Dear lentil-weavers......

[SauerKraut]

Can I just ask- what kind of meals do you give your kids? And how often do you give them whole grains? And what about red meat? And how much milk? I think I may be weaving a little too assiduously and possibly depriving mine of the right balance of nutrients.

Near fatal Mrs Noah?
Blimey..
How did you find out about that then?

moondog amd pmsl at cicling Haribo-wary birds!!

Soya is not good for little boys. Try Rice milk products instead. Much nicer !!
Would be very happy to give you some advice on what dairy free products are edible !!!
Manchego cheese has brought a whole new world to dd2. We even take it to Pizza Express.
She is allergic to cow inc Buffalo, and goat as they have a very similar structure in the protein. But can eat tons of anything from a sheep.
Rice Dream is just lovely.

'Rice Dream is just lovely'

Now I am psml (but in a nice way you understand..)

What gets me is when my kids are given crap.I have a moral quandry every time.I don't want them to have it and neither will my conscience allow me to pass it on to another kid.
And yet I hate throwing owt away....

Hence tentative offerings to feathered (and no doubt furry and long tailed) friends.

why is soya no good for boys?

mrsnoah I would be really interested in any info you can give on milk free stuff as I'm finding it really hard to get enough calcium in him esp as he is only 9 months and is a fussy little eater! Are butter beans and that kind of thing low allergenic? As you might be able to tell my dr and dietician haven't been very helpful and he keeps having smaller reactions to all kinds of things. Sorry to crash this post

Well, of course every case is differnet I dont wish to scare anyone. But for her at 5 weeks she started to have apnoeas(stop breathing and go blue) and had to keep resuscitating her often.
Lots of tests etc couldnt find the cause, until eventually at 9 weeks a wonderful consultant monitored her and found she had severe reflux. So she was put on formula and thickeners to her bottles and alot of meds.
It was my mum and I who worked out it was the dairy that was causing it. She had terrible entry and exit sores although it took 5 yrs to convince the medics.
When she was 18mths I took her off dairy completely and made up my own diet for her and her excema, blistering,stomach pains, cradle cap, dreadful stinking nappies and chest infections cleared up in 10 days.
The gastro specialist threatened to report me to SS for removing all the dairy. You forget how backwards things were only 8 yrs ago.
She is now the most beautiful ballerina, top in her class at everything (head girl Dh calls her)

We are lucky to have her. Sob.

Chickpeas, sesame seeds and almonds are all good for calcium. The vegan society would be good people to ask.

Wow, MrsNoah, well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hannahandseb, my doc and dietician were useless too. i havent tried rice dream but i live in germany so struggle to find alternatives to soya products. but i will have to scout about abit more. DS allergy to milk is easing but he is anaphylactic to egg so thats why we decided to evaluate our diet as a whole so i wasnt cooking seperately for him.

i did find some allergy books on ebay but they are predominently american so i dont use the recipes that much.

i too worry about calcium but i am going to try and make dried fig fruit spread for him as dried figs are high in calcium.

having an allergic child really has made us look into what we eat alot more and i am much more nutritionally aware of whats good for us and whats not now. thats why i like the gillian mckeith approach to some degree as i do think what she says makes sense in the most part although we are not going to follow her ideas religously, just incorporate them into our diet as we see fit

HannahandSeb, I am pleased you have asked me as it was really hard to work out how to do it. Any help I can give you I would be only to pleased.

I will trot over to set up a thread now called Dairy free diet... go meet me on there.

Sorry for taking over the thread with my pet subject.

That sounds very scary. DS doesn't have reflux, just the ability to swell and no breathing probs as yet thank god. I don't think I would risk giving him chickpeas, seasame and almonds at the mo as his lip swelled up last week after bn squash & lentils. All a bit of a minefield at the mo, even having to resport to taking him to see someone privately because our allergy clinic are v unhelpful.

yes mrsnosh, well done. ds also had reflux and we werent taken seriously. i was exclusively breastfeeding and as a firts time mum foolishly took the gps advise to give thickened formula feeds. this didnt work just caused more pain as it came up but it also sensitised him to cows milk although his reaction is not as bad as your dd's.

i was eventually referred to a dietician who just said avoid cows milk products and use soya instead so alot of it i have had to research myself

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with soya milk?

thank you Ticky

lol at mrsnosh !
Soya has naturally occurring oestrogens which, obviously, little boys do NOT want to have too much of. You cannot give Soya formula to baby boys. They dont want to get boobies of their own!
I do sometimes give mine the little Alpro soya custards heated up but not too much.
There is a lot of alternatives I assure you.

Hannah, I dont like the sound of the swelling up episodes. I suggest he has an epipen at all times as this maybe ok for now but if he gets a build up of the toxins in his body it could be worse reaction one day. Do go see a specialist and demand to be given one and to be shown how to use it.

The best advice is to wise up, do your research and go forearmed to the consultants. You need to be pushy, stroppy whatever it takes to be taken seriously.
There are good allergy clinics where they can do skin prick tests on the back. not too traumatic really and very valuable.
Some dont have to be pricked at all just have lots of plasters put on to see if you go red/itchy. can do lots at one time.

Ds has woken up now and is a highly demanding Prince!
Will certainly set up thread quickly.

vnmum, I understand, reflux can be scary busines.

yeah theres something about fermenting it too

its not properly fermented and so has Something Bad in it

can't remember what

don't like it personally-I grew up on it. Soy milk cream and carob birthday cakes...

Will try to dig out reseatch when have fininshed quadratic equations

But they are phytoestrogens (plant oestrogens) not human oestrogen and the quantities to get boobs would have to be rather significant. The amount found in the breast milk of soya eating, drinking mothers is very, very low indeed.
Phytoestrogens bind to normal oestrogens found in much of our plastic packaging for example, which is possibly more hamful imo, or am I coming from the wrong angle here? They actually lessen the effect of strong environmental oestrogens by binding with the receptors.
I have to say that it isn't the bee all etc but the evidence against soya so far is patchy to say the least. Or maybe I'm not up-to-date, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

urggh good . Thought dd and I were the only ones who cant stand the soya milk.
Dont you think it leaves a bitter after taste in your mouth?

Have set up Dairy free foods thread in allergies.

All skip over there if you get a moment and add your best dairy free ideas.

Le Petit Prince is demanding attention by singing in Shirley Bassey style tone (hope its not the soya thats done this lol)must dash

Trice??? You there??? Need to 'speak' to you.

sorky, believe its still being investigated but I do know the Hospital warned me NOT to use it?
I also find it disturbingly GM too.All in the US at least.

Diamonds are forever now....

will nip over to allergies now, thanks for all your help and info

I find the whole debate really hard, actually

you have, bascially, two big global agribusiness (soya is huuuuge ... and dairy is not so small...) going head to head.

BOTH arguing that theirs is a health food.

I haven't done vast amounts of research, which is what I need to do to say anything with confidence really.

I will say though that we have been eating phytoestrogens in plant form for much longer than milk.

BUT

that doesn't mean they are a Good Thing. The human race has spent most of its past scrabbling by and surviving to fret about late onset cancers and so on. So. Dunno.

I think it depends on the type of soya fillyjonk, , fermented products still contain the goodness from the original bean, whereas in the West we process all the goodness (soy protein isolates) from the soya beans, this food which no longer resembles the original soya bean, can then be made into anything, including textured vegetable protein (with added chemical flavours), flavour enhancers in soups and sauces (as hydrolysed vegetable protein), ?bacon rashers? and added to many processed foods. This is an important difference between tradition Asian and Western-style soya foods. Asian soya foods that are made from traditional processes, such as fermentation and precipitation, have been part of the Asian diet for thousands of years. Industrially-created soya isolates have really only been a part of our Western diet for a few decades at most.
I do agree that there are rather yummier alternatives on the market tho', I for one cannot stand soy yoghurts.

it's hard when you are the one deciding to feed it to your child as they can't say no or make an informed decision themselves iykwim