Food

I love food, mainly because I love to eat.  Anything sweet AND salty is my favorite!  Hence, my obsession with chocolate covered pretzels.  But there has come a point where I don't like food.  I'm not a great cook, but no one in my family is starving (and that is because i have an awesome hunter and gardener for a husband!)  But, feeding a family of 6 becomes tricky with all the different palates they possess.  Even so, we've managed for 6 years and everyone is seemingly healthy.  Except, my son.

My sweet son who has struggled with migraine headaches since he was 13 months.  We've tried so many different routes of finding and treating the cause without putting him on drugs to control them.  Upper cervical chiropractics and homeopathic remedies.  Through the homeopathic dr. we discovered his high sensitivity to peanuts.  Last summer we eliminated peanuts and his migraines went from one every 10 days to about one every 2-3 months.  Huge success in our book!

Then recently he had two allergic reactions.  To what we're not exactly sure, but we think it was an allergic reaction to rubber.  One episode occurred while in a obstacle course/bounce house and one occurred on the rubberized football field at Mizzou.  These episodes occurred 4 days apart and were followed by 2 migraines in 3 days.  We went back to the dr that week and had more blood work done.  We're still waiting on those results, but in the mean time she recommended a rotation diet.  The theory is that it takes 4 days for your body to process foods and clear its system.  If you eat the same thing day after day (which is common among my children) your body gets bogged down and will start to protest to get the extras out.  So, in Ahren's case this manifests as a migraine with severe vomiting.  Every food group will rotate every four days.

Now, I know our situation is not as severe as some people endure.  But, this is where we are...and it's a BIG deal for our family.  The migraines take over when they happen as someone is with Ahren while he's puking and someone is with the other 3 doing life as usual.  So, we're willing to try anything to help Ahren get healthy.  This rotation diet is the new plan.  It's going to take planning and supervising and convincing and encouraging and planning and shopping and experimenting.  This is a lot of effort!

Here is what Ahren's diet looks like:
Day 1
Meat: Beef
Grain: Oats, kidney beans chili beans
Veggie: sweet potato, zucchini, lettuce, green pepper
Nuts: cashew
Fruit: orange, strawberry, peach

Day 2
Meat: Chicken
Grain: Rice
Veggie: edamame, spinach, green beans, soy, celery, corn
Nuts: pistachio
Fruit: banana, cherry, pear

Day 3
Meat: Pork
Dairy
Grain: Wheat
Veggie: cucumber, tomato, asparagus
Nuts: almonds
Fruit: raspberry, raisin, watermelon

Day 4
Meat: Venison
Grain: potato
Veggie: peas, broccoli, avocado, carrot
Nuts: walnut, sunflower
Fruit: apple, cranberry, blackberry

Alternate day
Meat: any fish, turkey/ eggs for protein
Grain: rye, barley
Veggie: pumpkin
Nuts: pecans
Fruit: grapefruit, honey dew, pineapple

So, I'm taking these guidelines and making menus.  Any help/recipes would be greatly appreciated!   Ahren is willing because he knows this will *hopefully* keep him from getting migraines, but is reluctant as a little boy who just wants to drink milk every day!  Prayers are also appreciated!