From early on in childhood, I struggled with digestive problems, ongoing skin problems such as eczema and mystery rashes, and hay fever. As I entered into my teens, these seemed to only get worse and when I was a senior in high school, I would often have very extreme stomach aches after eating.
After high school I was tested for food allergies and wheat, dairy, and rye came up as the culprits. I cut these foods out of my diet and I felt like a new person. However, during the next twelve plus years of my life, I struggled to stick to a life free of these foods. I convinced myself (and others) that I could eat them in “moderation.”
This led to continued problems with my digestion and skin as well as depression, anxiety, low-self esteem, weight-gain and an inability to complete school or other long-term goals. At certain points in my life, I was at least thirty pounds overweight and I felt hopeless and depressed very often. However, I really had no clue that these issues were symptoms of having food allergies and leaky gut syndrome.
A turning point occurred in my life when I began cooking for people with special diets at a healing and spiritual retreat in Warfordsburg, PA in 2005. I had always enjoyed cooking and had done some experimentation with allergen-free recipes due to my own restrictions. However, cooking for people created a whole new passion for food as well as a career I had never imagined.
People ended up requesting my food so much that I began my own personal chef business in 2006. I presently cook almost exclusively for people with multiple food allergies and I really love being able to bring delicious food to people on limited diets.
It wasn’t until about the beginning of 2008 that I was able to stick completely to a diet free of dairy, gluten, soy and artificial foods. This all came about with the birth of my son who was a colicky baby. When I ate certain foods like dairy and soy, he would end up in digestive and emotional distress a few hours later. I finally decided to bite the bullet and eliminate the problem foods from my diet. My son became much happier and so this was a huge relief. It was also during this time that I discovered that my depression was connected to my food allergies, most notably by wheat and gluten products.
However, things were still difficult. I was underweight (and malnourished) by the time Elijah was 10 months. I simply couldn’t put any weight back on. We also had major sleep issues. My memory was horrible and I was often very stressed, anxious, and angry. This would sometimes lead to anxiety attacks or manic episodes. Things did start to get better by the time Elijah was about 18 months but the issues still lingered.
One major stepping stone occurred the summer of 2009 when I started eating coconut oil regularly. You can read about how this impacted me here. A few months later, I found the GAPS diet through a client. It seemed like the perfect thing to help me with lingering physical, emotional and mental problems. So I eased myself onto the grain, sugar and starch free diet and am still following it today. So far, it is helping me tremendously with all the issues I mentioned. You can read more about my healing journey here if you’d like.
The reason why I have built my website and created the menu planners is because I love to cook and I know how hard it is to commit to an allergy-free diet. I love to create new dishes and when I am missing an ingredient, it’s like a new challenge to figure out what to replace it with. Being an artist in the kitchen on a day-to-day basis and using wonderful vegetables, fruits and herbs as beautiful “paints” to prepare food continually inspires me.
By the way, I’m also an artist and you can find my paintings at www.soulseedart.com. I haven’t painted very much since the birth of my son but I am slowly getting back into it.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions or would just like to share your own experience of living with allergies, I’d love to hear about it. Click here to contact me.
