatives, flavorings and colors from your diet and personal care products. My main goal in this endeavor is to get Eli’s behavior to where I think it should be and where I know it could be. One day not so very long ago last week, I casually Googled the symptoms of ADHD. I was shocked to find a list that perfectly described my son (and to some extent, my oldest daughter) accompanied by a full-color photo of Eli. I realized something needs to change. Since I have no interest in medicating him for this, I immediately started searching for dietary changes that could help. (Please note: I have no interest in changing my son into a zombified version of himself. I just want the best version of him possible. Someone in control of himself – he wants this, too.)
Right at the top of the Google results was a link to the Feingold website, and I immediately began reading everything. My mom bought the materials for me and while I waited for them to arrive in the mail, I started removing obvious culprits from our home. Things containing Blue-5 or Yellow-11 in the ingredients list were the first things to go. Eli and Bri were pretty calm about all this, especially when they realized this wouldn’t be like Paleo version 2 (evil Paleo has made my kids hate eggs and bacon, no joke).
After I got the materials and took my 3 hour long, multiple-grocery-stores trip for foodstuffs, I returned home with many goodies. Natural cookies and hard candy and fresh produce and cheese and meat and cereals, all safe for this diet. They realized hey…this could be good. Cookies??
So, Day 1 wasn’t all that different, though there was a bit more calm and slightly less Non-Stop Bouncing Off of Every Available Surface. Day 2 was significantly more impressive – Eli expressed how he felt to me instead of launching a chair at a closed door and screaming out, “You’re STUPID!!!!” (Yes, when he screams this it absolutely has 4 exclamation points following it, at a minimum) I felt a glimmer of home that this could work. I was excited.
Then yesterday came. And oh my sweet lord, he was in rare form. Most of the day went swimmingly, but in the afternoon he had the meltdown to end all meltdowns and I nearly lost my mind. Screaming at me, crying, throwing himself on the floor, throwing every available object at his bedroom door (it looks like Wisconsin cheese, but not so yummy, and not so inexpensive to replace), etc. For hours. He would calm down only to start up again when he got his second, third, fourth and fifth wind. ‘Twas ridiculous. I don’t even know what prompted it. Maybe a combo of physical exertion (hiking at the park earlier) and his daddy being gone overnight for work? Maybe an unexpected reaction to something he ate? He was a wreck.
Today has been better, but wowsa, yesterday freaked me OUT. I’m hopeful that he’ll continue to improve and have fewer of the meltdowns. Either way, this is a positive change for all of us, as we are eating a lot more whole, unprocessed food – which is always good. Oh and $5/loaf bread = we start making our own this weekend. Wish me luck 