Gluten free, Dairy free, Egg free - Have I lost you?

Yep, my 2 1/2 year old has food intolerences (we 'can't' call them allergies because she doesn't have an IgE response to these foods). Instead she likely has an IgA or IgG response, which isn't as testable. The 'golden standard' for food sensitivities is trial and error. Basically, remove offending foods from your diet, until you are symptom-free then add them back in, rinse and repeat. If you have a negative reaction then you have a food allergy/sensitivity/intolerance. Luckily I found foodlab, a Yahoo group of people figuring out their or their child(ren)'s food issues.

First as a hypothyroid patient, then as an infertility patient, then dealing with dyshidrotic eczema, and now with a daughter with food issues, I have discovered that doctors don't know everything. Big heavy sigh. But they think they do.
In all of these health issues I have lucked upon very knowledgeable groups of people who through trial, error, research and collective experience know more than our GPs, gynecologists, endocrinologists and dermatologists about our particular issue and how to treat them. Basically, it boils down to a bunch of people becoming experts in one field, their own condition. When you're dealing with issues the doctor doesn't give a good answer for, you dig and dig and talk, and dig some more, while the doc meets other patients dealing with a different issue. So, it really isn't all that surprising that the patients would eventually know more about their 'pet problem' while the doc only has a superficial understanding of the issue.
Unfortunately, the medical community goes to college to learn everything. They pay big bucks to soak up whatever the pharmaceutically funded college spits out.
And medical schools teach the accepted practices and knowledge that has been voted on by medical people after prolonged *funded* research.
Obviously, as one's own advocate you have to be careful and shrewd. Don't take one person's word for it. Don't pay for anything without thoroughly researching first.
Resources I have found in my web travels:

• thyroid/autoimmune - Mary Shomon
• infertility/getting pregnant - fertilityfriend forums, book: Taking Charge of Your Fertility
• dyshydrotic eczema - Yahoo group
• food allergies/sensitivities - Foodlab Yahoo group

I'm not saying to skip the doctor. Just be an informed patient.

Farmer's Market Finds

What they say about Farmer's Markets is all true. Great fresh options with a good chance of being organic. And more variety than in your average grocery store. I saw at least 4 kinds of cherry tomatos yesterday. And purslane! I haven't found purslane in the yard this year, so I was excited to see a big bunch for a dollar.

The local farmers are bringing a lot of Asian veggies I don't yet know. I love buying something new, and with a few tips from the farmer, experimenting in the kitchen. Last year I discovered rutabaga - love them! And sometimes you get a surprise... The honeydew I bought appears to be an orange fleshed honeydew. I love honeydew, but not a big fan of cantalope, but I think I like this hybrid.

Then there's the olive guy... during part of the year he has olives cured with just salt. Right now his selections have vinegar, but we try not to hold it against him. The little one loves olives, so we buy a lot. The lemon peel stuffed olives were interesting. This time I bought Greek dried Kalamata olives. Very salty, but yum! I'm not too sure what to do with them yet, but they were nice chopped up and steeped in olive oil for an easy salad dressing.

Water Kefir - again

It is like a wacky science experiment. I appear to have found the secret to water kefir... relax and follow the kefirlady's directions, lol. These things grow like crazy. This picture is 5 days after the previous kefir post's picture. The difference in liquid color is because one batch (the jar on the right) is a day ahead of the other.
So far, I use organic sugar, sucanat, slices of ginger, a pinch of baking soda in unfiltered tap water (we have very hard water here) or spring water. I've been watching to see if the water source makes a difference. The kefir in both jars seem happy, but it seems like the spring water kefir is growing a tad bit faster than the tap water.
Growing
In 9 days I went from having 1/3 cup kefir grains to 2 1/2 cups. I need to find recipes that call for the grains. They taste and feel a little like hominy. Which is fine for a bite or two, but eating a cup of plain squishy hominy isn't too appealing.

Why Kefir?
For probiotics ... all those good guys also found in yogurt (in theory) that keeps your gut healthy.

Why Water Kefir instead of regular Milk Kefir?
1. cheaper - to put the grains in sugar and water everyday than goat or cow milk
2. lactose intolerance - enough said
3. convenient - having diary on hand everyday isn't convenient
4. reality - finding a raw (and organic) milk source can be difficult to impossible, depending on your area.

Water Kefir

My water kefir grains arrived in the mail from the kefirlady, yesterday, Yay! And following the directions, I got them into sugar water as quickly as I could. Now the quandry... spring water, filtered tap water, boiled tap water, boiled filtered tap water, boiled tap water plus minerals...
Almost everything I've read says hard water = good, okay I'll use tap water, chlorine = bad, so I use filtered tap water. But if my filter removes chlorine - which I sure hope it does - is the water then too soft? Some people report their water kefir thrives on their city water, without any changes required, cool maybe I can use filtered tap water. Bah! this living healthy thing is giving me a migraine.
Chlorine can be removed by boiling 15 minutes OR run in a blender for 15 minutes. If I run my blender for 15 minutes, I will likely be deaf and have a burnt out blender. If I boil water for 15 minutes, I'm not sure there'd be any water left.
I ended up splitting the grains in half just to see which kind of water worked better. So two tablespoons of grains went in bottled spring water plus 1/6 cup sugar 1/2 tablespoon organic sucanat. The rest of the grains went in cooled boiled filtered tap water with the same sugar and grain combo. 20ish hours later there's a significant difference between the grains.
The spring water grains are round and fluffy looking with more floaty type activity going on. The grains in the left jar just look sad. So I dumped the grains into my nylony coffee filter and since I'm out of bottled water, put plain ole tap water in with more sugar. I'm afraid the chlorine and possible floride in the water may not be good for the grains, but hopefully it isn't worse than the boiled filtered water I tried first.
I think kefir lady's directions said we can put minerals etc back into filtered water... that sounds a little more economic than buying bottled water for the rest of my grains' lives.