Omigosh, this was sooooo easy! I remember wanting to buy ‘natural playdough’ online many years ago, but never got around to it!! If only I had known then how easy it was (your kids can help)!
Tonight my daughter complained of being bored and said no to all my suggestions…she wanted to do a craft….I am not crafty so I wondered if there was something that I could whip up in the kitchen…..finally a use for that table salt I share at classes and in private sessions with my clients (as an example of what NOT to bake, cook or season with).
Instead I recommend unrefined salt like Celtic or Himalayan with the synergy of their full compliment of minerals!
Jasmine will tell you all about how we did it (she did most of it)!
Without further adieu……
Homemade Purple Spelt Playdough
1 cup unbleached spelt flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup water (add an extra half cup if you are not using wine)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons corn starch
Mix flour, salt, cornstarch, oil, wine and water. Cook over medium heat, stirring until dough becomes stiff. Turn out onto parchment or wax paper and let cool. Knead with your hands until playdough consistency.
Looking for a more wholesome and wheat free alternative to cream of wheat cereal?
You can still get the same texture and taste of Cream of Wheat cereal (without the gluten and anti nutrients) by using this nutritious seed grain alternative containing millet, amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa.
Seed grains are not technically grains, but cook up just like them being the perfect step up for gluten and grain intolerant people.
This is the perfect dish to warm up a cloudy fall morning and it is easy and fast to make at home!
Cream of Seed Cereal
What you will need:
1/2 cup millet
1/2 cup amaranth
1/2 cup buckwheat
1/2 cup quinoa
2 cookie trays for toasting (or simply use a frying pan on medium heat on your stovetop).
How to do it:
1) Rinse the seed grains in water (important to get rid of the bitter taste) and then place on two separate cookie sheets (I like to put millet & amaranth together and quinoa and buckwheat together because they are similar in size).
2) Toast in the oven for 20 minutes or more (until they are toasty-dry and have a nutty flavour). The time it takes to do this will depend on how much water is left on your seed grains. You can let the water drip out through a colander for a few minutes so that they are not dripping wet.
3) Take the toasted seeds out of the oven and let cool.
4) Pour into a jar and store on your countertop until ready to make “Cream of Seed Cereal”
*Alternately (and especially if you have digestive trouble) soak the seed grains overnight in water with a splash of apple cider vinegar and then dehydrate until crispy again (great raw food alternative too)!
What you will need:
1/2 cup ‘cream of seed cereal’
1/8 tsp unrefined salt
water
cream, milk or hemp milk
unrefined sugar
cinnamon
fresh fruit or dried fruit
How to make the fresh cereal:
1) Grind 1/2 cup of the toasted seed grains in a coffee grinder.
2) Mix in a pot with 3 cups of water and 1/8 tsp unrefined salt.
3) Bring to a boil (stirring constantly) and then simmer for 15 min (stirring occasionally) makes about 4 small servings or 2 large.
4) Top with generous amounts of buttter/coconut oil, cream, milk or hemp milk, unrefined sugar, chopped fresh or dried fruit and cinnamon to taste!
I have a new obsession…creating delicious & nutritious homemade cereals that are easy to make and as quick as cereal for busy families like mine- on the go!
This one’s a yummer, with a lovely chili powder kick!
Warm Raw Chocolate Hemp Chia Porridge
What you will need:
1 cup unsweetened cocononut or shredded coconut
1/2 cup raw cocao nibs
1- 1 1/2 cups cranberries (unsulphured) or chopped dried bing cherries
1 cup chia seeds
1 cup hemp seed
2 Tbsp cinnamon
3 Tbsp raw cocoa
3 pinches of chili powder
1- 11/2 tsp greenleaf stevia
How to do it:
Pulse ingredients for 10-20 seconds in a food processor or coffee grinder and store in a glass jar in the fridge.
How to use it for 1 adult serving:
4 Tbsp cereal
4 Tbsp very hot water
1 Tbsp cream or hemp milk
While it has been well over 2 years since my son’s recovery from eczema, the emotional turmoil and angst that I experienced as a mother witnessing my child suffer, is still quite raw. While I rarely think of this experience in our current day to day lives, every once in a while noticing him scratch an itch near the area that he used to have eczema. I find myself catching my breath and asking him with great trepidation, “is that just a normal itch”?
Now if you’ve never had a child with eczema or some other itchy skin disorder, you might question this to be an extreme inner response to an itch, but if you or someone close to you, has ever been afflicted with this condition, well then you most likely know what I am talking about, especially when it comes to our precious babies! There were so many nights of endless scratching while I prayed to god that I could please “bare this cup” for him. I felt helpless to offer relief, and on edge with anxiety, fearing that it might become worse.
Let me give you some back round. Being a nutritionist, I understood the etiology of this allergic condition and the path to healing it, at least the one that I was trained in. Yet, even with my knowledge, profound trust in nature and through my own personal experience of self-healing, I found it very difficult to think clearly or take any action at all. Something about him being a child, and myself being his mother, intertwined us so deeply that every action that I knew I needed to take, seemed depriving and daunting. Though I could clearly see that he was becoming intolerant to more and more foods, I was reluctant to start a food diary, to see which ones were currently, the culprits. The task seemed futile, because I knew that if the root cause was not addressed, we would unfortunately have to keep adding new items to the list of quarantined foods….until there were no more “safe” foods left to eat.
So in getting that, I wasn’t in the place where I could help “us”, I finally sought the services of some other practitioners in the natural health field and together, we got as far as taking “the edge off” through probiotic pills, EFA’s and digestive enzymes, plus avoiding the foods that he was intolerant to (we used the biomeridian stress assessment test, to determine and very accurately I might add, which foods were aggravating the condition). The fact that we were moving towards improvement, also took the edge off my anxiety long enough to realize that while these results were good, at least 60% improvement, I knew that this was not true healing, it was just avoiding the current allergic triggers. If he was really healed, then he should be able to eat like everyone else again, right?
Inside I knew this to be the truth and ignored the naturopath’s suspicion that my son had celiac’s disease (which by the way, was a suggestion that made me cry for hours, envisioning a future where my son would feel deprived watching others eat what he could not, and longed for). Even though we were working with alternative healing practitioners, more often than not, I admit that I didn’t feel like we were held as whole beings, but rather as fragmented parts of a story called eczema. There was, for my taste anyway, too much professionalism which translated into distance and efficiency. From my end, it felt like we were being shuffled through a “natural health conveyor belt”, even though I’m sure these practitioners had the best of intentions. This is why I agree with Susun Weed that compassion and authentic relating from a place of equality, on the part of the so-called healer, is such an essential part of the healing process. I longed for a wise woman, someone to hold my hand, look me squarely in the eyes, mother to mother, and say “trust yourself”. I never went back after that last appointment, and resolved to do what I knew we needed to do in my heart all along.
Since we were about to be moving to another province, we had a week long road trip ahead of us that would involve a lot of “eating out”, and therefore a lot of wheat and many other irritating foods such as tomatoes and dairy. It became “do it now” or find another path all together. So this is what we did. For three weeks, my son and I went off all disaccharides (double sugar molecules). Meaning we could eat nothing but fruits and vegetables (but no root vegetables), a predigested fiber/protein/carbohydrate mix, plus 1 tbsp of olive oil a day and water (no spices). No supplements, no grains, no dairy etc. This is commonly referred to as the “leaky gut diet” and is the most common method to heal eczema and food intolerances… plus many other health challenges that few understand actually have their roots in a “leaky gut”.
This is the simplest way I know to define “leaky gut”: An overgrowth of Candida yeast in the intestinal tract which can lead to the yeast “burrowing” into the intestines and thereby creating holes that allow undigested food particles to enter the blood stream. Since these food particles are not meant to be in the bloodstream, the body launches an allergic response causing inflammation in the area that these foreign particles settle. Usually this happens where that person may have a constitutional propensity toward weakness. For example, if my son had been constitutionally weaker in the lung area, he may have gotten asthma instead of eczema. In some cases, both areas and other parts of the body are affected with inflammation too.
So we ate like this for 2 and half weeks (I stopped it earlier than I had intended, because he was so greatly improved, but had lost considerable weight which caused me concern). At that point, he was 90% better, and continued after that, to improve until he was completely free of eczema a month later (even though we ate very poorly for the week of our road trip, lots of grilled cheese sandwiches, ketchup and French fries)! The leaky gut diet had taken the load off his intestinal tract and his vital healing forces had kicked into high gear- since they were no longer being assaulted (it only takes three days for healthy intestinal lining to regenerate and heal, so I wasn’t surprised that he healed so fast, especially being a child).
When we finally arrived in Vancouver, our destination, we put our son on a month of colloidal silver hydrosol, grapefruit seed extract, a living whole foods brand of probiotics and digestive enzymes to address the underlying condition of Candida. And that was it, he has been free of eczema ever since, and he can now eat all the foods that once caused his skin to inflame and drove his mother to tears!
So why does the son of a holistic nutritionist have Candida in the first place. That is a soft spot for me and probably one of the contributing factors to my inability to take action in the beginning. In a sense, I felt a sense of futility. I wondered how I could so-called be doing “everything right”, yet still face such a considerable health challenge in my own family?
I knew why my son was struggling with intestinal flora imbalance (allowing Candida to proliferate) since at four months of age he had been on antibiotics for 1 week, due to an infection caused by an inguinal hernia surgery. So while I got that it was due to circumstances beyond my conscious control, that he did not get the best start on balanced intestinal flora-on some level though, I still felt that I should have done more earlier, to compensate for the assault on his inner ecosystem (micro flora balance).
Yet in my heart I know that I did the best that I could, with the knowledge that I had at the time. For example, I chose to exclusively breastfeed until he was one year of age, which gave his digestive tract much more time than most babies, to mature before being introduced to solid food. Then again, I don’t think I made the best choice of not slowly introducing solid foods.
When I did finally start feeding him solids, I just gave him what ever I myself was eating (which at the time was a grain heavy vegetarian diet).In hindsight, this choice may have reduced the benefits of longer term exclusive breastfeeding, in regards to his digestion.
I should have also had him on probiotics for at least 6 months after the bout of antibiotics, but at the time, I didn’t know that it took that long to re-establish microbial balance.
Along the way, I had also been fortunate to study with a teacher who is very knowledgeable in nutrition from the Chinese medical perspective. Not only did she emphasize the benefit of traditional diets and traditional food prep methods for digestive capacity, but she also turned me onto the wisdom of the “energy of foods”. This knowledge helped me to understand why, when we first started my son on the leaky gut diet, certain foods that were permissible such as the seemingly benign mango, would in fact trigger inflammation, when it had otherwise been calming and receding. I didn’t have the resources at the time to determine why this was so, but in my further training I found that it wasn’t such a mystery, but that certain foods have a heating quality which further exacerbates heated or inflammatory conditions such as eczema.
Through continuing study, I discovered that a lot of the foods that are typically promoted as being healthy and recommended for everyone, are not necessarily beneficial for young children whose digestive systems are still developing and adjusting. Nor are they helpful for people with weak digestion due to illness or those who have a weaker digestive constitution. I also became enlightened to the fact that sometimes the harsh cleansing and sometimes irritating nature of these so called health foods, had properties that could be neutralized by preparing them the way that our ancestors once did; there by increasing not only their digestibility, but also our ability to obtain nourishment from them.
And then there are probiotic foods, something I didn’t even discover for our family until many years after my son overcame eczema.
It makes such perfect sense to me now, why my organic, whole foods vegetarian diet was not the perfect one for my child, even though it brought me into a greater state of health. It also explains why many very health conscious people, who eat the most seemingly wholesome diets can still be deficient in nutrients and suffer from deficiencies and other health imbalances. We are not what we eat, but rather what we can digest and assimilate.
So if I could do it all over again, this is how I would feed young children to encourage optimum health. I would exclusively breastfeed for one year and then gradually introduce foods as is commonly done, one food at a time. I would prepare simple foods made with traditional food prep methods to neutralize anti-nutrients. I would avoid wheat, not because it is inherently allergy promoting, but because these days, not only is it hybridized, not traditional prepared (soaked), but also because it usually contains baker’s yeast (common allergen). Many question (myself included) whether we can evolve fast enough to tolerate these new forms of wheat and bread making. It seems that people with poor immune function are especially prone to food intolerances and gluten is high on the list of allergenic foods. I don’t want my own children to be part of the experiment of an industry barely 100 years old, and for this reason our family has chosen to forgo wheat and baker’s yeast.
Instead, in our home we use good simple, affordable and accessible wild yeast fermentation to culture our spelt flour and make easy and delicious sourdough bread at home. When we want convenience, we use organic sprouted flour- free bread.
While we are particular in our food choices, I don’t make an issue of it outside the home. We rarely limit ourselves when we are guests at someone else’s table, or at a restaurant. I do my best to not let our conscious food choices get between enjoying the good company of others while sharing a meal together.
Finally, I want to also acknowledge that while this path of healing worked in my son’s case, that there are many other modalities such as homeopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine which have very valid and effective approaches to eczema. So if you or anyone you know is struggling with eczema, please understand that eczema is a symptom of an underlying imbalance that can be addressed through natural means and that true healing is done from the inside out. While anti inflammatory creams are tempting, one must take caution, as they are also a suppressive therapy (which can cause the disease to be repressed and settle deeper, thus making the healing process more challenging and causing further degeneration). This is true whether the therapy is natural (made with natural ingredients) or conventional. It is best to nourish health, not repress symptoms.
To clarify, I am not saying that we should never use a topical therapy. I know that sometimes we just need to get our head above water; but if you do resort to anti inflammatory creams, just use them to take the edge off in the short term, while you are looking for ways to nourish true healing. We did try some herbal topical ointments, but most resulted in a lot of screaming and running to the bath!
Eczema can also be the symptom of a much deeper issue (as all health challenges are) and we must also consider it’s emotional counterpart (lack of confidence or inner balance, anxiety and uncertainty). How can we nurture our child into greater wholeness through our unconditional love and support?
For deep healing and transformation in health, we must seek the assistance of a practitioner who can truly hold, and witness our journey, so that we can let go and trust our process and inner wisdom. Find someone who you resonate with at the soul level to guide you, as you embrace the gift of greater wholeness- your gift for journeying the sacred healing path.
Want to learn more about healing food sensitivities and the leaky gut diet that I used to heal my son? Sign up for my COMPLIMENTARY recorded teleseminar where I share more about our story and tell you exactly how we did it.
Have you hit a place of futility your own or your child’s eczema and food sensitivities? Does everything you eat seem to aggravate your symptoms while the list of trigger foods and intolerances is increasing to the point that you wonder if there will be anything left to eat in your family’s future?
You’ve already tried….
Replacing all your staple foods with gluten free, casein and soy free alternatives, but maybe you are wondering if all this processed gluten free stuff is doing more harm than good for your long term health? You’ve eliminated the obvious triggers, but you still don’t feel like your old healthy, resilient and care free self. Sure these changes have made a difference, but you still feel sensitive to everything- and you are wondering why you don’t feel that great, even though you have eliminated everything that you’ve been told that you should.
I know how it feels….. My name is Sherry Rothwell and I am a holistic nutritionist specializing in digestive issues in women and children, but most importantly I am a mother who has stood in your shoes. Not only have we lived with food sensitivities as a family, but we overcame them. Using nothing but food, I helped my son overcome eczema that was triggered by food sensitivities – and we did it in 4 weeks without drugs or supplements. You can read our story here…..
When my son had food sensitivities, I lived with an underlying anxiety that permeated most of my days. I worried that things might get worse and I was concerned about what was really going on in my child’s body (and what it meant about his health for the long term). I too invested thousands of dollars in practitioners, testing, supplements and gluten and casein free processed foods with minimal results.
That is why I want to share this program with you…..
While I am excited to see you free of your symptoms and able to enjoy wholesome food again, more importantly, I want to share with you what is required not only to heal, but to maintain optimal digestive health for a lifetime, so that you can experience a level of health that you may have never even imagined was possible for you.
Want to learn more about healing food sensitivities and the leaky gut diet that I used to heal my son? Sign up for my COMPLIMENTARY recorded teleseminar where I share more about our story and tell you exactly how we did it.
Here is what you can expect to learn on this call:
1) The story of how my family used the leaky gut diet to heal my son of eczema permanently.
2) We looked at the key symptoms of leaky gut and how it starts (and how to restore your gut health after a round of antibiotics).
3) We talked about what a leaky gut really is and how it probably started in your family.
4) We learned what is required to heal it and what is required to sustain a healthy digestive and immune system.
5) Finally I shared with you exactly how to implement the diet for your family and 4 important upgrades to include to make the diet easier and to ensure that you and your child enjoy better digestive health for many years to come!
It is important not to think of infants and children as little adults in our feeding of them because essentially their digestive systems do not mature until about the age of 6 or 7.
Their digestive enzymes are not as plentiful or as efficient as ours and they are less able to assimilate the nutrition that is provided.
“Intestinal materials including undesirable particles are more readily absorbed into the bloodstream through the porous lining of the digestive tract. Their digestive capacity may be weakened or impaired due to poor dietary choices and environmental stresses. This weakness can persist well into adulthood increasing the likelihood of chronic childhood and adult illnesses.” Lawrence B. Palevsky, MD
Infants have few teeth, and few children chew their food well. Foods that are not chewed well put an extra strain, calling for more enzymes and mechanical heat to be generated where there is already a low supply.
The following food choices weaken children’s developing digestive capacities.
1) Foods that are too hot, spicy and fried.
2) Foods that are too cold or cooling in temperature and quality.
3) Foods that are smothering or heavy and thick in nature (like ice cream) they smother the digestive fire.
4) Foods that are dampening-ones that produce mucous and phlegm (like pasteurized milk).
Instead, emphasize foods that are whole, simple, warm, cooked, and easy to digest and traditionally prepared, including ones that are neutral or warming in their thermal nature.
Mucous and inflammation are a by-product of poor digestion, contribute to a leaky gut and produce the following common symptoms in babies and children:
colic, vomiting and spitting up
constipation and diarrhea
ear fluid and chronic ear infections
fever
chronic nasal congestion and sinusitis
acute and chronic allergies
acute and chronic coughs
asthma, eczema and more
In the acute conditions the body is cleansing itself, but when the discomforts become chronic it is a sign that the body no longer has the vitality to cleanse itself of the foods, environmental toxins and life stressors that have weakened the digestive, immune and nervous system.
When the body shows mucous and inflammation symptoms, it is a sign that our children are out of balance and that we need to put our attention on creating a diet and lifestyle that is more supportive and reflective of our children’s true needs rather than taste or convenience.
“Thank you BOTH so so so much for your wisdom and the FUN and inspiring way you shared it. I am truly grateful, and I think what you shared – and HOW you explained it– is going to make a BIG BIG difference to so many moms – and girls!!!
I loved not only what you shared about the gut (which was amazingly
helpful), but the “mom-stuff” as well, in terms of how to work with our children around this. So often, moms think they have to get their kids to “GET IT.” And if the child doesn’t embrace it, that’s a problem. But as you so beautifully explained, we are the ones who have to embrace it, model it and continue to implement … In a way that is kid-friendly, without compromising our ideals around their health.”
In the postpartum, a mother’s digestive power is weakened, yet her need for nurturing and vital nutrition remains strong.
This article is intended for those who will be cooking for the mom while she tends to her baby in the first six weeks postpartum. Mother, you can help make this an easier task by filling your fridge and pantry with the foods that are to be emphasized during the postpartum period.
While in general refined sweets are never a good choice, during the postpartum period, adequate sweet flavor from unrefined sources is essential to help “sweeten” the experience of the postpartum. Some examples of nourishing sweet foods are root vegetables and stewed fruit or wholesome desserts made withstevia, erythritol(fermented sugar) or monk fruit extract.
The best foods to eat in the postpartum are whole foods that are easy to digest (warm, oily or moist, mushy or creamy textured nutrient dense and traditionally prepared foods) all of which increase the mother’s digestive capacities while the nutrition is easily assimilated. For example small amounts of meat marinated first in lacto fermented sauces, pastured eggs, coconut rice pudding and Indian dahl’s make delicious easy to digest foods when the rice and lentils are soaked overnight and cooked in homemade broth. For more information about traditionally prepared foods, please refer to the cookbook Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.
As well as fresh spring water (bottled at the source) or other purified water – (not distilled water as it depletes the mother of minerals) moist and oily foods are ideal to replenish moisture and beneficial fats, for example soups made with bone broth and lassis (an Indian Yogurt drink).
The process of gestating and giving birth tends to be quite drying on the mother, which is why daily massage with oil and oily foods, given with pure water are essential to rebuild mother’s stores.
Use healthy fats and oils more abundantly than usual! This is important for postnatal hormonal, lubricating, cleansing and rejuvenation needs.
Emphasize ghee (clarified butter)for replenishing mother’s good saturated fat stores, and also as an ideal digestive tonic. Ghee helps the mother to optimally assimilate her nutrition. Ghee can be made at home on your stovetop, purchased online or at an ethnic grocer.
Ample saturated fats from grass fed animals, helps the mother to absorb fat soluble vitamins and minerals which require saturated fats for absorption. Adequate minerals from almonds, seeds, seaweeds, cooked green leafy vegetables and fermented dairy such as kefir milk and yogurt (if they are tolerated) are necessary to restore mama’s mineral status.
The new mama needs even more nutrition now that she is making mineral rich milk for her new baby! In addition adequate fats and minerals are essential to tone and soothe the nervous system to ensure that mom feels emotionally stable.
Use generous amounts of sesame oil (rub into the skin as well), butter, olive oil (and coconut oil in the spring and summer months) with warming spices such as ginger, garlic (not raw), pepper, cardamom and clove.
As much as we want to consider the quality of the ingredients made to prepare the food, we also want to consider the quality with which we make the food. The person preparing the food is essentially infusing that food with their love and intention. The best food is made with fresh ingredients intentionally made with love by a happy cook!
While I recommend bringing the family extra portions of food to freeze before the birth, this is not ideal food for the immediate postpartum for the mother. It can cause too much gas for both mom and baby! Leftovers are considered to have degenerative energy and are best minimized in the immediate postpartum (great for dads and kids though).
Some unpasteurized apple cider vinegar in a glass of water before each meal can be beneficial to improve digestion and promote the growth of beneficial intestinal flora for both mom and baby.
While fermented cabbage is not generally recommended in the postpartum because of the potential to produce gas because of the prevalence of bacterial imbalances, you may enjoy kefir waterand non cruciferous cultured vegetables, yogurt (brewed 24hrs minimum to break down all the difficult to assimilate nutrition) and kefir milk. Additionally, probiotic capsulescan be included in the diet (preferable one that contains 10 or more strains of beneficial bacteria).
To summarize, we want to give new mothers warming, moist, sweet, oily and mineral rich foods that are easy to digest. We also want to avoid drying, cold, heavy and difficult to digest foods.
While it has been well over 2 years since my son’s recovery from eczema, the emotional turmoil and angst that I experienced as a mother witnessing my child suffer, is still quite raw. While I rarely think of this experience in our current day to day lives, every once in a while noticing him scratch an itch near the area that he used to have eczema. I find myself catching my breath and asking him with great trepidation, “is that just a normal itch”?
Now if you’ve never had a child with eczema or some other itchy skin disorder, you might question this to be an extreme inner response to an itch, but if you or someone close to you, has ever been afflicted with this condition, well then you most likely know what I am talking about, especially when it comes to our precious babies! There were so many nights of endless scratching while I prayed to god that I could please “bare this cup” for him. I felt helpless to offer relief, and on edge with anxiety, fearing that it might become worse.
Let me give you some back round. Being a nutritionist, I understood the etiology of this allergic condition and the path to healing it, at least the one that I was trained in. Yet, even with my knowledge, profound trust in nature and through my own personal experience of self-healing, I found it very difficult to think clearly or take any action at all. Something about him being a child, and myself being his mother, intertwined us so deeply that every action that I knew I needed to take, seemed depriving and daunting. Though I could clearly see that he was becoming intolerant to more and more foods, I was reluctant to start a food diary, to see which ones were currently, the culprits. The task seemed futile, because I knew that if the root cause was not addressed, we would unfortunately have to keep adding new items to the list of quarantined foods….until there were no more “safe” foods left to eat.
So in getting that, I wasn’t in the place where I could help “us”, I finally sought the services of some other practitioners in the natural health field and together, we got as far as taking “the edge off” through probiotic pills, EFA’s and digestive enzymes, plus avoiding the foods that he was intolerant to (we used the biomeridian stress assessment test, to determine and very accurately I might add, which foods were aggravating the condition). The fact that we were moving towards improvement, also took the edge off my anxiety long enough to realize that while these results were good, at least 60% improvement, I knew that this was not true healing, it was just avoiding the current allergic triggers. If he was really healed, then he should be able to eat like everyone else again, right?
Inside I knew this to be the truth and ignored the naturopath’s suspicion that my son had celiac’s disease (which by the way, was a suggestion that made me cry for hours, envisioning a future where my son would feel deprived watching others eat what he could not, and longed for). Even though we were working with alternative healing practitioners, more often than not, I admit that I didn’t feel like we were held as whole beings, but rather as fragmented parts of a story called eczema. There was, for my taste anyway, too much professionalism which translated into distance and efficiency. From my end, it felt like we were being shuffled through a “natural health conveyor belt”, even though I’m sure these practitioners had the best of intentions. This is why I agree with Susun Weed that compassion and authentic relating from a place of equality, on the part of the so-called healer, is such an essential part of the healing process. I longed for a wise woman, someone to hold my hand, look me squarely in the eyes, mother to mother, and say “trust yourself”. I never went back after that last appointment, and resolved to do what I knew we needed to do in my heart all along.
Since we were about to be moving to another province, we had a week long road trip ahead of us that would involve a lot of “eating out”, and therefore a lot of wheat and many other irritating foods such as tomatoes and dairy. It became “do it now” or find another path all together. So this is what we did. For three weeks, my son and I went off all disaccharides (double sugar molecules). Meaning we could eat nothing but fruits and vegetables (but no root vegetables), a predigested fiber/protein/carbohydrate mix, plus 1 tbsp of olive oil a day and water (no spices). No supplements, no grains, no dairy etc. This is commonly referred to as the “leaky gut diet” and is the most common method to heal eczema and food intolerances… plus many other health challenges that few understand actually have their roots in a “leaky gut”.
This is the simplest way I know to define “leaky gut”: An overgrowth of Candida yeast in the intestinal tract which can lead to the yeast “burrowing” into the intestines and thereby creating holes that allow undigested food particles to enter the blood stream. Since these food particles are not meant to be in the bloodstream, the body launches an allergic response causing inflammation in the area that these foreign particles settle. Usually this happens where that person may have a constitutional propensity toward weakness. For example, if my son had been constitutionally weaker in the lung area, he may have gotten asthma instead of eczema. In some cases, both areas and other parts of the body are affected with inflammation too.
So we ate like this for 2 and half weeks (I stopped it earlier than I had intended, because he was so greatly improved, but had lost considerable weight which caused me concern). At that point, he was 90% better, and continued after that, to improve until he was completely free of eczema a month later (even though we ate very poorly for the week of our road trip, lots of grilled cheese sandwiches, ketchup and French fries)! The leaky gut diet had taken the load off his intestinal tract and his vital healing forces had kicked into high gear- since they were no longer being assaulted (it only takes three days for healthy intestinal lining to regenerate and heal, so I wasn’t surprised that he healed so fast, especially being a child).
When we finally arrived in Vancouver, our destination, we put our son on a month of colloidal silver hydrosol, grapefruit seed extract, a living whole foods brand of probiotics and digestive enzymes to address the underlying condition of Candida. And that was it, he has been free of eczema ever since, and he can now eat all the foods that once caused his skin to inflame and drove his mother to tears!
So why does the son of a holistic nutritionist have Candida in the first place. That is a soft spot for me and probably one of the contributing factors to my inability to take action in the beginning. In a sense, I felt a sense of futility. I wondered how I could so-called be doing “everything right”, yet still face such a considerable health challenge in my own family?
I knew why my son was struggling with intestinal flora imbalance (allowing Candida to proliferate) since at four months of age he had been on antibiotics for 1 week, due to an infection caused by an inguinal hernia surgery. So while I got that it was due to circumstances beyond my conscious control, that he did not get the best start on balanced intestinal flora-on some level though, I still felt that I should have done more earlier, to compensate for the assault on his inner ecosystem (micro flora balance).
Yet in my heart I know that I did the best that I could, with the knowledge that I had at the time. For example, I chose to exclusively breastfeed until he was one year of age, which gave his digestive tract much more time than most babies, to mature before being introduced to solid food. Then again, I don’t think I made the best choice of not slowly introducing solid foods.
When I did finally start feeding him solids, I just gave him what ever I myself was eating (which at the time was a grain heavy vegetarian diet).In hindsight, this choice may have reduced the benefits of longer term exclusive breastfeeding, in regards to his digestion.
I should have also had him on probiotics for at least 6 months after the bout of antibiotics, but at the time, I didn’t know that it took that long to re-establish microbial balance.
Along the way, I had also been fortunate to study with a teacher who is very knowledgeable in nutrition from the Chinese medical perspective. Not only did she emphasize the benefit of traditional diets and traditional food prep methods for digestive capacity, but she also turned me onto the wisdom of the “energy of foods”. This knowledge helped me to understand why, when we first started my son on the leaky gut diet, certain foods that were permissible such as the seemingly benign mango, would in fact trigger inflammation, when it had otherwise been calming and receding. I didn’t have the resources at the time to determine why this was so, but in my further training I found that it wasn’t such a mystery, but that certain foods have a heating quality which further exacerbates heated or inflammatory conditions such as eczema.
Through continuing study, I discovered that a lot of the foods that are typically promoted as being healthy and recommended for everyone, are not necessarily beneficial for young children whose digestive systems are still developing and adjusting. Nor are they helpful for people with weak digestion due to illness or those who have a weaker digestive constitution. I also became enlightened to the fact that sometimes the harsh cleansing and sometimes irritating nature of these so called health foods, had properties that could be neutralized by preparing them the way that our ancestors once did; there by increasing not only their digestibility, but also our ability to obtain nourishment from them.
And then there are probiotic foods, something I didn’t even discover for our family until many years after my son overcame eczema.
It makes such perfect sense to me now, why my organic, whole foods vegetarian diet was not the perfect one for my child, even though it brought me into a greater state of health. It also explains why many very health conscious people, who eat the most seemingly wholesome diets can still be deficient in nutrients and suffer from deficiencies and other health imbalances. We are not what we eat, but rather what we can digest and assimilate.
So if I could do it all over again, this is how I would feed young children to encourage optimum health. I would exclusively breastfeed for one year and then gradually introduce foods as is commonly done, one food at a time. I would prepare simple foods made with traditional food prep methods to neutralize anti-nutrients. I would avoid wheat, not because it is inherently allergy promoting, but because these days, not only is it hybridized, not traditional prepared (soaked), but also because it usually contains baker’s yeast (common allergen). Many question (myself included) whether we can evolve fast enough to tolerate these new forms of wheat and bread making. It seems that people with poor immune function are especially prone to food intolerances and gluten is high on the list of allergenic foods. I don’t want my own children to be part of the experiment of an industry barely 100 years old, and for this reason our family has chosen to forgo wheat and baker’s yeast.
Instead, in our home we use good simple, affordable and accessible wild yeast fermentation to culture our spelt flour and make easy and delicious sourdough bread at home. When we want convenience, we use organic sprouted flour- free bread.
While we are particular in our food choices, I don’t make an issue of it outside the home. We rarely limit ourselves when we are guests at someone else’s table, or at a restaurant. I do my best to not let our conscious food choices get between enjoying the good company of others while sharing a meal together.
Finally, I want to also acknowledge that while this path of healing worked in my son’s case, that there are many other modalities such as homeopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine which have very valid and effective approaches to eczema. So if you or anyone you know is struggling with eczema, please understand that eczema is a symptom of an underlying imbalance that can be addressed through natural means and that true healing is done from the inside out. While anti inflammatory creams are tempting, one must take caution, as they are also a suppressive therapy (which can cause the disease to be repressed and settle deeper, thus making the healing process more challenging and causing further degeneration). This is true whether the therapy is natural (made with natural ingredients) or conventional. It is best to nourish health, not repress symptoms.
To clarify, I am not saying that we should never use a topical therapy. I know that sometimes we just need to get our head above water; but if you do resort to anti inflammatory creams, just use them to take the edge off in the short term, while you are looking for ways to nourish true healing. We did try some herbal topical ointments, but most resulted in a lot of screaming and running to the bath!
Eczema can also be the symptom of a much deeper issue (as all health challenges are) and we must also consider it’s emotional counterpart (lack of confidence or inner balance, anxiety and uncertainty). How can we nurture our child into greater wholeness through our unconditional love and support?
For deep healing and transformation in health, we must seek the assistance of a practitioner who can truly hold, and witness our journey, so that we can let go and trust our process and inner wisdom. Find someone who you resonate with at the soul level to guide you, as you embrace the gift of greater wholeness- your gift for journeying the sacred healing path.
Want to learn more about healing food sensitivities and the leaky gut diet that I used to heal my son? Sign up for my COMPLIMENTARY recorded teleseminar where I share more about our story and tell you exactly how we did it.
Wise Women Herbal-Healing Wise by Susun Weed
“Beyond Breast milk -Starting Solids, Delaying Solids, What Does Breast milk Lack”? By Dr. Linda Palmer http://www.babyreference.com/BEYONDBREASTMILK.html
Allergies-Disease in Disguise- How to Heal Your Allergic Condition permanently and naturally, by Carolee Bateson-Koch DC ND
One’s Food Is Another’s Poison, by David W. Rowland
Your Body’s Telling You: Love Yourself! by Lise Bourbeau
I am really picky when it comes to bars (even at the health food store), but I LOVE oskri coconut bars!
I searched all over the net and couldn’t find any recipes that were anything at all like them. Oskri has two ingredients: dried coconut & rice syrup
So how hard could it be? Simple, but we use honey.
Just like oskri (coconut bars)
What you will need:
1 cup honey
4 cups shredded coconut
butter/coconut oil optional:
2 tsp almond extract
other dried fruit
seeds
How to do it:
Step 1: Mix all ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
Step 2: Line an 8 by 12 baking dish with parchment paper.
Step 3: Press blended ingredients into dish (put butter on the palm of your hand and fingers so that you can press without the honey sticking to your hands).
Step 3: Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 10-12 min.
Step 4: Let cool down significantly.
Step 5: Cover and freeze and then slice into bars while still frozen.
Tonight my daughter complained of being bored and said no to all my suggestions…she wanted to do a craft….I am not crafty so I wondered if there was something that I could whip up in the kitchen…..finally a use for that table salt I share at classes and in private sessions with my clients (as an example of what NOT to bake, cook or season with).
In the postpartum, a mother’s digestive power is weakened, yet her need for nurturing and vital nutrition remains strong.
