What We've Learned

I've completed my courses with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition! The diploma came in the mail today, wahoo! It has been quite the amazing ride and I've gained so much insight and knowledge. Most importantly, I've been able to guide my family and myself to better health through experimenting with many of the different principles I have learned. In the process I've become more clear about other intolerances we have, besides white flour and refined sugar. After quite a learning curve (and quite the time letting go of the fact that I had pounds and pounds of stored wheat in my basement!), we're finally getting into the groove of eating gluten-free. So any recipes I post from here on out will be gluten-free. I am amazed that all of the gluten-free recipes we've tried have been amazingly delicious. Pizza crust, pancakes, waffles, and muffins have all been given a big thumbs up by the family! In fact, I would dare say they taste better than the previous recipes made with wheat. And we haven't had many tummy-ache complaints at all since switching over.

We are also sensitive to some dairy. I have one daughter who has reflux problems when she eats cheese sticks, but can have a moderate amount of other cheese. All of my daughters are slightly sensitive to milk and yogurt, but one, in particular, has a severe behavioral reaction to it. (I mean, severe! :-) So we've decided to keep those dairy products out of the house. We didn't drink much milk before, but we were experimenting with different types of milk (raw, organic) to see if it made a difference. And it didn't. Milk, is milk, is milk for us.

Another thing we've learned is that we do better when we keep the sugar grams lower. Regardless of whether the sugar is refined or from natural sources. We experimented with honey, maple syrup and other sweeteners over the summer, and let's just say we experienced many negative symptoms! One thing that happened was that our immunity went way down and we had the stomach flu twice over the summer! Usually we get it once a year in the Fall/Winter. One of my girls, who had not wet her bed for 2-3 years, all of the sudden started wetting her bed. Once I made the connection between higher sugar intake and everything that was happening, and took the sugars back out, she stopped wetting her bed. Yay! We also had some behavioral issues that were more pronounced in one of our daughters. We collected enough data to decide that we are good with using fruit for sweetening, as well as stevia - for smoothies and other things that are not cooked. And everything has evened back out. Whew, it was kind of a rough summer. But I think the experimenting was worth it. We're more clear on what we need to avoid. And we've been able to find other things that we can eat that taste good and don't make us feel deprived. It feels good to be clear! And graduated ;-)