Health & Issues

Often special dietary requirements play a part in deciding to HE, either from a health or behaviour point of view. It has generated so much interest on the MuddlePuddle list recently, that Sue created this guide for us and allowed me to put it on the website. I have put it here in her own words and quick style but when i get five minutes i will title and illustrate it for “flick-ability!” I want to thank Sue for this amazing insight into their family diet.

Okay if you want the short ‘ingredients’ list version here it is: rice, potatos, gluten-free pasta, potentially ALL fruits (fresh,dried (without preservative) and tinned (own juice)), vegetables and salads (which is a pretty huge list in itself), cereals, vegan jelly, g/f d/f cakes, crackers and biscuits, soya yogurts, cheeses and milks, rice milk, nut milk, pulses and various sauces and mixes.

If you want the longer version with recipes and other products then read on….

We follow a gluten-free, dairy-free, additive-free, mostly egg-free (I’ve noted when this is otherwise), predominantly vegetarian diet with some fish dishes occasionally and most of the time we try to stick to food-combining too.

*when I say additive-free I am of course referring to artificial additives (usually manufacturers label natural colours accordingly) such as sweeteners, flavour enhancers, colours etc..

I’m certainly not an adventurous cook – I’m more the ‘ if it takes 30 minutes to prepare, cook and serve’ I’ll do it kind of cook…but preparing this list has inspired me that I shall actually open some of the wonderful recipe books on my shelf and try out a few new recipes a month and send them on with a review for anyone interested.

apologies for anything ‘too’ obvious but the original question was “what *do* we eat?” and please feel free to ask if you need to know more about anything else…

If anyone has a specific meal they usually eat and would like a substitute gluten-free/dairy free version let me know and I’ll try and help out, similarly if there is a product you usually use I’ll tell you the substitute brand/product if I can.

I have the coeliac society shopping guide if you’d like a supermarket own brand product checked.

A quick note about substitute products – we did manage for several years without using gluten-free bread substitutes but kind of drifted into using them – they are expensive, so I would advise you to make a decision beforehand considering your shopping budget (but bearing in mind you will probably be giving up a lot of other foods so won’t have those costs)!

I’ve included the substitute products on our list with some recommendations of brands but of course it’s all down to personal preference and taste ultimately…

So when you see bread/rolls etc.. listed they will be gluten-free/dairy/egg free versions…

Milk – will be either soya, rice or nut

We use Pure margarine (available with soya, sunflower or organic – “suitable for all special dietary requirements”), yogurts are soya and so is our cheese – you can get rice based ones (but I think they’re horrible!) sugar is fruit sugar (e.g. fruisana) and we cook in olive oil.

I have included some fish/honey/eggs bits so apologies to strict vegetarians and vegans.

Everything is as far as I’m aware free of artificial colours, sweeteners, sulphites and flavour enhancers.

Right now for what we *do* eat

BREAKFAST POSSIBILITIES:

Kelloggs Cornflakes and Rice Crispies (not suitable for those avoiding malt washes)

Other brands are okay but check them carefully

We top the above with dessicated coconut, sultanas or sliced banana for variety.

Envirokidz – Gorilla Munchies, koala crisps, amazon frosted flakes

Whole earth – maple frosted flakes

Nature’s Path Mesa sunrise (contains quinoa and amaranth – supposed to be very good for you)

Kallo do various puffed rice cereals but they have a different texture to something like rice crispies so down to personal taste

The children eat cereals dry or with sweetened soya milk

Rice flakes (usually from health food shop) to be made into porridge – this has a lot of variations in itself as it can be made up with sweetened soya milk, rice milk or nut milk and you could add soya dream (cream) if you like it creamier.

I would advise presoaking the flakes or they can absorb so much during cooking that they end up thick and sticky.

Presoak in either soya/rice or nut milk (or a dilution with water to save money) and then heat on the hob with a milk of your choice.

We top this with either honey (not a vegan option of course), sultanas/raisins, coconut, cinnamon, pureed apple etc..

You could also presoak the flakes in apple or orange juice and served chilled as a muesli base – adding your own choice of dried fruit (watch out for preservatives) and nuts.

I would advise against eating rice flakes without hydrating them as they would absorb so much fluid during digestion that you could end up dehydrating.

(note IF you do use oats (WE DO NOT) then again you can make them up into porridge, presoak and chill them for muesli or make flapjacks with them, also nice sprinkled on fruit crumble prior to cooking).

Fruit salad – mine like grapefruit fresh (with a sprinkle of fruit sugar) or tinned, oranges, kiwis etc.. in the summer months.

We also use gluten-free bread to make toast with marmalade, jam, marmite, peanut butter etc..

Sweet breakfast rolls

Fruit loaves (contains egg)

(we have found Dietary Specialities to be the best make – which is stocked in large Tescos, some Sainsbury’s, Health Food Shops or available over the internet from various suppliers – try Goodness Direct but watch the postage charges).

Thick rice cakes (various flavours) with various spreads.

Yogurts – various – see substitute list

My children have been known to consume cold apple crumble and the odd pancake for breakfast too:-)

LUNCH POSSIBILITIES:

We tend to have a cooked lunch so anything that goes for dinner goes for lunch too but in lighter amounts or substituting salad instead of vegetables.

or

rolls with a filling – we make up our own coleslaw with grated white and red cabbage, carrots and salad cream (vegans would need to use egg-free mayonnaise/salad cream) though I have recipes for others if anyone wants them.

Anything you would normally stick in a bun really – cheese slices (see substitute section) with pickle (Branston sandwich pickle was gluten-free last time I checked), salad, tuna etc..

Beans on toast (check the ingredients list on the beans)

Pizzas – slice a roll or french stick or use other pizza base (see substitute section) – spread on heinz tomato frito or tomato ketchup, top according to taste – we vary them by using different combinations of chopped peppers, chopped onions, sweetcorn, cheese slices, garlic pepper, herbs etc…

and of course oven chips!

DINNER POSSIBILITIES:

We pretty much have vegetables or salad with everything – its easy to keep this varied – there are whole books dedicated to just salad dishes and you can find lots of recipes usually in good vegetarian books. We add variety to basic salads (tomatos, cucumber, lettuce, celery and carrots, peppers etc..) with salad dressings (olive oil and herbs) and seeds (try poppy, sesame and sunflower and toast them occasionally for a different taste) but the children mostly eat salads ‘plain’ – the only variety they request is whether they want it sliced, cubed or grated! but even just tossing cucumber and peppers quickly in hot olive oil can change their taste a lot and roasted peppers are delicious. Be careful of ready-made salads which may have a coating/sauce on them.

vegetables I have to confess are usually of the frozen organic variety just for ease of use – bung them in a steamer for 10 minutes and voila! no fuss.

potatos – again whole books dedicated to potato dishes….

we generally eat them simply – mashed, boiled, roasted, baked etc.. and of course an essential element in topping shepherds pies and other potato dishes, potato salad etc..

I make simple potato salad just by chilling cubed potato, adding salad cream and black pepper but you can add celery, carrots, cabbage, onions, vinegar, mayonnaise, salt and garlic to suit your own tastes

Feel silly including this one as its not even a ‘real’ meal but my son loves cubed potatos (preboiled) tossed in olive oil with grated carrot and onion (softened) and black pepper (or garlic pepper or ketchup or beans or barbecue spice…)

rice – there are lots of varieties available, we cook mostly with Crazy Jacks wholegrain rice and occasionally use more fragrant varieties like Basmati but we avoid highly refined white rices just because they don’t taste so good.

I’d recommend getting a good rice cookery book.

One of the great things about cooking with rice (other than its cheap and goes a long way) is that it can be easily kept and used the next day.

We use it in stir-fries, with salad, in home-made burgers etc..

my son loves it tossed in olive oil with black pepper and peas – I like it with garlic and salad and my daughter has it warm with salad cream! so just experiment.

You can make ‘tuna florida’ with cold rice, tinned tuna, pineapple, sweetcorn, softened peppers, tomatos and black pepper and chill it and drizzle on tiny amount of olive oil if you need to remoisten it – its nice without the tuna too.

(if you do eat tinned fish – in spring water or olive oil are healthiest, followed by brine and lastly sunflower oil)

soup of course is a nice simple dinner and again spare can be kept over for the next day (it improves with age) – there are so many recipes for soup but we tend to just bung in whatever’s in the cupboard –

my children’s favourite is swede, leek, potato and carrot soup – we ‘cheat’ by using a tomota sauce (such as for pasta) – you can pretty much add anything – sweetcorn, chickpeas (we used tinned to avoid extra preparation and because they’re nice and soft), sweet potato, onions etc..

pasta – there are lots of gluten-free pastas available – some are ‘naturally’ gluten-free such as many of Orgran’s range of corn, rice and vegetable pastas (though supermarkets now tend to put these in the special diet section) we like the corn spirals best and those specifically for gluten-free diets such as the Trufree range whose pasta shells and penne are really nice.

There is a lot of variation both in texture and cooking times in gluten-free spaghetti – we prefer Glutano but there are other brands too.

Note: cooking times are not always accurate particularly with Orgran and Glutano (Trufree seem to have their instructions right!) so I would recommend testing throughout (they range from 6 minutes to 12 minutes so nice fast meal) until you’re used to cooking with them.

and just use them as you would any pasta dish – add a sauce, or drizzle on a little olive oil and serve with salad etc..

You can get gluten-free pasta sheets to make lasagne with (confess mine have sat in the cupboard for ages, but I intend to have a go with soya mince, tofutti cheeses and sauce eventually!)

Ragu and Dolmio pasta sauces were both confirmed to be okay last time I checked with the companies but you can of course make your own up with tinned tomatos, herbs and vegetables of your choice (peppers, onions, garlic etc..)

soya mince – we use soya mince (available flavoured or plain from health food shops, we prefer plain as the flavoured is a bit marmitey/salty) to make up shepherds pies, as a filling for baked potatos or to make up spaghetti bolognese.

it’s nice and easy to use but doesn’t have flavour of it’s own so you need to flavour it with a sauce or plenty of herbs, stock etc..

it needs rehydrating first (put it in a pan with water (or sauce) as instructed and heat gently for a couple of minutes) and then you can fry it, bake it etc..

There’s no soya mince in this shepherdess pie but it kind of evolved later for us to include it:

Shepherdess Pie serves 6-8 (First how it ‘should’ be done then how we ended up doing it!)

2lb/1Kg potatos

3 tbspn olive oil

salt and ground black pepper

1 onion chopped

1 green pepper chopped

2 carrots grated

2 garlic cloves

oil or margarine

4oz/115g mushrooms chopped

2 x 14oz/400g can aduki beans, drained

21/2 cups/1 pint/600 ml stock

1 tspn vegetable yeast extract

1 tspns dried mixed herbs

(optional g/f breadcrumbs or chopped nuts to sprinkle)

Boil potatos in skins until tender (skins are easier to peel off once boiled and this preserves vitamins), drain and mash well, mixing in olive oil and seasoning until smooth.

Gently fry onion, pepper, carrots and garlic in oil or marge for 5 minutes until soft.

Stir in mushrooms and beans and cook for 2 minutes then add stock, yeast extract and mixed herbs (also bay leaves if you have them) – simmer for 15 minutes.

(remove bay leaves) and empty veg into shallow ovenproof dish – spoon on potatoes and sprinkle over crumbs or nuts – grill until golden brown.

this changed as per the childrens’ requests and in true ‘bung in whatevers in the cupboard’ style to end up as soya mince – partially hydrated with hot water and then finished hydrating in pasta/tomato sauce, baked beans, onion, various colour peppers, carrots, 1/2 teaspoon of fruit sugar, (sometimes garlic) with potato (preboiled and mashed) on top and it gets varied depending on our mood – sometimes its less tomatoey and we use gravy/stock cubes, sometimes we add barbecue spice or branston pickle!

you could of course add a cheese layer using tofutti slices either under or on top of the potato

or put the onion finely chopped into the mashed potato layer (my kids love this!)

NOTE: check gravy/stock/bouillon cubes – we use marigold and kallo

We also use soya mince for bolognese – just hydrate with a pasta sauce, add peppers, garlic, onions and serve with gluten-free spaghetti …

I have a recipe for lentil bolognese if anyone wants it?

In addition to soya mince there are various quorn products (mushroom based) but many seem to contain egg – you can buy

cubes, mince etc..

sausages – if you just want gluten-free and you’re a meat-eater then there is only one brand I can think of and that is ‘For George’s Sake’.

I make up vegetarian sausages for my daughter using orgran’s multi-purpose bread crumbs, water, leeks (or onions) and herbs with egg to bind – though I’m going to have a go at using oil and water instead of eggs.

burgers – we eat lots of vegetable burgers – the only ones I’ve found so far that are okay are Tescos own brand organic ones – nice with salad, chips or a bun.

there are lots of ingredients you can use to make your own burgers quite simply – mix grains with beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables, herbs and spices and a binder.

Possible grains: You can use precooked rice, brown or basmati but you could also use millet or buckwheat

Possible binders: precooked potatos, mashed

egg replacer, olive oil, tahini

vegetables of your choice – e.g. celery finely chopped, carrot grated, onions, mushrooms, peppers or whatever takes your fancy

mix all ingredients well, shape into patties and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or grill both sides – you can freeze these and use later, sometimes they hold together better having been pre-chilled or frozen.

fish cakes – you can make fish cakes up but it can be hard to coat them if you want the ‘in breadcrumbs’ effect as it can be hard to get the gluten-free crumbs to stick.

pre-cook some fish (we buy frozen blocks of haddock or cod) and mix in well with cold potato (it has to be cold or doesn’t bind well) and flavour with salt/pepper and herbs then using slightly damp fingers mould and pat into fish cake shape (add orgran’s multi-purpose crumbs if desired) and grill both sides (or fry).

Cowboy Hot Pot

You can use any vegetable mixture but here is the recipe:

1 onion, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

1 sweet potato or 2 carrots chopped

can baked beans

can sweet corn

barbecue spice seasoning

tomato puree

1lb potatos thinly sliced

marge

salt and ground black pepper

oil

1. Fry the onion, pepper and wseet potato or carrots gently in the oil until softened but not browned

2. Add the baked beans, sweetcorn (and liquor), tomato puree and barbecue spice seasoning (recipe also says green beans which we don’t use) – bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes

3. Transfer vegetables to a shallow ovenproof dish (if you want to top with a cheese substitute you can but I would add this after its come out the oven)

4. Cover with sliced potato, brush with marge and bake at 190C/375F/Gas 5 for 30-4r0 minutes until goden brown on top and potato is cooked

Okay so that’s how you’re ‘supposed’ to do it but we found the potato took ages to cook (you could preboil until soft then slice) but we ended up mashing it – you can then skip the oven cook stage if you want to and it tastes nice with plain potato if you’re not a sweet potato fan.

Substitutes:

Soya Milk comes in lots of brands and flavours and it really is something you just have to experiment with – it can be quite unpalatable unsweetened – we only use it sweetened (this is usually with apple juice). We don’t use it as a cold drink e.g. plain, strawberry, chocolate or banana flavours – we use it more in cooking, on cereals and for rice pudding though it is yummy in hot chocolate/cocoa and the vanilla flavour soya milk adds variety to puddings and cereals.

Yogurts – there are lots of soya yogs available – we use provamel alpro in various packs of flavours – there are strawberry, peach, peach and pear, banana, cherry, mango etc..

and junior yofu without the ‘bits’ in. We also buy the same brand ‘puddings’ which come in various flavours but the only one my children like is the vanilla (though I confess to not having told them about the chocolate and toffee flavours yet!), we haven’t found the other flavours (orchard fruits, summer fruits etc..) to be very nice at all but the advantage to the ‘puddings’ (which are really just like smooth yogs) is that they have a long shelf-life and don’t need to be refrigerated so you can easily take them on picnics, parties, holiday …

provamel also do large pots of yog with live cultures – summer fruits and natural (plain) which you can use as you would any dairy natural yogurt – we serve it with fresh fruit or fruit compote (available in several flavours in supermarkets), (if you like your yogurt sweet then add fruit sugar), or top baked potatoes with it etc..

Cheese – you can get various flavour cheese slices (like the rubbery slices you can get) cheddar, mozzarella etc..

We have found the nicest make to be tofutti – but it’s personal taste – I can’t stand the rice slices but I know others who eat them.

use on baked potatos, toast, pizzas, buns etc..

You can also get soft cheeses – in tubs again by Tofutti in various flavours – I think there are garlic and herb, french onion, chives etc..

use on baked potatos, nice on rice cakes and for dipping salad/vegetable sticks into – my baby loves to dip her fingers in most! but can sometimes be persuaded to use the celery and carrot sticks:-)

gluten-free breads – you can buy packet mixes for making up breads and they are each very different – I will try and get some recommendations as I’ve forgotten which ones are best. The advantage to these is the long shelf-life of the packet and that you can make them up into burger buns, pizza bases, loaves etc..but they do have to be consumed fresh and often make up to more than is needed and you have to go through mixing, rising, cooking etc.. it can be quite tricky until you get the knack and unfortunately they don’t taste great.

Some of you might be inclined to have a go with a breadmaker – we haven’t tried this yet but have the offer of a loan so will give it a go soon and let you know how we get on.

for substitute bread products we’ve found Dietary Specialities to be the best.

Orgran do a lot of substitute products – their pizza base mix makes up a lot of pizza base so is quite good value for money compared to other products.

Various cake and biscuit mixes are available which are okay.

Something I can recommend if you’re a pancake eater is Orgran’s apple and cinnamon pancake mix which works really well – add whatever toppings you fancy for variety.

they also do Falafels but these are very salty and I’ll forward on a recipe for home-made ones later.

There is quite an extensive range now of gluten/dairy/egg free biscuits and crackers.

Glutano’s crackers are small (and expensive) but nice – trufree’s flavoured ones are nice but so thin they’re not very useable.

Dietary Specialities Luxury Chocolate Biscuits are yummy and they do vanilla wafers, lemon wafers and lots more

Glutano do custard creams, bourbons (haven’t had those so would have to check the ingredients) and plain biscuits

there are gluten/dairy free blueberry muffins (contains egg) which are nice and even apple and fruit pies (don’t eat them though so would have to double check!)

Sainsbury’s also now do their own ‘free-from’ range in yellow packaging in the special diet section which includes a crisps, chocolate/apricot/raisin bars (the other flavour isn’t suitable but can’t remember why), fruit bars, nut bars, biscuits etc..

do check each product thoroughly as some are gluten and dairy free but contain egg.

Other Snacks/Picnics/puddings and What else is in my cupboard:

rice puddings (you can buy pudding rice but mine seem to like it with ‘normal’ rice) – cook it in vanilla flavour soya milk (or other of your choice), sweeten with fruit sugar if desired or sprinkle with cinnamon or try jam or pureed apple etc..

Rice cakes comes in various shapes, thicknesses and flavours

beware the Rispinos and similar as these often contain dairy and artificial flavours etc.. but as far as I know all Kallo makes are okay – mine love the marmite flavour ones – the small versions are great for babies

We eat them plain but you could of course use jam, marmite, peanut butter, soft cheese …

dried fruit but look out for preservatives

tinned fruit in own juice

Castus fruit bars – date or apricot – there are various other squashed fruit bars which are okay but you’d have to check them as I haven’t memorised which are okay!

*Fruit – of course we can eat all fruits so that’s a pretty huge list in itself* (those on a Feingold or salicylate sensitive might want to check the levels in fruits and salads etc..)

Vegetable sticks – all vegetables are of course okay and we often chill sticks of carrot, celery etc.. for quick snacks

The children don’t eat nuts and seeds but I do – they’re handy to have available to mix up with some dried fruit for a quick snack – I mostly use pumpkin, sesame and sunflower mixed with sultanas, raisins etc..

Honey – my daughter unfortunately (her poor teeth!) loveds honey drizzled on sliced banana, chopped apples …

Use the pancake mix mentioned earlier to make banana or apple ‘fritters’

popcorn – pop your own fresh and flavour as you like (I’m sure you’ve guessed ours gets coated in honey!)

Crisps: Most ready salted flavour of potato crisps are okay but not different types of crisps like hoops etc.. which often contain MSG and a wheat binder

tescos chipsticks

tescos own brand value ready salted crisps

dorritos corn chips lightly salted and their dips

Enjoy Organics spicy crisps (but not their cheese flavour)

Sainsbury’s Free-From multipack (special diet section) 6 pack of crisps (prawn cocktail, cheese & onion and salt & vinegar though we find the S&V go to waste as they’re too strong),

Walkers ‘Great Without’ though it concerns me that they’re labelled ‘no ADDED MSG’ hmmm – needs looking into (3 cheese & onion/3 salt & vinegar)

Lollies – fruit juice ice lollies are the best option

if we’re out I’ll let the children have 5 Ice Treats, Ribena or calippos but I think they do each contain preservatives (will have to check that one) but they use natural colours and no sweeteners

Swedish glace is a lovely icecream substitute (available supermarkets in limited flavours) and health food shops with a freezer – might be worth asking your health food shop assistant what they can order in – generally they stock vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and raspberry.

You can buy gluten-free cones but they are expensive.

In health food shops you can also get dairy-free carob choc-ices in a multi-pack.

Vegan jelly crystals – make up easily – can set at room temperature if necessary – tropical fruit flavour seems to have the general vote from those I know who use them as being the nicest flavour – the others seem to taste weaker so I’d make them up with less water – nice to set pineapple rings or other tinned/fresh fruit in.

Sweets – Allergycare (available Health Food Shops and some Sainsbury’s) do whizzers (smarties), chocolate footballs and speckled eggs

Whole Earth do fruit pastilles, vegebears (jellybabies) and liquorice bears

Echinacea berry lollies, also available in banana flavour

cough and throat sweets – ricola herbal lozenges

Kordels’ junior multivitamins plus- strawberry flavour teddies, Halibonbon’s vit c and also halib orange liquid vits)

if you just want a calcium supplement you can get Calcium Sandoz on prescription which is free of unwanted things but very high in sugar.

Pure juice drinks are okay(preferably not from concentrate) as are Organic squashes.

Calypso ‘monkey’ juices and I think blue parrot cafe drinks from Sainsbury’s (but will have to check)

Lilt and 7 up contain flavours and preservatives but are colour-free and sweetener-free high-juices (such as Tescos own blackcurrant or apple) are okay other than their metabisulphite content.

What can we eat when we’re out – well my childlren’s answer is always chips! but even these have to be checked as do condiments such as tomato ketchup. You’ll often meet with a completely blank expression on the part of the cook/waitress when you ask to check the ingredients of their sachets or check what’s in the chips, sometimes you just have to get very specific “please go and get me the box that these sachets get delivered in so that I can read the ingredients list!” but we do tend to take our own ketchup and lo-salt with us if we know we’re going to end up having chips – the only ingredients should be potatos and vegetable oil – if the list is any longer than that you’ll have to check them.

If you order jacket potatos make sure they don’t automatically put butter or marge on them and explain that you don’t want any dressings or sauces on anything.

be careful also of using black pepper in cafes (apparently it can contain flour as a bulking agent though I don’t think this is a legal practice).

We tend to take food out with us wherever we go – a typical picnic bag containing fruit, dried fruit, yogs, crisps, drinks and a snack bar.

if we’re going to be out over a meal time then I take baked potatos or rolls or cold rice or pasta with salad

and for a party I would take biscuits, crackers, crisps, etc.. plus a carrot cake or crumble and jelly

…also in my cupboard – Marigold vegan stock powder, kallo low sodium vegetable bouillion,

various brands egg-replacer, gluten-free baking powder, arrow-root powder, cider vinegar, heinz tomato ketchup, salad cream, tinned fruit, honey, fruit sugar, lo-salt, olive oil, tinned chick peas, lentils

and various herbs (mixed herbs, parsley, basil), rice seasoning, salad seasoning, garlic pepper, garlic salt, onion salt and american barbecue spice – all by schwartz. Tinned mackerel, smoked mackerel, tuna in olive oil.

gluten-free flour – there are numerous types of gluten-free flour but we have found most use from Doves Farm general all purpose flour which we use in carrot cakes, banana cake, apple crumbles and other….recipes to follow

my hubby is the pudding cook and he makes great mince pies and christmas pudding!

binders in cake cooking – we use a mashed banana but you can used grated apple rind or arrowroot powder

Carrot Cake

8 oz gluten-free flour (remember to add in gluten-free baking powder – usually 2 tspns)

6oz sugar

4 oz marge

3 oz raw grated carrots

1 tspn grated orange rind

1 tbsp orange juice

1 tspn ground cinnamon

(optional walnuts chopped)

1 mashed banana (or egg-replacer)

cream the butter/sugar until pale and fluffy

beat in cinnamon and orange rind

add egg substitute

stir in grated carrot/nuts/orange juice

add flour mix well

turn into lined (with greaseproof paper and fold paper over the top loosely to stop top burning) or greased 1lb loaf tin bake in oven at 180C for approx 45 minutes, test with knife until comes out mainly clean – turn onto wire rack and cool

this can be crumbly but is better if left to stand for a while (oops hubby has just reminded me that normally carrot cake has a topping, will have to see what I can come up with…)

once you’ve got used to cooking with gluten-free flour and found a binder you like working with (plus marge and sugar) you can bake up what you want – try banana cake or date loaf etc..

You can make a crumble up as you would normally but using gluten-free flour, Pure margarine and sugar of your choice (we use fruit sugar or unrefined brown sugar) and top cooking apples or rhubarb etc..

If anyone wants any book recommendations let me know..

I think that will do for now if anyone has even read this far! There are of course plenty of other things you could eat – pulses, sprouted seeds (nice in salads and stir-fries), tofu, tempeh, tahini, humous etc.. vegetable/tofu kebabs, curries, tofu stir-fries and on and on….

If you’ve found any of the above useful please let me know and if you have any recipes yourself I’d appreciate them.

Note:

If you’re checking ingredients lists yourself things to exclude for gluten-free include modified starch (unless it states maize, potato, tapioca or rice which are okay), wheat, rye, barley and oats (though there is still much debate about whether oats contain the offending gliadins).

for dairy-free diet exclude whey, casein, caseinates and lactose and any derivatives of these words

also I’ve noticed more conscientious manufacturers now labelling their dextrose as being wheat sourced so be careful of dextrose, glucose etc.. though fruit sugar is okay

cous cous contains gluten too

once you’ve adjusted to a gluten-free/dairy-free diet you’ll find you’re so in tune with your body’s reactions that you know if a food is affecting you – trust your instincts, even if there’s nothing on the label which indicates it should be excluded if you feel your reacting then exclude it – often its the case that later you’ll find the manufacturers start to declare more detail on their ingredients lists and something will pop up to make sense of it all – perhaps they’ll start stating that they use whey powder or wheat flour in a sub-ingredient (or for me I found that rapeseed oil or MSG was often an undeclared ingredient which affected me).

When an ingredient is less than a certain percentage it does not have to be declared and if it is a sub-ingredient it doesn’t have to be declared either – e.g. Birds Eye Potato Waffles ‘appear’ to be gluten-free but if you ring the company they will tell you that there is gluten in the very last ingredient on the list ‘mustard’….

and cornflour can be mixed with other flours in the UK (not elsewhere) so unless it states gluten-free its best avoided.

You pretty much have to be prepared to drop most processed foods from your shopping list (including vegetarian alternatives as nearly all use wheat as a binder/filler).

Aspergers Syndrome

This is ‘our’ experience of Asperger’s Syndrome; since AS is known as a ‘pick and mix’ syndrome, other parents will have different problems and different solutions.

C failed his hearing test when he was a baby. After years of visits to hearing specialists and nothing being done, we were eventually informed that there was nothing wrong with C’s hearing; he just chose not to hear. This was because he was in his own little world. He was diagnosed at around the age of 9 with Asperger’s Syndrome, a ‘generally’ mild form of autism usually associated with an above average IQ.

We had lived for all that time believing something was wrong with his hearing, but that was all. We put the trouble he was in at school down to his being unable to hear things. It was only after an Educational Psychologist (there are some good ones) made the diagnosis that all the little traits which we had accepted as being C, also made up a Syndrome!

What sort of traits were they? He was obsessive…if he played with anything, it was that toy to the exclusion of all others. This obsession may only have lasted a couple of days, it may have lasted several weeks, but each time it was only the one thing. From around the age of 5 or 6, it was
videos. He would watch the same video over and over and over again.

When he played with toys, everything was always in a pattern…generally a straight line pattern – a square, a rectangle, a straight line. He did not like curves and positively hated disorder. (That did not stretch to keeping his bedroom tidy though).

If his routine was disrupted, he would have terrible temper tantrums. It was necessary to prewarn him of everything and prepare him. This meant even to warning him that in ten minutes he would be going to bed; he needed to adjust from what he was currently doing to what he would be doing.

He is a great one for rules. He doesn’t always follow them, but generally speaking, once he accepts why a rule is in place, he sticks to it and becomes very irate if others don’t. When we are out and about, the number of times he wants to report someone to the police for breaking the rules…generally drivers…is phenomenal. I would be very wary of anyone with AS becoming a policeman…you certainly won’t get off with a warning! 🙂

The biggest problem we had was how he interacted with other children in school, or didn’t. All the other things we accepted as part of him. It was only when he had problems with other children that we felt we had a problem. C’s AS is very mild, but even he has problems gauging people and
their feelings and reactions.

He will not be able to see that he is boring another child to death…and will not let them go when he feels he has a captive audience. He will not play nicely with other children…they break a rule and he feels mortally wounded.
He constantly thinks that ‘they are out to get him’ (this final feeling I now think may have been more to do with the bullying which he suffered, although other AS children report the same thing so I don’t know). For example, his school was all open plan classrooms. He was always sat with the teacher and therefore was at the front. He would see a child in the next classroom facing towards him (actually listening to his own teacher) and he truly believed that this child would be planning to attack him.

This lack of empathy can sometimes cause all sorts of problems. If someone hurts themselves, he will laugh. He has not realised that the other person is upset. If he sees someone cry, he has now ‘learnt’ that this means they are
unhappy. However, because it is a learned response, he finds it a difficult thing to translate to a different situation. For example, if he cannot find something in a bookshop, he has learnt that you can go and ask an
assistant. He has also learnt now that you can do that in a supermarket. But that does not mean he could ask in a clothes store. We have now taught him that wherever you are, if you have a problem, look for a person in authority
and ask for help. (This did not work in the school though…I never realised how few teachers actually want to help children).

Many AS children do not have any sense of humour; those that do tend to have a very ‘slap stick style’ sense of humour. For most, plays on words are very difficult for them to cope with. C certainly can never tell whether something is true, humour or sarcasm.

AS often means that children also have short term memory problems. If you gave C a list of three things to do, he could ‘probably’ do them. Give him four and he will forget at least two of them. Even now, he cannot get the days of the week in the right order and cannot remember the months of the year or the seasons in order.

If you think that a lot of this sounds familiar, then it may be useful for you to go to aspennj and complete the questionnaire there. This questionnaire was put together by Tony Attwood, a leading expert on Asperger’s Syndrome. I have read a couple of his books, and in my opinion he is spot on with regard to my son.

I mentioned earlier that AS is a ‘pick and mix’ syndrome. This means that the AS never really comes alone. There is nearly always something else as well. In C’s case it is dyslexia. I help run a support group for parents of children with AS and the other problems which frequently occur are dyspraxia, ADD, ADHD and Tourette’s Syndrome.

Having detailed all the problems we have had with our son, I must assure you that it is not all doom, gloom and despondency by a long way. The peculiarities of C’s brain and others who have AS generally give them a lot of strengths as well. Many, many of them are very skilled at the sciences, or maths…generally the very logical subjects where there are rules to follow. Music is another field where Aspies are widely represented, the other art
type subjects are less well represented. This is believed to be as a result of the high IQ and the obsessive, logical natures they have. Whilst in
schools, the children are pushed to have a very wide knowledge of all
things, in a work environment of their choice, an ‘Aspie’ can specialise in his/her obsession. Further, we have had so few problems since we began home educating C that people seeing him now tend to disbelieve that he has any problems at all. We can concentrate on his strengths and skills and help him by giving him coping mechanisms where he has weaknesses. For example, he always has a diary around him and has learnt that he can use this to work out days of the week, or months of the year.

There are many very famous, very successful people who either had, or are believed to have had, Asperger’s Syndrome. Bill Gates, the Microsoft computer billionaire is supposed to have AS. Einstein was believed to have AS. For some others look at Famous Aspergers Syndrome People

Frances takes centre stage.

10 days old

There hardly seems to be anyone I know who hasn’t been through some awful experience with their child and I am fortunate enough now to be able to look at the last three years with the knowledge that it could have been worse and that while things have been hard, many people have it far worse.

A Bad Moment

It didn’t feel much like that though when, after a long labour and an eventual emergency c-section, the operating theatre went totally silent. I was exhausted, I saw the registrars look quickly at one another but I just closed my eyes and dozed. They told me I had a girl and whisked her from the room. I vaguely remember realizing that something wasn’t right. A few minutes later they called M (my husband) out of the room and when he returned with the midwife, who carried a small wrapped up bundle, he looked utterly shell-shocked, though that could have been witnessing the previous 15 hours.

“She’s got a little problem with her mouth. A cleft lip and palate. Do you want to look at her?” asked the midwife. Errr…well, yes, of course I do. They had covered her mouth with a blanket but I pulled it back and thought she looked beautiful. She had the most amazing eyes and somehow, her mouth seemed as if it should be the way it was, her lip separated by a gap of nearly an inch that extended up into her nose and gave her just one nostril, the other being stretched to the corner of her mouth. I know people who have screamed and sobbed at the sight of their cleft baby but not me. I felt as if I had known all along.

Premonitions and First Hours

In the week before Frances was born I began to obsess that the baby would have a birthmark on its face. In the early months of pregnancy I would catch sight of babies in prams and it would flash into my head “Why can’t I have one like that.” I never really felt secure that everything was okay. So it wasn’t a big surprise, though when the morphine and the anaesthetic wore off, I was certainly shocked and cried buckets for days, weeks, months… a year.

The worst thing about having a baby with a facial deformity is that, well meaning as it is, you get instantly bombarded with photos of babies who have been repaired and I tried to be positive but none of them looked that great to me. I’m a reader, I like to know exactly what I am dealing with. Folders full of literature came my way and instead of bonding with Fran, I sat and read about related syndromes (and panicked), breathing problems, dental surgery, endless surgery, speech problems, hearing difficulties, braces, bone implants, recurring clefts with future babies… (very rare but statistics are a bit unimpressive when your baby has just become the 1 in 700 with a cleft). No fun.

Our speech therapist arrived with squeezable bottles, rosti bottles (funny shovels to get milk into a baby who can’t suck) and lots of reassurance to get us through the first few days. My mum was earth-shatteringly brave, cried in the car park and fought the urge to send her daughter out of the room while she, the real grown up, got down to business with the professionals (dear old mum! I’m still her baby!) Midwives offered to look after Frances, I let them, forgot to express, grieved over not breastfeeding – and boy did we try – sobbed a bit more in private, wondered whether M who had gone home, exhausted, for a shower and food would actually come back (he did, of course, having got home and wondered why he had left!)

Instead of looking at Frances, I looked at other photos of other children; people tiptoed in and out and muttered about how calm I seemed (HA!), Frances screamed with hunger until daddy arrived and read her a Narnia story, I started to go quietly balmy. All I had ever wanted was a baby, but this was not what I had expected. On Bank Holiday Monday, her surgeon, Mr Hall arrived having heard about us by accident, left his family on his day off to visit and talk us through her first operation. I got my first real lesson in parenting from this man. I wanted her lip fixed before our wedding which was in six weeks and tried to be brave about him saying it was too wide a cleft to guarantee to fix well at that stage . He saw how upset I was and said “It’s what is best for Frances that is important now.” I will never forget that. However he decided to do a partial fix and actually did her complete lip at 10 days.

Getting on with it

We had 4 days at home between hospitals (Peterborough and Addenbrookes) which were frankly hell. She had jaundice because I didn’t realize that babies were supposed to drink more than 40mls of milk a day (!), she screamed incessantly (hunger?!) we ate burnt food, I cried, M coped, we had up to 14 visitors a day (ARGH! Why do people let this happen to them!), it was horrid. In very bad moments, I hoped we wouldn’t be bringing her back from the hospital. (I only write this in case someone is reading this in those mid few days. If you are thinking it, you are not a mad cruel heartless woman, you are in shock.)

Newly Stitched – 11 days old

Operation Number 1

We arrived at hospital on Monday for an operation on Wednesday. They took her into special care on the Tuesday night, I climbed into bed and prayed to wake up in three years time. At 6.30am they woke us up to say goodbye to her – she was already in the travelling incubator, screaming and I couldn’t give her a goodbye cuddle. It was possibly the worst moment of my life. We waited for hours; the message to say she was back got lost and for two hours I assumed she was dead and that no-one dared tell us. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask, ran to the ward and couldn’t recognize my baby, who was 4 times the size of most of the others in Special Care and straight in front of me. She had been transformed into a baby with a proper face and even with her Tabitha Twitchitt whiskers, she was absolutely beautiful. It just shows you how much we adults milk pain – she had 2mls of Calpol 3 times a day for less than a week and came on in leaps and bounds. The most amazing thing was the absolute humility of her surgeon, who crept into the ward and asked us if we were sure we were happy with what he had done? Very!

One week later

More Operations

Operation Number 2 came at 9 months – I found it very hard – I was in the grip of postnatal depression but keeping it beautifully hidden, having nightmares every night and barely able to function. We had bonded – I thought she would die because the previous time I had almost wanted her to. We made it through; she was supposed to cried for 3 or 4 days but only cried for 3 or 4 hours and stopped once we fed her! By Operation Number 3 I had had counselling, I was pregnant again and this time it was M who found the long hours of waiting in the cafeteria incredibly hard. She was fine but didn’t react so well to the anaesthetic, got a temperature, had to go back on a drip and frightened the life out of me. Then, the night before we had hoped to leave the hospital, I got food poisoning, was sent to A&E for the night and started having contractions – which luckily stopped again! M busted us all out two days later having been treated like an incompetent moron by a nurse who thought daddy couldn’t look after his little girl without a thorough patronizing! These operations seemed much worse and involved blood oozing out of her mouth, weaning her off her dummy (YEH!) and soft food for three weeks. Boy, was she sick of Weetabix.

19 months – my angel

Living with a cleft

As you can see from her photos, Frances has been really lucky – she is beautiful. To be honest though, how she looks stopped being important fairly early on. Her hearing was awful so she had to have grommets, which work like magic, her speech was seriously delayed and is still difficult to understand. She is missing several sounds, including b, p, l, n, d, v and to a certain extent f. However, these are improving. Until her cleft palate was repaired in the 2nd and 3rd operation, she used to get things like chips stuck in the cleft and on one occasion we had to go to casualty to get a plastic clothing tag removed that she had put into her mouth and then twisted so the T top had wedged. I am eternally glad I was not there the time she put a coat hanger hook in her mouth and it came out her nose! Well done M for staying calm! She still has a gap in her gum that will not be repaired until all her adult teeth have come through and she has a tooth that grows through the roof of her mouth. But she is happy and growing in confidence and capability. I am determined to home educate her because I don’t want her to be bullied or become over aware of her difficulties until she is in control of them. I am so proud of her and of all of us for coping as well as we have with it.

The Pooh Bear Girl aged 3

Update 2003 ….

Fran is now nearly 5, the eldest of three girls (no other clefts) and faces her 5th operation in April. She is a wonderful, bright, laughing and beautiful girl. (She has off days too!) She knows about and understands her cleft, which she calls her gap and is able to field some of the questions people ask alone. She gets a little confused because people, not noticing her lip repair, assume she has lost a baby tooth and ask about it and she isn’t sure how to explain. But she is confident about asking us things she needs to know (why, how etc) and we have promised her surgeon will tell her more when she next sees him. Her hearing is currently a little down again but she copes well. Her speech is not perfect and still has some sounds missing, but mainly on old, long ago learned words, but she is perfectly intelligible. She loves to skate,dress up, socialize, read… and all my fears and anxieties have so far proved groundless – so either we did an amazing job or it really wasn’t such a big hill to climb after all. And as you can see below – she is still totally beautiful.

Frances below right,with her sisters Maddy (top )and baby Amelie

The AmeriFace Circle of Smiles © [ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random | << Prev | Next >> ]

I’m currently in the process of moving and then updating all the info from the old MuddlePuddle site to the new one. Please bear with me as i know it is out of date and in need of a major overhaul. As each page is updated, i will add a link to it from this page. In the mean time you can find all the old content in the page trees to the left.