Trading One For the Other?

It should come as no surprise when I tell you that I have been thinking a lot about food lately. I have read all different viewpoints on what to eat and what not to eat in order to gain what I hoped would be a balanced perspective on diet. I feel the (self -imposed)  pressure even more because of Sarah. I desperately want to make her well. I would do anything do to so. Sometimes when we act in desperation we make rash and unwise decisions. I need to be careful of that right now. Instead of looking for the fountain of youth I feel like I am trying to find "the fountain of health" in order to not only make Sarah well, but to also make sure that none of my other children ever face the struggles a person with a chronic illness faces. I have gone down the avenue of medication with Sarah with little success. I have brought her to the land of enchantment in hopes that some vitamin D would replenish her body and help her to feel better since so many with autoimmune diseases struggle with a vitamin D deficiency. And none of those things has really worked. And so I turn my focus back to one of the only things left to explore: food. Except food is no longer simple. What used to be common knowledge as to what we should be eating is now a jumbled up mess of one study verse another about what foods are the ones we should really be eating. Each study coming up with findings that are the exact opposite from one another. And it confuses the hell out of all of us while also pitting us against one another as we each believe we have found the right elixir that will make us all well.

I chose to eliminate dairy and gluten from our diet because book after book I read (from all different authors who suggest all different types of diets) suggested that those two food groups would lead me to "the fountain of health" that I am so desperately seeking. Except that I really have no idea what I am doing AND I have no idea if those authors are just bullshi^^ing me because they too have been bamboozled by the latest "scientific study". The only things I am certain of right now is that I am  making my children miserable. (Andy said that he was going to pack a bag and go live with the Boormans because they would feed him real food.) My children (and Bob and myself) should not feel like we are starving all of the time. I do realize that it is going to take me some time to come up with some new recipes and ways of cooking as we primarily relied on dairy and wheat prior to making this dietary change, so I am not throwing in the towel, but I also think I need to very carefully examine my motives for removing these food groups from our diet.

If I am going to remove gluten, but still make baked goods and use, let's say almond flour, over and over again in my recipes how good is that really? Yes, I am no longer feeding my children an overabundance of gluten, but I am now feeding them an overabundance of almond flour. Am I trading one food item for another in a way that will make us sick despite my efforts to try and make us healthy? Is that the American paradigm? Are we trading off one bad food item for another in search of health only to make ourselves sicker with the new food replacement? Too much of anything isn't a good thing no matter what that item is. 

Maybe instead of focusing on trading one packaged item (or in this case bagged) I should be focusing on not using items that come from a bag or a box at all. Maybe I should focus on eating a variety of items that would include all sorts of fruits, veggies, grains, legumes, meats,fish, and dairy. Maybe by eating quinoa, millet, brown rice, and whole wheat  twice a month I will be doing our family more justice than by eating whole wheat or brown rice (which is what I see most of the gluten free pastas being made from) three times a week. Maybe it would be better do focus mostly on plants, as Michael Pollan suggests, but also incorporate a wide variety of items and exclude nothing? Or maybe I am better to just walk down the path that I am on because most of my kids do have some type of intolerance to dairy/gluten? Or maybe I just want to do what everyone seems to be doing because it is the hip thing to do.

Or maybe it is a matter of finding the most clean and original types of food and eating a variety of those? Maybe there is a type of wheat that doesn't have as much gluten in it as other types of wheat? Maybe it is a matter of committing to not buying items in boxes and cans and if it cannot be made then it shouldn't be eaten?

 I don't have any answers right now. In fact I think I am more confused now than I was before I started this whole inquisition - which I hardly would have thought possible.  I just know that I am super frustrated that food has gotten so darn complicated.

All of this just points to another reason I should just go buy some land next time we move, raise some chickens, a cow, with some fruits trees and bushes and grow a huge vegetable garden. Maybe instead of depending on some unknown farmer (or corporation) to supply my food maybe the only way to feed my family a healthy diet is to do it all myself. Maybe the idea of becoming a farmer isn't so far fetched after all.