Elimination Diet Recipes - Please, please, please help!

Penny-Wise_4

(sorry in advance for a long post)

You may know from reading my previous posts that I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & am trying to be as OS as I can be with it.

I have noticed that it is worse when I eat processed foods, soooooooooo I want to do an elimination diet to see if I have any food intolerances.

I am a pretty good cook (when I have the energy) & have a few ideas, but below is a list of the foods I will be allowed to eat (and those I must strictly avoid) and I would appreciate the help of all you lovely OSers as this is pretty challenging :eek: .

(If anyone else is interested in doing this, let me know, I would like to share recipes/ideas and would appreciate the support)

I will be on this diet for at least 1 month, then if there is some improvement with my health I will reintroduce foods, one at a time over 3-4 days.

There is full detail on this website: http://www.drcranton.com/elimination_diet.htm

But basically:

Foods to avoid completely:

Absolutely NO processed foods (processing at home is ok)
No grains, including corn, quinoa, buckwheat
No diary products
No eggs
No spices/condiments including chilli, black pepper, cayenne, sugar, vinegar (not sure about herbs – though herbal teas are not allowed )
No tomatoes, potatoes (except sweet potato), beans, peas and other legumes, onions
No apples or citrus fruits (expect lemon and lime in very small amounts for flavouring)
No tea (inc. herbal teas), coffee, alcohol
No farmed fish, only deep water fish allowed
No chicken, pork or beef no cold cuts of meat.
Other than the above no veg that I commonly eat more than once a week (carrots, cucumber, garlic)



Allowed foods (Organic foods are better)

Drinks:

Filtered/bottled water
Fruit juice allowed in small quantities

Fruit (Only small amount of fruit allowed):

Lime (very small amounts for flavouring)
Lemon (very small amounts for flavouring)
Bananas
Grapes
Peaches
Pineapple
Kiwi
Papaya
Mangos
Melons
Cherries
Pomegranates
Plums
Persimmons
Blackberries
Blueberries
Strawberries
Cranberries
Raspberries
Loganberries

Vegetables:

Sweet Potatoes
Yams
Cabbage
Squash
Asparagus
Cauliflower
Avocados
Celery
Celeriac
Radishes
Greens
Eggplant
Brussels sprouts
Kale
Broccoli
Parsnips
Green Peppers
Rutabaga
Leek
Swede
Turnips
(There may be other vegetables but that's all I can think of)

Nuts:

Almonds
Hazelnuts
Brazil nuts
Walnuts
Cashew nuts
Macadamia nuts
coconut
(and any others but not peanuts as they are legumes )

Meat/Fish:

Lamb
Halibut
Tuna
Wild salmon
Crab
Lobster
Oysters
Deer
Rabbit
Duck
Goose
Clams
Quail
Scallops
Cornish game hen
Turkey

Other:

Extra virgin olive oil (& any other cold pressed vegetable oils)
Honey
Pure sea salt
carob



Oh yes, I want to do it & still spend as little as possible on food!!! :eek: !!!


Help please!

Ticklemouse

Could you not get yourself one of Carol Vorderman's detox recipe books? They have some lovely recipes in there and whilst there will be foods in there on your "no-no" list, there will be plenty that aren't - or that you could adapt. You can pick it up on ebay or in those cheapy book shops for not much money. Or try the library

I have it cos occasionally I do a CV detox - I think I need one before xmas actually ....... better make that after, I think

thriftlady_2

What do you do for complex carbs Penny ?

D&DD

I bought this book from Tesco http://www.tesco.com/books/product.aspx?R=0007198760 and its great for intolerances etc..
My youngest is on a Glutenfree/Caseinfree diet to help with autism,ibs,eczema.Lots of nice and reasonably cheap recipes in there and lots of advice too with regards to intolerances and elimination diets HTH

Linda32

Hi, I can't offer advise on the cooking apart from putting fish with veggies and I sort of expect you can do that.

However, I do exclude milk in all foods and in all forms, due to IBS and have done for over two years. So I am aware of an exclusion diet and finding alaternative.

PM me if ou wish

debbym

Been there - for IBS/ eczema. Right now you probably feel like pulling your hair out and screaming but it will be worth it in the long run believe me. You are v unlikely to be allergic to all these things and the list of no-no's will get shorter. I now know that I am untolerant of wheat products and since being on the exclusion diet 5 years ago I also know that before that even when I thought I felt well I was really slightly under the weather. It is better now that even 5 years ago in terms of availability of alternatives but they are v. expensive; also they don't really taste the same. The bread I used to have (on prescription as no alternatives available in the shops) was so vile that I didn't bother after the first one - still it saved me money I suppose:rolleyes: The same goes for things like soya milk instead of ordinary milk - it is an aquired taste so don't rush out and buy lots of stuff until you tried a small pack first.
I'm guessing from your list that you can still have potato flour and rice flour as a form of complex carbs - both of these are available from health food shops quite cheaply but don't substitute all rice flour for flour in an ordinary recipe; it has a "crunchy" texture.

Penny-Wise_4

debbym wrote:

I'm guessing from your list that you can still have potato flour and rice flour as a form of complex carbs

No - no potato, no grains at all, including rice.

thriftlady wrote:

What do you do for complex carbs Penny ?

That does concern me a little, but it is only for 1 month. Then I can introduce things back.

I suppose it will be like the Atkins diet/Gillian McKeith. But I will get some complex carbs from root vegetables: sweet potatoes, yams, celeriac, radishes, parsnips, turnips, swede and also from squash & pumpkin, plantain and bananas. I’ll include something from that group every day.

Thinking about it it’s not too restrictive just for a month or so. Some ideas I have had:

Drinks – water, water & lemon/lime juice, hot water with lemon/lemon & honey

Snacks – raw veg, guacamole, nuts & seeds

Breakfast - I guess this will be nuts & fruit, a banana if I’m really hungry - & that should be my only fruit of the day as I’m only allowed a little.

Lunch – vegetable soup, home made stock made with allowed ingredients & lots of veg. lamb broth, turkey soup, fish chowder? or salads with nuts & seeds tuna/salmon.

Dinner –

Roast vegetables with roast lamb/turkey/fish

Steamed turkey/fish Grilled/pan fried lamb/turkey/fish with mashed cauliflower/sweet potato/parsnip & swede/celeriac/plantain & lots of other veg

Shepherds pie with mashed veg/plantain on top & reduced stock/pureed veg to make the sauce.

Vegetable & turkey/fish stir-fry (with ginger, leeks instead of onions, no rice or noodles) with water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, cashew nuts or sesame seeds & soy sauce. There’s a few dishes I can think of - cabbage stir-fried with sesame seeds & soy sauce, fish with ginger and leeks & reduced stock and turkey with cashew nuts & reduced stock

I could try a Thai green curry with coconut, lemon grass, ginger & lime & a bit of coriander (if I’m allowed herbs) - without the chilli or rice, maybe with plantain? I’ve never had plantain. Apparently the green ones are like potato.

I’ve found a website that details how to make almond milk (& even churn it into ‘butter’) so I may be able to make a white sauce (depending on what it tastes like) if I can think of a way to thicken it - maybe with a veg puree, like cauliflower & celeriac - then I could have fish pie with mashed veg/plantain on top, or turkey & leek pie.


I'll do my shopping at the market & Asian stores to keep the costs down.

mirry

Im sorry but i just dont belive in these ideas, for years i have suffered from dermatitis,panic attacks,exhustion,headaches,ibs ect.

I have tried over and over again to find out why., by eliminating foods to see if i feel better (which i never have).

The problem is this, you could be intollerant to the foods they say you can eat, you could be intollerant to 20 different foods and they could be absolutely any food !
So I decided to have blood tests done by a company called YORK LABS, you can buy the test kit from LLOYDS chemist, basically for £20 it will confirm if you do have an intollerance or not.
If you want to find out more , ie: what foods you are intollerant too, then you can pay for a 42 food test or a 113 food test...which is expensive £100-£200.

Dr hilary jones has put his name to it and it tests your IGg/IGe levels in the blood. You do a finger !!!!! test and post it to them.
I am awaiting my results which are due back any day now.

Having said all this I really hope you get the answers your looking for cos it is horrible suffering without knowing why .

morg_monster

I'm interested as to why you are excluding Rice from the outset? Because my friend did an elimination diet through the NHS and to start with for a few days all she could eat was pork, rice and pears... apparently these are the least likely things people are allergic too. Also how come you have left in most fruit and vegetables? You can be intolerant to those too.

I'm afraid I haven't read any of your other posts - so sorry if there is an excellent reason for your exclusions!!

Also one last thing - I would think carefully before spending money on the York tests and similar. For the main project of my MSc last year I looked at some data from their 113 foodscan test. As part of it I looked at the evidence to back up their methods, and there is just not a great deal of evidence backing up their use of the IGg levels to determine intolerances. I found many people get their 113 foods tests back with 20-60 supposed intolerances, even those who had no particular reason for doing the test (I guess they just fancied blowing £250 - not very MSE!). The IGg levels can vary also according to what you have recently eaten - eg if you ate a strawberry before the blood test you would have higher than normal IGg levels whch would show up as an intolerance.

(Unfortunately with 113 foods and only about 100 people in my database I was seriously underpowered to do any comparison between the foods people said they eliminated and their subjective results according to a customer survey. However from the few conclusions I did get out I saw no reason to believe that the foodscan was helpful in alleviating food intolerance symptoms).

Now they do the £20 test as well, this tests your blood against the 25 most commonly intolerated foodstuffs. I would be surprised if any more than 10% of people have a negative response to this test, considering how many people have such large numbers of reactions to the 113 test, and if you are positive you feel obliged to pay £125 or £250 to have the 43 or 113 foodscan tests.

I am quite cautious because of the research I did, and would probably advise my friends not to bother with it if they asked, but I understand everyone's situation is different and I can see how people get the the point when they just want an answer to their symptoms/problems. I'm just saying that this may not give you the right answer, and may put you through a lot of hassle for no real result. Just think hard before you do it and maybe try less expensive things first!

And mirry - when you get your results of the £20 test, just think about what you would do if you did the bigger test and found about 30 everyday foods which you were intolerant to. Would you bother doing an elimination diet for them (that is what York would recommend) and then re-introducing one at a time? If you don't have room in your life for doing this then I would think twice before ordering the more expensive tests. ALso if you have a fairly plain diet then I certainly wouldn't do the 113 foodscan, it is half-full of loads of random herbs and spices which you might never use!!!

Back to OP though, good luck with your diet Penny-Wise!!!

mirry

i am sorry i disagree, my son is acutely allegic to all nuts, egg, milk, beans, fish and strawberries. He carries epi pen injections with him incase of a reaction. He is taking part in a study called children of the 90s at southampton general hospital. the proffesor who is doing the study is called proffesor warner, he is the worlds leading expert on allergy related issues.
Every 6 months he takes blood tests from my son to do a RAST TEST to look at his IGG OR IGE levels because this is the best method, another mehod they use is skin pricking.
He tells me that the IGg method is fairly reliable and its true if you have eaten the offending food recently then it will show up more as an intollerance....only if you are truely intollerant to it. If you have no intollerance to it then the worst would be a mild igg reaction.

I have ordered the 42 test and will get my resluts tomorrow, they give a 3 colour banding, red for AVOID TOTALLY, amber for to eat ocasionally and green to eat as often as needed.

If you are suffering for years and years like i have and have spent a fortune on differnt creams and herbs ect then i think its worth the money.

morg_monster

mirry I didn't mean any offence (although i don't think you took any!), as I said people's situations differ and being very fortunate myself healthwise i cannot judge anyone else (there but for the grace of god... etc).

As far as I remember, the IgE levels are the proteins which are typically seen in classic/acute allergy suffferers like your son, they are allergy specific also, reacting quickly to an allergen. Its not so clear at the moment whether IgE has the same role in the more chronic reactions which do not have an immediate reaction, such as what people usually mean when they say "food intolerance". I guess that is why scientists moved on to the role of IgG in this type of reaction.

Sounds like the study your son is taking part in could well help clear up some of the unanswered questions around the role of IgG in food intolerance. In my opinion the more research the better as there is so much myth and clouded thinking around intolerances, stemming from a lack of real scientific knowledge and non-experts saying they really are experts, taking advantage of the lack of research in the area. Hurrah for Professor Warner!

(I'm a medical statistician and although working in trials rather than the observational-type studies like your son is taking part in, i know these studies are SO important, i applaud you for letting your son take part)

Edited to add: Gosh that 1 study has churned out so much quality research! Its great I can sit here and read the website because its kind of related to my job...!