Charlotte has been diagnosed with a milk-soy protein intolerance (MSPI). Her body does not process the proteins found in milk or soy properly. Unfortunately these proteins pass through breast milk, so anything that I eat with these ingredients goes straight to her. About 12 hours after I eat something with an offending ingredient Charlotte starts SCREAMING in pain. Not just a cry, but an all-out, arching her back, tightening her stomach, pain scream. Nothing seems to comfort her except walking around being held (and even that doesn't always work). 24 hours later she gets blood and mucus in her stools. She gets very congested and gets a rough rash over her face and chest. As long as I don't eat anymore of the bad proteins, her symptoms go away in about 3 days, but it is not a very fun 3 days.
We have two options... #1 - cut out ALL milk and soy products from my diet, or #2 - put her on special formula. The special formula costs about $40 a can, so we opted for solution #1. The good news is that she should outgrow this allergy around the age of 1. The bad news is, I can't have chocolate for a year!
We have run into a few problems. First of all, giving up chocolate was one of the easiest part of my new diet. EVERYTHING has either milk or soy in it!!! Take a look in your pantry and you'll notice about 90% of your food has milk or soy (watch out for hidden forms also like casein or lechtin). So EVERYTHING has to be cooked from scratch. Second, I didn't realize how much cheese we ate. Every single one of our meals had either tofu or cheese. After a week of trying to cut the tofu or cheese out of my meal and serve the regular stuff to Sean and Addie I was STARVING! So I went back to eating meat. The rest of the family is no longer vegetarian either because I won't cook two meals every night. This has been really hard on Sean and I. I hate cooking it, raw meat really gives me the heeby-jeebies. I have also forgotten how to cook meat. I didn't think that was possible, but every time I cooked chicken my house would fill with smoke!! My friend, Candace, came to visit and told me that I was cooking it at too high of a temperature. Ooops.
*******So here is where I need your help!!!!*******
I need some new recipes! I am tired of eating the same 4 meals over and over again! Here are the requirements:
1. It can't contain ANY milk or soy ingredients.
2. It has to be easy. The easier the better, I have two kids under two, I don't have a whole lot of time to spend in the kitchen.
3. It preferably tastes good.
I'm not sure how much information you can put in a comment. But you can email them to me if you prefer, april.conaway@gmail.com Thanks in advance!!
