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| Here's a picture of our little Benji-bear munching on celery |
In the weeks following the release of Unjunk Your Junk Food, we sold & bought a house and had a baby, and since last fall I've been tied up with my job at Naturally Savvy (where you can read about what I've been up to over the past few months).
Our son, Benjamin was born in April and, like our 3 year old before him, we've been raising him gluten-free - not because he has a gluten problem, but to prevent future intolerance.
At 10 months of age, his diet consists of breast milk, organic formula, pureed and steamed vegetables and fruit, some potatoes and brown rice (mostly in cereal form, and since the arsenic scare, considerably less than what we fed Olivia) and recently we've introduced some gluten-free bread. Aside from egg yolk, he has not tried any of the common allergens, including tomatoes or strawberries. They will be introduced into his diet slowly and one at a time sometime after his first birthday. His favorite snack - gluten free Nature's Path O's (which look like Cheerios but without the GMOs). So far so good - no sign of allergies.
A few surprises: -My friends were right: it's hard to be as strict the second (or third, fourth...) time around. While the daycare staff has been educated about his dietary restrictions, I'm not as militant as I was with Olivia. Also, when he sees his older sister eating snacks or bread, he tries to grab some for himself - while we intervene when we see it happening, the only solution is to keep the home as GF as possible.
-In an interview with Dr. Tom O'Bryan, "The Gluten Doctor," I asked about breastfeeding. He explained exactly what I feared: gluten is passed to the baby through breast milk; hence, a gluten-free diet is recommended for breastfeeding mothers; and it's best that pregnant women remain gluten-free, too (yikes, too late!).
-Dr. O'Bryan also explained that 50% of celiacs react to dairy because it locks “into the same docking station” as gluten. So do coffee, oats, yeast. Hmmm..
-For on-the-go snacks, we love the new squeeze packs made with organic vegetables and fruit. The blends of greens & pear or kale & apple are awesome! Ben loves them because he can feed himself and they taste great. These didn't exist when Olivia was a baby, but I'm thrilled to have them now.
Ben has shown signs of having a sweet tooth since food was introduced. Olivia had a 'salt tooth' and preferred salty tasting foods over sweet. It will be interesting to see how these tastes evolve as the kids get older and exposed to different foods and ingredients.
