Hi.

My 3 yr old son has a long list of allergies, including wheat (probably has celiac), beans (including soy, lentils, garbanzo, etc.) and is not to have nuts until he is at least 4 yrs old (I'm pretty sure he reacts to cashews).

As he is also allergic to milk & eggs, if we were to go vegetarian, we would have to be vegan. Is that possible while making sure he gets all the nutrition he needs to grow healthy. He had not really started growing until he turned 3. in the last 4 months he has grown 1.5 inches, from 9-18 months he barely grew at all, so I feel he is finally catching up a bit.

Is there anything you would recommend?

Hi Sarah,

I'm sorry to hear about the health difficulties of your son. It looks like he was born with a weak Immune system. Also, at times when we go through difficult times some children are more sensitive than others and internalize the stress that take a toll on his immune system. Either if he's born with it, or stress or both, any immune system can get strenghten when we work in getting closer to God's original design for our health by meeting our bodies needs.

Some people are totally fruitarians or others are raw foodist and benefit with a very strong health. A lot of these individuals had severe illnesses and with a raw diet and exercise have reverse their condition. God created us to eat plain, fresh, simple raw food. The fruiarians and raw foodist do have have nuts and sprouted beans in their diet, however the fruitarian do it without the beans.

What I get from your post is that you weren't vegetarians and had dairy in your diet. Dairy is one of the most offensive food for an immune system. I feel that by only removing your sons from dairy you should see some great improvement with his health within a month.

So my #1 recommendation would be to withdraw him from all dairy products including the soya cheeses made with casein.

My #2 recommendation would be to keep him away from all animal products as it is filled with foreign bodies that is quite offensive to the Immune system also.

By keeping #1 and #2 from him, then his body will have less offending subtances to fight against daily. Therefore, daily his Immune System will gain more strenght to deal better with other regular offenses.

When the immune system(IS) is continually over burdened, it will over react to anything and to the strangest thing at times. These reaction comes and goes as it all depends on the individual IS strenght at the time the food is ingested. Those that has a weaker immune system for whatever reason, their IS will get easily over-burdened with much less offensive then another person with a stronger IS.

So don't be frightened with the long list of allergies he's demonstrating now. It wouldn't surprise me that it is just an over reaction. So it doesn't mean that he's allergic to the beans and the nuts, but just because they are harder to digest, the system might over-reacted to them. With time, you might see that he won't have any problem with these ingredients. But before hand, the focuss is to strenghten his immune system with simple foods and as much raw fresh vegetable and fruits as much as he will eat. For sure cook food are ok too, but a good amount of raw is the best. For grains of course rice will be the choice grain and stay away from grain with gluten(wheat, buckwheat, oats, rye).

Instead of nuts, there's some seeds like pumkin, sunflower that might be less offensive.

Then once you see a good improvement in his health, introduce one nuts at a time for a couple of week and see if there's any reaction before introducing another ingredient. For sure, it would be great that he could get some nuts and some beans in his diet.

Another pointer, is to stay away from process foods which has a long list of chemicals. The key is simple foods.

Bless you and praying that God will guide you to meet his needs.

Sarah,

Do you have any Jewish, Asian, Arab, Greek, or African blood in your ancestry? If you do, I would recommend that you test your son for G6PD-deficiency. It is genetic, and cannot be changed, but would certainly help you to understand why your son has a problem with beans, and if your son has this, there is a whole list of foods, chemicals, and medicines which must be avoided. Up to 70% of some of Jewish/Arab populations test positive for this condition. In Taiwan, all babies are mandatorily tested for it at birth, with between three and four percent of the population testing positive. In Thailand, over 10% of those tested are positive, but testing is not widespread.

If your son has G6PD deficiency, you must avoid fava beans/lima beans entirely. Eating a meal of those could be fatal. I have recently become acquainted with this condition, and with a number of people who have it. As a lifelong, third-generation vegetarian, I am now struggling with the possibility of recommending the addition of some meat to their diet. G6PD deficiency means that the blood is weak to ALL legumes. That wipes out a huge swath of foods, including all beans, peanuts, etc.--anything that comes in a pod--carob, tamarind, alfalfa, clover, vanilla, etc., and even the pollen from these plants can be toxic. The red blood cells can actually die because of the deficiency of G6PD, which leaves them vulnerable and unprotected.

Having done some research, it appears the condition is not new, but has been known since at least 2000 years ago. It is the most common genetic metabolic disorder in the world, but is nearly unheard of among white Europeans. There is a plus side to it--the disorder gives built-in resistance to malaria (which is probably good, since anti-malarial drugs are on their no-no list).

If your son does not have this condition, you can be thankful. Allergies can frequently be treated by total, strict abstinence for at least six months to a year, followed by careful, moderate, reintroduction into the diet.

I would invite anyone with nutritional expertise to suggest a diet with adequate and complete protein which utilizes no legumes. I have learned that barley is higher in lysine than other grains, but could it provide enough? Is there any way to avoid meat if one is forced to avoid legumes?

(For those questioning the need for certain people to avoid legumes, please search online for the G6PD disorder of "favism.")

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I would add to Elle's suggestions and define "processed" as to do away with all refined foods. White flour, white sugar (includes "brown" sugar), white rice, etc.

If it has a nutritional label, don't eat it. Which means as Elle suggested, raw or at least simple. I wouldn't be surprised that with a move to a healthy diet, many of his allergies would disappear.

GC, does Quinoa have complete protein? I seemed to have thought I read it does.

kland,

That looks like a good option, thank you. I had never heard of quinoa before. Unfortunately, such an exotic product does not exist in the marketplaces here, so I am still left to wonder if there is a way of avoiding meat and legumes both, while still obtaining adequate protein.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I believe a little abstraction is relevant here.

Just because I specifically said quinoa since that is specifically what I had read, would it be out of place to expect there could be other plants with complete protein? I wouldn't say quinoa is exotic as it was quite popular with the Incas and quite popular in South America. It has even been "classified as a "super crop" by the United Nations".

Would it make sense that a first start towards investigating what other plants have complete proteins is to look at quinoa's scientific name and find out what plants are in the same genus?

For example, "Quinoa, Chenopodium quinoa Willd., is in the Goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae) which includes beets, chard, and spinach." Also, lambs quarters and pigweed. You could proceed up to the family level, Amaranthaceae.

This does not mean all such plants have a complete protein, but would be some place to start investigating. Then, since there is at least one plant which does have a complete protein, you could consider that there are others which do, too. You may not find them in the supermarket*, but you may find them along the roadside.

*Hence part of my thread idea of our health being under attack.

Found this:


But why need one plant for complete protein when you can combine them:


So I would think that with combinations, there are more than adequate sources of complete proteins.
Unless you really want meat...

It is a known fact that a meat diet provides more protein than a vegetarian one. It is also a known fact that most vegetarians get more than enough protein. However, the combinations of a legume and a grain to get a complete protein (beans and rice) would be out of the picture if one must avoid legumes. Most vegetarians heavily rely on legumes to provide a complete protein.

Of the four foods listed as having a complete protein, one is a legume, and two are impossible to obtain in this part of the world. I will have to research the remaining one: buckwheat. Preliminary research indicates this would be a very good source of complete proteins for certain countries. However, there are other countries where buckwheat is not available. The availability in Asia is spotty.

For Sarah, buckwheat may be a good answer. For me it depends on the availability. I do appreciate the tip. I did not know much about buckwheat before.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Perhaps you are missing my point.

Hi Kland and GC, Nice advices on quinoa and buckwheat. Just to add to what you both said and to dissipate the fear of not having "complete protein" which was the edge for many decades of knocking down vegetarianism.

The "complete protein" argument was employ as a scare tacktive but also was based on ignorance as knowledge wasn't available on the subject. As the years passed by and knowledge increased we now know that anything we eat has to be digested and broken down to its smallest parts for it to be used and assimilated by the body. So, a piece of meat with "complete protein" or some beans with "a lot of protein", needs to be broken down to the Amino Acids(AA) level and added to the body's Amino Acids pool that floats around in our blood steam.

So we all know that the body doesn't take a piece of muscle from the cow you just ate, and use the same "complete protein" piece to add to a specific spot where muscle is required. No, to make new muscle, the body start from scratch and take from the building blocks available in the AA pools and build new muscles.

The argument of "complete protein" comes from the old times and undermind how the body works. God put protein in everything we eat. There's protein in lettuce, apples, watermelons, strawberries, broccoli, etc... everywhere, all are composed of many different AAs as building blocks. So as long as we eat a wide variety of foods with a happy heart praising and trusting God's leading in selecting foods to meet our needs, we will be fine. When your AA pool will be depleted in one particular AA, God gives us "cravings".

We need to follow the Creator's voice through the cravings he gives us. I'm not talking about the cravings for chocolate or ice cream here. That's not the creator's voice. But the cravings for oranges, or bananas, or avocados, broccoli, etc... I'm sure we all experienced eating a particular wholesome food that seems to taste so good(better than usually) and make your mouth watery by the though of it. That's an intence craving. Craving can be more settle too, just a thought like ..."hmmm I feel like eating some _________ today".

I was quite impressed with your tips on quinoa and buckwheat which was very good practical advice that can meet this young man's needs very well.

My favorite pancake is 1/2 buckwheat flour and 1/2 brown rice flour. Yummy, yum, yum! 100% buckwheat pancake is good too! Also, the buckwheat noodles that the Japanese ravish on. One of my best friend was Japanese and she often made me buckwheat noodles with green onions, garlic, carrots sliced thinly lenght wise(2 inches), spinach, and crush sesame seeds. Nice color and super tasty! This is making my mouth watery! Guess what! I'm having buckwheat today!