Soy no more!

Jumping headfirst into a crazy type of elimination diet has felt like jumping headfirst into a tornado. So many labels to read, so many ingredients to avoid but luckily also so many alternative ingredients to find and use. I’ve never been a consistent cook but so far I’ve been planning and preparing meals for the week going on 4 days now and am very encouraged and proud of myself. So far everything is turning out very tasty and my family is eating it! We still struggle with being hungry a few hours after a meal but have enough fruit and Trader Joes snacks that we’ve been doing alright.

            While clearing out our pantry of food we can no longer eat and the first day of grocery shopping trips (3 stores in one morning to find everything on my list), the biggest shock to me was Soy. When on earth did Soy start being added to EVERYTHING?! And did this happen with no one noticing? It is in every single can of Tuna Fish in the regular grocery store. TUNA!? My pregnancy has given me a bit of a paranoid personality for some reason, but I feel that a Soy conspiracy theory at this point is not being overly paranoid. I wouldn’t have to make as much from scratch if it wasn’t for Soy being everywhere.

What I’ve come to understand is that the soy bean plant is cheap and effective. Because it is so cheap and effective, it has been genetically modified to produce more, thrive in the midst of being covered in pesticides, and stripped down for use of every single particle and excrement of the plant. The main use for it, I’m finding, is that it’s an emulsifier. Take the tuna for example. Soy is added to carry the consistency of the fish oil and water together, so that it fully covers all parts of the can and doesn’t let any of it dry out. So the fact that this plant is a great marketing tool for keeping food looking good and is cheap has led to its production and insertion into everything we eat. People don’t realize how much soy they consume on a regular basis. The fact that it mimics estrogen in the body and screws up our natural hormones frightens me. So having it show up with a high reaction on my daughters chart is very exciting for me! I’m glad to clear our systems of this genetically modified, toxin sprayed, sneaky food additive.

Ok, off that soapbox.

On Sunday night my sisters and I prepped some dough and batter for the week to help save time. It has been extremely helpful as I get home from work around 5:00pm and my daughter’s bed time is 7:00. We made dough for biscuits and pizza and also pancake mix.

Here are some recipes! (Big thanks to my sisters)  

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Gluten Free Biscuits

Ingredients
1½ cups superfine white or brown rice flour plus more for rolling
¾ cup tapioca or potato starch (not potato flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
6 tablespoons cold fat (such as butter, Earth Balance or shortening. I used Coconut Oil), cut into small pieces
¾ cup milk (any kind including dairy free. I used Coconut)

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
Whisk together the flour, starch baking powder and salt. Cut the fat into the flour either with a pastry cutter, two knives or by rubbing the fat into the flour with your fingers. Make sure you leave some larger pieces of fat. Add the liquid, starting with ½ a cup and gradually adding a little more at a time, mixing until the dough comes together. Put a little flour on a work surface and dump out the dough. Knead 3 or 4 times then either roll or pat it out to about ½ inch thick. Cut into biscuits using a 2 ½ inch cookie cutter. You can gently reform the dough to cut more biscuits. Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve warm.

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Gluten Free Pizza Dough:  http://www.food.com/recipe/gluten-free-pizza-crust-44487

Here's how mine turned out! (Toppings: SunDried tomato chicken sausage, red peppers and mushrooms)

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And for the Rice Pancakes:

1 cup (rice or gluten free Oat) flour

2TBLS honey/syrup

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg (I used a banana instead as the binding ingredient)

1 cup (rice or coconut) milk/water

2tsp oil

Vanilla

I used the Oat flour, Coconut Milk and Banana replacements and they tasted like Banana Bread Pancakes! So yummy!

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So for these first 2 school days, I’ve been able to very closely match my daughters food to that of what they are serving in her class. Yesterday was Cereal from the Organic/Natural food store for breakfast, Quinoa Chicken Soup and biscuits for lunch and some Trader Joe's rice chips for snack. Today was oatmeal for breakfast, gluten/dairy/egg/soy free pizza for lunch and they are having fruit and veggies for snacks. I'm a little worried that this has been almost too easy. I hope it's just because my whole family has taken our little family under their wings and are walking us through it right. I'm so thankful for them! I'm sure I'd still be floundering and packing plain rice and sausage for lunch every day feeling too overwhelmed to even know where to start if it wasn't for all their help! So I will continue this positive and productive energy and keep the food coming for my family and wait for hopefully positive results to show up. In my daughter's rash, in our families energy and our health.