There once was a mother whose name was Kim. She felt like she was a whole wheat queen!
She made whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta,
whole wheat muffins and EVEN whole
wheat COOKIES! She felt very proud to be providing her family with the very best food available.
One
day, the mother had a beautiful, healthy baby boy. But once the baby boy was born, he didn't grow as much as regular boys and
he was very, very sick. Regular viruses for other kids were sometimes so bad for the baby boy, that once, he even almost died.
Many
doctors in many different medical practices from all over the world and all different specialties looked at the boy and couldn't figure
out why he was so sick all the time and why he wasn't growing very well.
In the meantime, the boy had to go to see his pediatrician
who was a long drive away, every two weeks.
When the boy was two years old, his pediatrician went to listen to a very special talk
by another doctor. After hearing what the other doctor said, at the boy's next appointment she said to the mother,
"I don't think
he should eat gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats) anymore."
"Are you crazy?!" asked the mother, "I can't stop feeding him wheat! He will
shrivel away and die!"
So the pediatrician sent the mother and the toddler boy to a pediatric gastroenterologist. The gastroenterologist
looked at the boy and said,
"No, he doesn't have Celiac Disease." The mother was very happy and continued on her way but was still
very worried about her little boy.
The boy continued to suffer for another year. Meanwhile, at every doctor appointment, every two
weeks for that whole year, the pediatrician kept finding ways to say the words, "gluten" and "Celiac Disease" to the mother.
Finally,
the mother decided that she didn't want to listen to the words 'gluten' and 'Celiac Disease' every two weeks anymore. However, she
also didn't want to have the pediatrician decide that some other 'good' food was a culprit either.
So, she went home to the father
and said, "I want to set up a really strict elimination diet for us so that the doctor will stop thinking food is making our son sick.
That way, she will look for what is REALLY making him sick." It will only be for two weeks and we should do it as a family so he doesn't
feel left out or alone."
"Okay," said the father............................................................................................And
so she did.
Part I: The Whole Wheat Queen
Part II: From Sad-and-Sick to Healthy-and-Happy
Now, there are many ways to do an elimination diet but she developed one just for her own family.
Surprise! In just FOUR days, the
boy, who was always sick and tired, was not sick and tired anymore!
He was happy... and his nose stopped running... and he stopped
going to the bathroom all the time... and he stopped being sad... and his little feet didn't stink anymore, and, and.... Well, a lot
more stuff got better too!
After that, there were many times when the family tried to add a food back into their home but could not
because so many foods would make the little boy sick:
The lily family (onions, garlic and asparagus) made his tummy hurt and sometimes
he would throw up.
The nightshade family (tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant) would make the boy go to the bathroom a lot and he would
get skin rashes sometimes too.
Beans made the boy sick too.
Raw food, like carrots, peas and apple peels, came out looking the same
way they went in. The mother thought that could not be good for the boy so she decided to get these foods into him in different ways.
She
got a juicer so that even if her boy couldn't eat raw carrots, he could still have carrot juice. She learned that if she cooked the
carrots for a long time and they became soft enough, they wouldn't hurt the boy's tummy. And she learned that soup broth and epsom
salt baths would help him get better faster after eating something that made him feel bad.
The grain family (wheat, rye, barley, oats,
corn, rice and more) made the boy throw up AND go to the bathroom A LOT! Gluten grains were the worst! Gluten would make him get bad
colds and worst of all, he got very, very sad.
Even if he sat a desk that looked clean but had gluten on it, he would be sick for
three days after!
The mother said to the father, "I don't think we should have any gluten in the house, anymore. I want to get rid
of all of it."
"Okay," said the father............................................................................................And
so she did.
Part III: The Long Journey, Great Successes and Hard Lessons
And so for a while, the boy ate mostly carrot juice and apple cider, peanut-butter-squash-bread, chicken, pork, hard old goat cheese,
strawberries with all the seeds cut off, grapes with the skin peeled off and (his favourite food of all) raisins.
As time went on,
the boy got better and better. Every once in a while, the family would try a new food and eventually, the only things that the boy
couldn't eat at all were gluten, asparagus, refined sugar and kiwi. He could eat some dairy (milk and cheese) and some grains but
not too much or he would start getting a little sick or a tummy ache again.
This was quite all right with the boy because he didn't
like those things anyway! Well, maybe he did like the cookies and stuff... but his Mom would make him homemade cookies using honey
and raisins so he didn't miss the old cookies at all! They tasted a lot like sugar treats but didn't make him feel sick!
The pediatrician
was very happy with everything and didn't worry about the boy at all anymore. He had gone from being one of her sickest boys, to one
of her most healthy boys. Heck, he didn't even catch regular colds anymore! And at one point, his bones grew, in three months, the
same amount as other kids' grow in a year!
And so for six years, the boy didn't have any doctor appointments for being sick. (Except
for once when he ate too much store-bought ice cream as an experiment... to see if he could do it without getting sick.)
Now, all this
time, the mother was very happy to see her little boy being so happy. But what she didn't like was going to four different grocery
stores every week and spending almost an hour in each store looking for food that was good for her family. She waited a long time
for someone to open a special store but no one did.
Finally, she said to the boy's father, "I'm tired of spending so much time grocery
shopping. That should be family time instead. And I'm tired of waiting for someone else to open a special store for special people
who need food that's good for them.... And I know we're not the only ones who need a store like that.
I want to open up my own grocery
store. One that saves people money, leaves them more family time and generally improves their quality of life." she said.
"Okay," said
the father............................................................................................And so she did.
Not "The End"... The Beginning.
And So She Did...
Aria's Beginning
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