I’ve been a bit MIA since Thanksgiving (other than some cookie posts)….didn’t mean to I promise. I was neck deep in garland, and LED Christmas lights with a full fridge (and I mean FULL! ….Turkey, two whole chickens, green beans for an allergen free green bean casserole, and more) when I decided that I was going to help my father-in-law do an elimination diet. He’s had a multitude of health problems for years and I can just tell a lot of them are related to food intolerances. Over the last few months he’s been losing a ton of weight because he can’t really eat. I found out that he’s been living on Gatorade and beef bouillon….no nutrients, just salt and sugar….NOT GOOD! I’m not going to go into details but his wife is unable to cook for him for a few months due to some health problems, and we were heading out there for Thanksgiving, so I decided to get him on an elimination diet while I have the chance (my MIL doesn’t believe in it…and/or….doesn’t want to change the way she eats). I made him enough food to last him a month. Yes, a month! I also made ALL of it from scratch – even the broth! I didn’t realize how much of an undertaking it was, especially because his elimination diet has even more restrictions to it than I follow. I had to come up with a bunch of new recipes for him. I had about a week to make everything so I just started cooking and crossed my fingers that he would like everything). I literally cooked 24 hours a day and had 3 crock pots going through the day and night! I actually even had a crock pot die on me – I’ve never had one do that before 🙁
Like I talked about in my last post there are a TON of different things that food sensitivities or intolerances can cause – take a look at my post Could I have Food Intolerances? to read more. It’s pretty obvious to me that my FIL has food sensitivities, so I connected him with an integrative healthcare provider who recommended this elimination diet. I would recommend that, if you suspect that you may have food intolerances, you see an integrative or functional medicine healthcare provider. There are blood tests you can take (like I did) but sometimes they can be expensive, if so, you can do an elimination diet. My FIL pretty much eating nothing already so the elimination diet was relatively easy. I have to say, I am NOT a healthcare provider, please read my disclaimer here, I’m helping with the supervision of his healthcare providers.
Are you ready to change your life? If you’ve gotten the go ahead to do an elimination diet check out a few of the easy recipes that I made for my FIL. All of these recipes are gluten free, dairy free, soy free, nut free, egg free, yeast free, refined sugar free, citrus free, nightshade free, bean free, corn free, shellfish free, most are also grain free (although I did allow my FIL rice), and preservative free – Many are also Paleo (or easily adapted to a Paleo diet):
Be sure to bookmark this page as I’ll be constantly updating to include more and more links!
Broths:
Homemade Chicken Broth (make sure you take a look at how to Convection Bake a Whole Chicken first!)
Homemade Turkey Broth
Homemade Beef Broth
Soups:
Lamb and Winter Vegetable Stew (Crock Pot Recipe)
Bison Vegetable Stew (Crock Pot Recipe)
Homemade Turkey and Rice Soup
Meals:
Turkey with Gravy, served with Maple Sweetened Apple Cranberry Sauce and Roast Acorn Squash
Beef in Mushroom Gravy (over rice)
Convection Roast Whole Chicken
Turkey and Oregano Meatballs, served on top of Sauteed Mushrooms & Spaghetti Squash
Bok Choy, Broccoli, and Chicken Stir Fry
Crock Pot French Onion Pot Roast with Root Vegetables
Sides:
Apple and Celery Root Puree
Celery Root and Parsnip Puree
Maple Glazed Acorn Squash
Maple Sweetened Cranberry Apple Sauce
“Lemon Butter” Spaghetti Squash
Dishes with Lemon: If you determine you can eat lemons then these dishes are for you!
Real Lemon Butter Spaghetti Squash (this tastes WAYYYYY better than it sounds!)
Chicken Picatta over Spaghetti Squash
Dishes with Nightshades: If you have determined that you can eat nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers) then these are great!
[…] any sort of croutons or cheese). These also make for a satisfying snack if you’re doing an elimination diet. I also hate to waste stuff so why throw away the seeds when you cook a squash? Just compost the […]