Comments on: My Dairy Free Experiment and (Surprising!) Results-Cows Gone Wild

By: Samantha Clemons

Samantha Clemons — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:52:52 +0000

Nice post. I loved it

By: Erin

Erin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:56:31 +0000

My Twitter friend @nikkicherry told me that raw goat milk is less, well, “goaty,” so I’m going to give that a shot. I have to look at my co-op form to see if goat cheese in on there. I wish we could get 1/4 cow-I really need a freezer!!
I agree totally, my body also likes the beef

By: Anna Aspnes

Anna Aspnes — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:33:33 +0000

LOL! Yes it’s an acquired taste. Goat milk yoghurt isn’t too bad and I do the Raw Goat Milk Cheddar Cheese. I actually eat a LOT of beef. We buy a 1/4 grass fed cow at a time from a ranch North of us. My body seems to do well with. Funny how we’re all so different. I also agree in a good variety of quality food.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:01:04 +0000

Hi Anna,
I tried goat milk yogurt this week, can’t say I will be trying it again.
If chicken and eggs are creating an issue, you can always try rotating them in and out of your diet. Try more beef (grassfed if possible), or if you have access to pastured pork, wild seafood, that sort of thing.
It sure can get frustrating, and I personally only get grassfed beef sometimes, same with pastured chicken. I do have access to farm fresh eggs from pastured chickens though. The best bet for all of us, to maximize the nutritional value and variability of our food is to try to switch things up and eat different things as much as possible. It’s really easy for me to get in a chicken rut! By rotating our foods, the thought is that we can minimize any reaction to them.
Where’s the beef, Anna?!

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:56:46 +0000

Heidi, I wish you weren’t across the country so I could give you a hug!
You are not doing anything wrong. You are doing the best you can with the information you have, and there is new and conflicting information coming out every day.
Remember the “Oh you must take calcium so your bones don’t break and you DIE!” and now its “Oh don’t take calcium you can have a heart attack and DIE!”
There will always be new information, and there is really nothing completely conclusive.
Here’s my thing though-it can’t hurt, it might help, so it’s worth a shot. Give it a try and see what happens. And please be gentle with yourself
And I’m glad you are enjoying the book. I am also. There’s no crying in reading! Smile, you are doing incredible things to improve your own health and the health of your family.

By: Anna Aspnes

Anna Aspnes — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:41:57 +0000

I am gluten and dairy free though even though I am able to tolerate goats milk product I tend to crave them which leads me to believe there is an issue there also. I also suspect chicken and eggs to be a problem. But then what do I eat?

By: Heidi @adventuresofaglutenfreemom.com

Heidi @adventuresofaglutenfreemom.com — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:03:27 +0000

Um, so I just got my book yesterday (Robb Wolf’s “The Paleo Solution”), thanks for recommending it to me! I only got 2 hours of sleep last night because I could not put the book down (tip: don’t begin this book at 10pm). I am not finished with it yet, but despite how funny he is, I could not stop crying as I read it.

While I have been on a journey of overhauling the way my family and I eat for some time now, my primary focus for the past year has been to eliminate pre-packaged gluten-free foods, eliminate synthetic food dyes, reduce our refined sugar intake and most recently, eliminate casein for my youngest, who was just discovered to have an intolerance to it.

All the while, I have been increasing our consumption of gluten-free whole grains as well as…beans. A LOT of beans! We ate them at most meals (protein and fiber!) and I even added them to my baked goods: garbanzo beans in my chocolate chip cookies, pinto beans in my spice cake, etc. (“healthy” sweets, what not to love about that?).

So a regular person like me would naturally assume that my poor health (resulting from 25+ years of undiagnosed celiac) would be greatly improved with those changes, right?

While it’s true that I have lost 70 pounds and reduced my bad cholesterol and triglyceride numbers from extremely high levels down to the normal range (WITHOUT taking the statin my doctor prescribed), I am STILL having serious health issues (2 years into a STRICT gluten-free diet). I KNEW there had to be more to the equation, but what?

I am not a doctor, a nutritionist or anything other than a patient (and a mom who wants much better for her children), so how would I know? Then I realized, the true fact of the matter is that I don’t think being a doctor or a nutritionist would have made any difference because apparently, “they” (as a whole) know none of this either, or, if they do…they failed to inform me. I’ve only ever been prescribed a strict GF diet and medications.

As you know Erin, I already have 3 autoimmune diseases and now I am battling iron overload (I see the hematologist today, so hopefully I will find out if it is true hemochromatosis or not).

Anyhoo, I am deeply intrigued about the role of lectins in autoimmune disease. While I can’t change the fact that I already have 3 a.i. conditions, I sure as hell don’t want anymore (and I don’t want my boys to develop them).

Thank you for making me more aware.

xo,
Heidi