Advantages of Moving For Better Health

It has been a long time since I last posted.  Things were very stressed.  We were hit by the economy with full force and had to move.  This move has been by faith alone and still is.

There is tremendous advantages from moving that I couldn't find from a supplement or bottle.  One is the healing that I am witnessing with my sensitive daughter and myself.  None of us have allergies, we are able to bring Casein back into our diets,  my daughter isn't using her special soaps and shampoo.  Her DH has cleared up completely, and my auto immune is improving.  I now understand why pioneer doctors would recommend moving for health benefits. 

I use to live up North, where sunlight was rare and the rays weren't direct enough to get enough Vitamin D from the sun year round.  That was a disadvantage for anyone who lives up North.  Now that I moved South, I am noticing that I am not needing to supplement Vitamin D.  Up North, they have Winter Depression.  Down South, they have what is called pre-summer exhaustion.  I am guessing it is from staying indoors too much. 

Other improvements have been the ability to eat dairy and beef products again.  Something is different with both of them.  I am not sure what the reason is.  It could be that I was reacting to what the cow was eating and not the cow itself.  Or maybe the living conditions and health of the cow.  Who knows!  At least I am thankful that it is better and nourishment is improving.  I will eat the cheese, sour cream, yogurt and ice cream, but I am not brave enough to drink a glass of milk or eat cottage cheese.  Some things will have to remain a food evasion, because some bad memories just don't go away. 

Family members keep asking me if I will move back North.  I keep telling them that I am feeling so healthy, I can't imagine moving back and getting sick again.  It makes a huge difference.

Meals4Moms Gluten Free Casien Free - Week 1

We finished the first week of the Gluten Free/Casein Free menu from Menu4Moms.

http://livingglutenfreecaseinfree.com/ It was a healthier diet then we were use to. Lower in saturated fat, sugar and sodium. It is a great way to start a gluten free/casein free diet with a healthy start. The layout is easy to read and follow. Simply grab the grocery list, check your stock at home and take it to the store with you. Then when you get home there are suggestions on what you can do to prep for the week to make cooking the meals even easier. The recipes are good and easy to follow. There are notes on when to store the leftovers and what meal you will use them again.

Each week comes with an article to learn more about how to eat healthier and why. It was explained in simple terms and easy to learn why it is a good idea to lower our saturated fats and sugars.

The menu is good for increasing your veggies in your diet. My children like salads, but needed more kid friendly meals alternated. There were yummy salads they enjoyed and asked me to make again, like carrot salad and broccoli slaw. They did enjoy the ideas for eating sandwiches and did some experiments of their own. I hope they are working on a kid friendly gluten free/casein free menu.

This menu and recipes from Menu4Moms can be a great resource for even other food intolerances. You can work around them and substitute. The only one I noticed that would be a problem to substitute is egg intolerances. If you do have egg intolerances or allergies, I wouldn't recommend this menu plan. 

Are we going to continue this menu?  No.  It is taking us too long to finish a week, because my husband keeps wanting to take us out to eat.  After a bit I noticed that he isn't satisfied with what I am making.  That is his way of being polite, that he isn't thrilled about my cooking.   I am assuming he isn't satisfied,  because he is a meat and potato type guy.  And my daughter started itching (DH) from contamination.  So, instead of trying to improve our diet, it is much safer to feed my family the GFCF meals they are familiar with and enjoy.  I can still push more salads on them. 

Will we use the recipes?  Yes, some of them are good and some of them need more garlic and spices for our liking.  There are some of them that I won't use, because I already have a recipe that I like better. 

Delay of GFCF Menu Review

I was hoping to start this diet last week, but both the kids and I came down with the flu and didn't start the diet until Sunday.  So far I am liking it.  I will be posting the first week review next week. 

Menu4Moms Gluten Free and Casein Free Menus, Recipes, and Lesson Plans

-----Oops, I thought I published this. 

After my first expensive year on a gluten free diet, I decided to find ways to cut our grocery budget.  I discovered a website called Menu4Moms and subscribed to the weekly menues and recipes.  I knew we couldn't follow it, but I could try the naturally gluten free and casein free recipes or adapt them.  It reminded me of some of my forgotten favorites and so I brought them to the table and we enjoyed them.  Our grocery budget was more manageable.

Last week I received an e-mail from Menu4Moms about their Gluten Free and Casein Free Menus, Recipes and Lesson Plans.  I was excited to see it and wondered if this would have made a huge difference when we started 3years ago.  Starting a new diet is always better with a plan of action, a menu, and a grocery list.  I was so over whelmed having to create it myself and I spent so many hours reading labels. 

After looking over the Menu4Moms Gluten Free and Casein Free Menus, recipe, and Lesson Plans, I am thrilled to start the first week Monday.  Not only is it a great menu and lesson plan for newly diagnosed Celiacs and gluten/dairy allergies, it is great for the rest of us that need to eat healthier without all the junk foods and sugars.  The recipes look yummy and appitizing with lots of veggies.  I know that my family will enjoy them.  I will post an update after we try out the first week menu.

Here is the introduction e-mail I received typed in green and the link is here:
Have you been diagnosed with food allergies? Are you having a difficult time adapting to a gluten-free diet? Tired of boring gluten-free foods?

Menus4Moms is pleased to announce the publication of Living Gluten-free Casein-free, a comprehensive resource that will help you in your quest to live gluten-free. Perfect for individuals who are either gluten-free or gluten-free/casein-free, the menu includes 4 weeks of weekly lessons and menus. Each week for 4 weeks you will receive:

• Menu plan with breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes for 6 days of the week for a family of 6
• Grocery list
• Many helpful hints on shopping and health
• Weekly lessons about how foods affect the body

Living Gluten-free Casein-free contains valuable resources to help you succeed with your gluten-free lifestyle. Each recipe is gluten-free and has options for those who are also avoiding casein. All lessons are designed to inform, change behavior, and acknowledge the “mourning” of these foods as you move toward improved health. Living Gluten-free Casein-free is the only GFCF menu plan written by a practicing nurse practitioner.

To order this great Gluten Free and Casein Free menues, recipes, and lesson plans, visit there site at
http://www.livingglutenfreecaseinfree.com/

Menu4Moms GF and CF Menu's, Recipes, and Lesson Plans

After my first expensive year on a gluten free diet, I decided to find ways to cut our grocery budget.  I discovered a website called Menu4Moms and subscribed to the weekly menu's and recipes.  I knew we couldn't follow it, but I could try the naturally gluten free and casein free recipes or adapt them.  It reminded me of some of my forgotten favorites and so I brought them to the table and we enjoyed them.  Our grocery budget was more manageable.

Last week I received an e-mail from Menu4Moms about their Gluten Free and Casein Free Menus, Recipes and Lesson Plans.  I was excited to see it and wondered if this would have made a huge difference when we started 3years ago.  Starting a new diet is always better with a plan of action, a menu, and a grocery list.  I was so over whelmed having to create it myself and I spent so many hours reading labels. 

After looking over the Menu4Moms Gluten Free and Casein Free Menus, recipe, and Lesson Plans, I am thrilled to start the first week Monday.  Not only is it a great menu and lesson plan for newly diagnosed Celiacs and gluten/dairy allergies, it is great for the rest of us that need to eat healthier without all the junk foods and sugars.  The recipes look yummy and appetizing with lots of veggies.  I know that my family will enjoy them.  I will post an update after we try out the first week menu.

Here is the introduction e-mail I received typed in green and the link is here:
Have you been diagnosed with food allergies? Are you having a difficult time adapting to a gluten-free diet? Tired of boring gluten-free foods?

Menus4Moms is pleased to announce the publication of Living Gluten-free Casein-free, a comprehensive resource that will help you in your quest to live gluten-free. Perfect for individuals who are either gluten-free or gluten-free/casein-free, the menu includes 4 weeks of weekly lessons and menus. Each week for 4 weeks you will receive:

• Menu plan with breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes for 6 days of the week for a family of 6
• Grocery list
• Many helpful hints on shopping and health
• Weekly lessons about how foods affect the body

Living Gluten-free Casein-free contains valuable resources to help you succeed with your gluten-free lifestyle. Each recipe is gluten-free and has options for those who are also avoiding casein. All lessons are designed to inform, change behavior, and acknowledge the "mourning" of these foods as you move toward improved health. Living Gluten-free Casein-free is the only GFCF menu plan written by a practicing nurse practitioner.

To order this great Gluten Free and Casein Free menu's, recipes, and lesson plans, visit there site at
http://www.livingglutenfreecaseinfree.com/

Article - Save $ on School Lunches This Year

From Living on a Dime Newsletter - One of the August 2009 editions.
To join the free newsletter, follow this link http://www.livingonadime.com/ .

I love reading this newsletter.  She has great tips for lowering the food budget.  After my first year on a gluten free diet, I had to cut back on spending on the food budget.  I had to look outside of the box and start making things that were either naturally gluten free or tweek the recipe and make it inexpensively gluten free.  I started looking at frugal sites.  I came across this one.  We can still apply this to a gluten free diet by tweeking things a bit.  I will make GF and CF notes in red. 

Save $400 on school lunches this year!

These days in America, it seems that everyone is so busy that preparing school lunches is liable to push a typical mom right over the edge. When you have to choose between making school lunches or spending that extra 15 minutes in bed, it seems like buying ready made lunches at the store is a no-brainer, but your budget doesn't agree.

The average mom packs $2.00 worth of pre-packaged goodies into each lunch she sends to school with her kids. (That works out to $720 for 2 kids.) What mother hasn't wondered if those lunches are even getting eaten?

Try these tips for things you can do in 30 minutes or less on the weekend to make those school lunches a snap!

Those snack bags of munchies cost a lot! Make your own by pre-packaging chips, pretzels, animal crackers and other snack items into sandwich bags on the weekends. (Have the kids help!) Store them in a big container or basket and just throw them in the lunch box in the morning.  Things that are naturally GF - Tortilla Chips, Corn Chips, Rice crackers, Nuts, cerials like Rice CHEX and other cerials made from corn or rice, Raisins, Dried Fruit, Fruit Roll Ups, ect....  There are great gluten free brands out there that make pretzels, crackers, cerials, cookies, etc...   Even better, make snacks at home - cookies, Graham Crackers, crackers, cup cakes, brownies, trail mix, granola, etc..... .  My mom use to store cookies in the freezer.

Let the kids create their own Pizza lunch kits. Toast bread and cut out little circles with a biscuit cutter. Add small containers of pizza sauce, cheese, and other toppings.  I think this is a great idea and can use GF bread (I would try toasing it).  I would also make them into squares so that I am not waisting any of that costly bread.  I have used rice crackers for pizza too.  You could even make the pizza crust in small sizes, bake them and freeze them.

Make fruit gelatin and pudding and put in small plastic containers for the week. Make a large batch of granola bars, cookies, pumpkin bread, banana bread or muffins. Divide them into zip top sandwich bags and freeze so that you can grab one or two when needed.  Try making muffin size cakes.  I use to use the small muffin size when the kids were younger. 

Brownie bites are simple to make. Bake brownie mix in mini-muffin pans and put three "brownie bites" in a sandwich bag for each child's lunch. They freeze well too!  Any GF mix will do or make it from scratch.  I know that if you are using a mix, Trader Joes has a GF mix that is a great price. 

Fill thermos (not glass) half full with juice the night before and freeze. In the morning, remove from freezer and fill the rest of the way. The juice will be cold when the kids are ready to drink it and it keeps their food cold too.

Clean vegetables, slice into pieces and bag. Preparing a week's worth of veggies at a time for lunches and snacks saves money and time.

Purchase cheese in blocks, cut into pieces and put in sandwich bags.  I haven't honestly found a good substitute for tasty cheese by itself.  Sorry, I am no help.  Maybe someone else can add some helpful comments. 

Save napkins, catsup and mustard packets you get from take-out. Use in lunches.  Have your gluten eating friends save these for you.

Almost Done Moving Sites

I really like this blog.  So easy.  The new website has not been easy.  Of course in the middle of them changing software site setup tools, I have to change the name and move.  It has been slow and things aren't going smoothly.  I couldn't use my custom design, a picture on one page will not cooperate correctly, and things like to jamb up on the edit site.  I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep last night and so at 3am I started working on the site.  Wow, it went much smoother.  I moved everything off the old site and onto the new site.  Now I just have clean up and one picture to problem solve.  As pain staking as it was, I wanted to provide a website set up simular to the old site so people can still find the resources easily.  Things are a little different, but over all, it will work without the razzle dazzle the old site had.  I am looking forward to being able to add fun stuff to this site instead of moving.

So now you can find what was deleted from the old site at both this blog and the new site.  Here is the link http://glutenfreekids.tripod.com/index.html