The Journey Begins- Day 1

I do not consider myself to be a crunchy person. I had an epidural with each of my boys, used disposable diapers and am currently drinking a diet coke. I have, over the years, done some things that lean toward being "all natural," particularly in what I use to clean, but in general I try to give my kids a well balanced diet, recycle as much as I can and use All Free and Clear. That is the extent of my crunchiness. I've just begun the journey into reading food labels for chemical ingredients that could possibly be causing my 6 year old son to show symptoms of hyperactivity. I'm following the Feingold diet for 30 days to see if there is any change in his mood, ability to sit still or incessant talking. I am not going to go into detail about the diet or the research behind it. If you are interested in that, you can visit http://www.feingold.org/. Basically, it elminates food additives such as artificial dyes, artifical preservatives, artificial sweetners, and artificial flavors as well as items that contain salicyates, naturally occuring asprin products.  I've decided to blog about the everyday, real life journey of being on this program. Really, I am using it to keep my own sanity Writing often helps me with that. Plus, I've always wanted to blog and this gives me something to blog about. It's not fancy and will probably be filled with grammatical errors for you English majors, but will, hopefully, be informative.
If you have any type of dietary restrictions, you know about label reading. It takes you twice as long to grocery shop because you are looking for words that you can't even pronounce on every item you buy. Yesterday and today, I began the process of looking on labels of products in our pantry and then trying to find an alternative in the organics/ all natural section of the grocery store... the section that I usually pass up because the item are twice as much as the more mainstream items. After a while, you start to pray that you don't see the words "red, blue, yellow, BHT or artificial"on the packages of your child's favorite foods.  Thankfully, the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish in our pantry are colored with beet juice...nothing artificial! The first thing that had to go were the Flintstone vitamins which contain both aspartame and artifical dyes. Luckily, I was able to easily substitute the Lil Critters gummy vitamins. No harm done except to the wallet. Then, it was on to finding substitutes for treats. Instead of jelly bellies, m&m's or gummies, we went to the store and found some all natural alternatives like yummy earth lolipops. I knew that the only way this was going to work was if I had something to substitute for the items that he liked. I was pleasantly surpised to find a decent selection of these types of items at Target (so I can get my 5% red card discount!). I was thrilled to find Annie's Homegrown Mac and Cheese was on sale this week for $1! That will be dinner tonight. Whew! But then the moment I knew was coming. The time I had to tell him that he couldn't drink apple juice. Tears were soon followed by a willingness to try Pear Juice (I found some on the bottom shelf of the baby foods section, but we're not telling him that!). He tried it and liked it! Thank you, Lord! I am sure over the next several days, we will have more moments like this, but overall, I will say it was a successful first day!