First off, I apologize again for my absence on my blog. We now have a contract on a house and are in the midst of all the details before we close.
Also, on a personal note, I am finding that winter time has been urging me towards resting more and being more internal. I mentioned in one of my New Year’s posts that I am not suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) this season like I have in the past. What I feel is happening instead is that I am actually enjoying the “yin” energy of the winter. This is mostly showing up as working less, relaxing more, taking more baths, and not going out as much. It seems like it started shortly before the massive winter wonderland we received a few weeks ago. To me, this is a real sign that my being is balancing out and becoming more in tune with nature, the way we are supposed to be.
New Changes to my Menu Planners and Website:
At the same time, I am very excited about some upcoming changes to my website. I am not ready to go into all the details of what is going to change but I feel I want to start talking about them at some level.
These changes are in response to the needs people with multiple food allergies have. When I started my menu planners, I didn’t really know what I was getting into. But I did realize that making menu planners for people with food allergies posed some real problems to solve. The main one being – everyone is allergic to something different. There are common food allergens, but from there, there are so many other foods that people can be allergic to. Beyond that, people, especially children, have many preferences of what they like to eat and what they don’t like.
I have been solving this problem by creating menu planners for specific diets. The response to this has been great and so far I have the following menu planners. Most of them are for four weeks of menu plans:
Meat and Seafood Diets:
- Wheat-free and Gluten-free Menu Planner
- Gluten-free and Casein-free Menu Planner
- Dairy-free Menu Planner
- Wheat/Gluten-free, Dairy-free and Soy-free Menu Planner
- Nightshade, Wheat/Gluten-free, Dairy-free and Soy-Free Menu Planner
- GAPS/Paleo and Limited Diet Menu Planner
- Thanksgiving Limited Diet Menu Planner
- Holiday Limited Diet Menu Planner
- Valentine’s (special occasion) Limited Diet Menu Planner
- Just Desserts for Limited Diets (e-book)
Seafood/Vegetarian Diets
However, people need more. Namely, people need a menu for their limited diet, and now. People are emailing and calling me everyday telling me about their multiple food allergies and asking me what I can do for them. From this alone, I feel that something more is truly needed in terms of menu planning for limited diets and multiple food allergies.
So while I’m not ready to divulge what I am creating in the background, I will say a few things about it. This is what I hope the outcome will be for people with multiple food allergies who come to my site for menu planning:
- You will be able to have menu planners designed specifically for you and your families’ food allergies, restrictions, likes and dislikes.
- No matter how many food allergies you or your children have, you’ll be able to find menu planners and recipes that meet your needs.
- Access to breakfast, lunch and snack recipes.
- Easy and simple process!
- You will have access to many recipes that work for your diet.
- I hope to have this ready by the summer of this year.
So these are just a few teasers. What I want to do is start a discussion on this blog post about WHAT YOU NEED! So many people email me and call me to tell me what they’re looking for. But I thought it would be great to have it all in one place on my blog.
So don’t be shy! Please leave a comment and tell me what kind of menu planner you are looking for. Even if it seems like a dream and not possible, I want to hear about it! The more dreams I hear, the more I can tailor the site to your needs!
Here are just a few requests I already have (but please let me know if you have the same request)
- breakfast and lunch menu planners
- egg free breakfast ideas
- egg free menu planners
- nut free
- fructose free menu planners
- multiple food allergy menu planners (there are too many to list here)
- breakfast, lunch and dinner menu planners
- snacks
- Weston A. Price Foundation style menu planner
- fully vegetarian and vegan menu planners
- beef free, chicken free, seafood free, shellfish free
- the list goes on!
If you’ve already sent me an email telling me your needs, please also list them here. Thanks so much! I look forward to creating a site that can truly meet you and your families’ needs! It is truly my joy!
A dream menu for me would be a gluten free wheat free, soy free dairy free except for the following items, butter and non fat stoneyfield yogurt, all sheep and goat cheese. I’m a meat, chicken and seafood lover. My husband prefers white fish over Salmon, but I love it all. It’s just the two of us so it’s easy enough to please everyone. I’ll eat almost anything except lima beans and snails, appearance, taste, smell, texture bleck….they gross me out.
I have the weekly planner and am quite pleased with it. What I need is some bread recipes with exact measurements that will work without leavenings. Also, is it possible to have an alternatve meat dish on the menu planner whenever you’re doing a fish dish? Some of us don’t eat fish. Thanks .
Sarah—What a great idea! I have a son allergic to dairy (except butter), eggs (just the whites), wheat/gluten and some nuts. I also have a daughter with peanut, banana and avocado allergies. My two other children, my husband and myself don’t have any allergies. I’m starting to cook using more traditional preparation methods (soaking, sprouting, culturing, fermenting), and I would love to see those ideas incorporated into an allergy-free menu. And I have challenges coming up with enough creative cooked breakfast ideas to rotate and keep everyone from being bored. 🙂 Can’t wait to see what you’ve got in the works!
Love,
Sonya
I really want to try your existing grain-free planner one of these days when I have the money, but I’d also be interested in egg-free, nut-free, dairy-free, wheat-free breakfast ideas. So far my toddler is having issues with eggs and wheat (and nut milk that he tried accidentally), and since I can’t do dairy we are trying to find things we can all have for breakfast.
Foremost would be a menu plan that offers nutritious but quick to prepare meals. Either including time saving techniques or recipes that in themselves take little time to make. Also, I would be interested in menus that include breakfast, lunch and dinner meals.
I would love a planner that would include:
>Type O (gluten free, corn free ..there is more but that’s the most important)
>Herpes control: NO peanut butter or chocolate, rice,corn, or bad oils (palm Kernal, trans fats)
>Hypoglycemia control: NO sugar, or evaporated cane juice-)
>Weston Price type foods and prep: include when to start sprouts, or sour milk etc to have it ready for designated day and how much sprouted and dehydrated grains/nuts/seeds you would need that month
>seasonal planner-so that food locally in season is in planner for that quarter (spring, summer, fall and winter)
>a place to list okay store bought goodies and where to buy them-to use as a tickler for a master grocery list. A section for lunches (brown bag)
>I used to do 30 day gourmet freezer meals before we discovered allergies in our children. It was my FAVORITE..I don’t know where to begin to do freezer meals with all these Don’ts!
>ya this is why I never do a planner or menus–it just boggles my mind to organize it all..so we just eat meat and vegetables year in and out–it is so boring! I do love Elana’s pantry Almond bread..It solves the bread problem-because xanthan gum is corn derived.
AND We do have an okay waffle recipe(buckwheat) and Buckwheat Pete’s recipes work for pizza dough.
Thanks for asking-I love seeing why I don’t do it!
An Anti-Candida/Yeast Free menu planner would be awesome! 🙂
First of all thanks so much for taking time to put together these planners because it’s a ball of confusion for me! I will be reading more about the GAPS. My husband will eat anything except salmon/tomatoes/lima beans and eggplant (hmmm…nightshades?). I am lacto-gluten free and avoid soy, shellfish and walnuts.
I would like planner for entertaining since cheese and crackers with wine is off my list.
This is all so great everyone! Thanks so much for your responses and ideas. You are definitely giving me some ideas I had not yet thought of! Keep them coming!
Sarah
Hello Sarah!
A dream menu for our house would consist of Beans, Meat, Fruit, Veggies and limited nuts. We are GFCF and have multiple food sensitivities. Dairy, corn, eggs and all “g-free” grains are out. It’s been a challenge and any help would be greatly appreciated!
Here are my restrictions for fighting Candida and food allergies:
wheat-free, gluten-free, plus no oats, no quinoa, no amaranth (rice, corn, buckwheat ok)
yeast-free, sugar-free (fresh fruit ok, xylitol ok, stevia ok, agave ok, raw honey ok)
dairy-free (butter ok, non-cow ok)
no hen egg whites (hen yolks ok, duck eggs ok), no peanuts, no tomatoes or white potatoes, no legumes (!), no lettuce, no asparagus, no basil, no garlic
no crustaceans/shellfish (fish ok, meats ok)
Luckily it’s just my husband and I, and he’s been great support in this era of restrictions.
Not sure if it exists but I’m looking for a diet that can offer variety without the following:
Gluten/Corn/Oat
Egg
Soy
Nightshade (tomatoes,white potatoes etc.),
yeast
black pepper
Vinegar
Peanuts (not sure about other nuts yet)
shelfish
Very limited sugar,limited squash, and the only fruit I seem to handle is plums, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and once in a while asian pears.
🙂
Hi Sarah,
My best diet would be pure Paleo, but with no egg whites. So, in other words, it would include meat, fish, poultry, seafood, fruit, vegetables, avocados, cold-pressed oils, egg yolks. NO grains, legumes, dairy, white potatoes, sugars, processed foods, agave. I actually have immune system reactions to all these categories of foods, and sometimes I feel like some kind of freak when I’m out with other people, but reading these other comments makes me feel like I am not alone. Thank you for this opportunity to express our needs and desires!
Thanks!
Dawn
And also, nuts are okay.
Dawn
Hi Everyone! Thanks so much for telling me about your dream menu planners. It is really so helpful for me to hear and if you have additional ideas, please feel free to write them here or send me an email through my contact form. I am working on the new website and am very excited about it! I’ll give more details later as it unfolds!
Sincerely,
Sarah
Good work, Sarah! Here’s my list of no’s & a suggested website for you to ponder & maybe help us all. My list: gluten-free; sugar-free; low salt; grain-free,including corn; dairy-free; very few fruits,only occasionally; low oils; and a struggle to balance Omega 3 & Omega 6 in foods. The website to go to is:
GI and Omega 3 Nutritional Food Data. It’s astounding and shocking what we do not know about our food and it’s modern storage & what it is doing to our lives! I’m 65, very weak, sick, and need all the help I can get. Even a Nutrional “doctor” has not been up to date, and I’m desperate for help in balancing my foods. I can eat: Grass-fed beef; free-to-eat-grass-and-bugs chickens; ;green,leafy veggies with balanced Omega 3-6; occasional buckwheat & quinoa,although you have to remember the storage problems in the article above…it’s mind-boggling, but you seem to have the mind I no longer can function with as well as before, because of foods, & hopefully you can help me. Please & thank you.
With Hope, Margie
Thanks Margie, this is very interesting to me. I have read about the ratios of Omega 3 and 6 for grass-fed meat verses grain-fed. I haven’t ever seen a chart that lists these for other foods as well. It is interesting to me because of the fruits that are to be avoided, many of them don’t work for me.
thanks for this. here is the link:
http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/gi_and_omega_3_nutritional_food_data.htm
I second the Weston A Price meal planning… We have multiple allergies which we are working on eliminating, but I find that I am ok with some organic milks, but not others, Ezekiel bread but not plain breads, etc. and WAP meals are very helpful!