I've been tagged for Meme!

GFCF Mommy tagged me in a game of meme. What a fun idea and a great way to learn about each other.

The rules for this meme game are:
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Here are my 8 random facts:
1. I am on my 3rd marriage
2. I was raised in Warrens, Wisconsin - population 350 at the time
3. I graduated from Tomah High School in 1976
4. I raised dairy goats while married to my first husband
5. I graduated from UW-LaCrosse in December of 1982
6. I lived in Arizona from December of 1982 through October 1994
7. I moved to Minnesota in 1996 where I met my current husband
8. I am currently in graduate school studying for a Master's Degree in Holistic Health and Nutrition Education.

I hereby tag:
This Mom
Bea at Miracles do Happen
Angela at Angela's Kitchen
Alex at Recovering Jonathan!
Stephanie at A boy named Shay
Amy at A Day in the Life
Irish at Sometimes Holland feels like Hell
Michelle at Little-man D!

I can't wait to see if they all play along and see what random facts we can all learn about each other.

An affordable way to buy Organic

Since I have gone back to get my Master's in Holistic Health and Nutrition Education I have become even more determined to only buy organic foods. I have always grown an organic garden and preserved my extras for winter - but it's not enough. I would buy organic when convienent, but if it wasn't there - I thought fresh fruit was still best. I can't believe I was so naive - the stuff I'm learning about how many pesticides are put on these plants - and how deep it penetrates - you cannot wash it off - scary.

Anyway I have started buying all organic and my grocery bill has really gone up - even with the garden right now. So I had to do a paper for school on where to buy organic in my area - a tool for my professional toolbox that I will use with clients. As I was researching this, I stumbled across CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture). I had heard of CSA's before but for some crazy reason thought they were only out in CA. Well - there are a ton of them right here in my area - and some still have openings for this year.

What you do is buy a share of the harvest and get weekly deliveries. Most of them have several delivery spots around the metro area - some deliver right to your door - and some you have to drive out to the farm to pick up. Some have financial assistance if you can't afford it and some will let you trade some labor for part of the cost. Many of them have activities on the farm that you can come to.

And some of them offer eggs and meat - and I even found one that offers baked goods - including some that are gluten free and casien free.

The costs of the ones I looked into appeared to run right around $500 for a box big enough for 2 adults and 1 small child. The number of weeks they deliver is between 16 and 22 (this is only based on the ones I found). That's like $28 a week.

Anyway - I thought I would share the idea in case there were others out there like me who want to buy organic but wish it were more affordable. Here is a link to a website where you can put in your zip or state and see what's in your area: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Even if they are all full in your area for this year - you might want to investigate them and get on a list for next year.

I'm going to put all of the ones for my area in a spreadsheet so my future clients can compare based on what works best for their family.

Hope that helps someone!

I'm taking better care of myself

I'm starting by packing lunches. I spend too much time taking care of everyone else. Many times I skip lunch or run out and get something unhealthy and eat late. This is the third week in a row that I have spent a little bit of time on Sunday making 5 salads for the week. I just put veggies in them and set them in the fridge. I boil up eggs and leave them in the fridge as well. Every morning, I peel an egg and put it in a snack bag along with some cut up lunch meat and put some salad dressing in a small tupperware container. Today I sprinkled some craisins on my salad as well. At lunch time, I transfer it all to a plate and add the egg and meat. It is so yummy, better for me and cheaper than buying out. I also have been baking bars on the weekend and wrapping 5 of them up individually and hiding them to take 1 a day with my lunch. I am still running out in the afternoon for a candy bar - but overall I am doing better - and feeling better.

As Moms, we need to learn that taking care of our families starts with taking care of ourselves.

If you are wondering what's in my salads - it's all organic. I started with baby green salad mix and added cauliflower, brocolli, colored bell peppers, baby carrots (cut up - even baby they are bigger than I like in my salad) and cucumbers. What's in there varies by week. I take a different salad dressing each day so it doesn't get boring. Today I have Kraft Organic Raspberry Vinegrette. I also vary the lunch meat.

I challenge everyone to take better care of themselves. It will pay off with more energy and a healthier you.

I'm going to get some initials behind my name

I just got accepted into graduate school - at my age! I'm going for my Masters in Holistic Health and Nutrition Education.

I am so excited. I think this goes right along with my love of organic gardening and natural foods. I can't help but think that I will learn a lot about the body/food connection which will be helpful to all of us still figuring out our kid's (and our own) multiple food issues.

My writing style and what I have to share may change as I progess in my school - and hopefully that will all be for the better.

I just ordered my books and can't wait to get started. Just the list of books sounds so great - Nourishing Traditions, The Staying Healthy Shopper's Guide, The Nutrient Dense Eating Plan, The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods and Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary.

Wish me luck everyone as I squeeze all of this studying into my already busy life!

The little touches....

The little touches can be what makes Thanksgiving fun for the little ones. Sometimes we get so busy with all of the cooking that we forget to put fun things on the table too - even if it is just your family. I collect napkin rings and use them for special meals. I let Andy pick out the ones we use - and if he picks snowmen and there is no snow on the ground yet - that is OK. And if he picks 3 different ones for each of us, that is OK too - just makes it more fun!

A GFCF Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful and tasty GFCF Thanksgiving. We sure did. This picture shows our entire meal except for the pie - everything was GFCF and tasty.

I wonder if I also have celiac.....

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to be GFCF as well as Andy. Since we do not bring any non-GFCF food into this house, most of the time I am. I have a confirmed dairy allergy, but I am starting to wonder if perhaps I also have celiac. I certainly do much better on a GFCF diet. My entire life I have suffered from constipation and bowel issues. I have suffered unexplained rashes and practically lived on antacids and I always had canker sores in my mouth. Once we went GFCF for Andy I started to feel much better - but I was still getting both gluten and casein when at work. I was unemployed from June of last year through January this year. During that time since I was home with Andy I had very little chance to consume anything that wasn't GFCF. My BM's were never so normal as they were during that time and I never ate one single antacid. In the fall we took a trip out of town and I had some ice cream. Within minutes I was heading to the bathroom and had the runs all weekend. I got a runny nose and thought I was coming down with something - it was followed by the most terrible (and itchy) rash a few days later. Two months later I decided see if it really was the dairy (I had been tested for a dairy allergy years previous and it was positive, but it was too hard for me to stay away from dairy - I was still in denial) so I repeated the ice cream experiment with the same results. Once I returned to work at the end of January I again had many more opportunities to eat gluten and casein. I found I could eat small amounts of dairy and be OK - but no chunks of cheese, no pizza and no ice cream. Gluten didn't seem to bother me - but I really didn't eat it that much - maybe a few croutons on a salad. I was out of state all week this past week at a conference for my job. I avoided dairy - but it is impossible to avoid gluten at these sorts of things - and there was plenty of gluten everywhere. I got so sick. I still feel sick and I have been home for two days. I have eaten a whole huge Sam's Club bottle of Tums, my bones hurt, my skin is itchy (a rash is just appearing), my mouth is full of canker sores and I've had a runny nose. Something triggered a migraine (something I thought maybe I had finally gotten rid of for good). My son is adopted - I am not genetically related to him - what are the odds that I would have celiac as well? Regardless, I think I need to stay GFCF as much as possible. I think I will enquire into a special menu at the next conference I attend.

I went grocery shopping today

And what did I buy? I went to Super Target and Rainbow - no speciality or health food stores today. I do not shop for just the week - I shop sales and coupons and stock up.

At Super Target I bought:
Corn Starch (some little boy used the last of mine up doing science experiments creating quick sand!) - good to keep on hand for cooking and as a thickener in gravies and sauces.
10 lbs of potatoes
Organic Baby Carrots
Wishbone French Dressing and Thousand Island (while both of these contain high fructose corn syrup which I tend to avoid, they do not contain any artificial colors - most mainstream salad dressings do)
Del Monte Fruit Cups (for his school lunches when school starts in a few weeks, they were on sale today and I had a coupon - hence the reason to buy them now)
2 lbs fresh plums
1.5 lbs apples
2 lbs fresh cherries
2 lbs organic strawberries
6 silk yogurts

At Rainbow I bought:
2 packages of Tostitos Scoops Tortilla Chips (tomatoes are coming in the garden and we need something to eat the fresh salsa with!)
2 bags of Bob's Red Mill GF Flour Mix
3 quarts of Soy Dream Ice Cream (Vanilla, Strawberry and Vanilla Fudge) - today is my birthday and I love the Vanilla Fudge so I am treating myself!
1 Family Pack of Chicken Drumsticks and 1 of Chicken Thighs. I cut the skin off and divided them up into 3 packages for future meals and froze.
4 lbs green grapes
2 cantalopes
2 lbs from the bulk containers of Brown Rice

I buy a lot of fruit and ingredients for making meals - not a lot of processed foods - but that is me and my preference - I like cooking and I have never felt that all of those chemicals are good for us. I do not buy a lot of veggies because I have a large garden and I also have a Farmer's Market near my work on Thursdays.

An Introduction

Hi, I'm Kathi. I am the mother of a 6 1/2 year old son named Andy.

In March of 2003, at 3 years of age Andy was diagnosed with Autism. In December of that same year, Celiac Disease was added to that. There are many children like Andy that have both autism and celiac disease - there are also many children (and adults) that have just one or the other.

Many parents of children "on the spectrum" decide to try a gluten free and casein free diet without a diagnosis of celiac. I can only speak to both disorders at once because that is how I know them.

Early on we made the decision to make our entire household GFCF - not everyone can afford or chooses to do that. For us, it was an easier decision than having to keep two sets of dishes and cooking utensils as well as things like toasters. I personally also suffer from a dairy allergy and was not able to stay away from dairy until we had to take it away from our son - the diet has been good for me.

In the beginning it seemed hard, but it gets easier over time. I have helped several other moms with the diet - and while I am glad to help - I thought it might be easier to create a blog that will document what we actually buy and eat to help others see how to do it as well.

I am blessed with a child that is very understanding of his diet - he has had infractions that have given him a very bad tummy ache and some very uncomfortable rashes as well as behavior that none of us like - as a result, he questions all food set before him away from home.

I hope to share recipes as well as take pictures of actual items that we use so you can see what you are looking for in the store.

I am also am lucky that I have always cooked a lot of our food from scratch so having to make a lot of his foods has not been that difficult for me.

I hope that others find this useful.

Welcome to our GFCF world.