FOOD INTOLERANCE NETWORK FACTSHEET
How to start failsafe eating: a step
by step guide
A lot of families see a big change just by cutting
down:
§
Switch to preservative free bread – Brumbys
or Bakers Delight plain breads are the safest.
§
Water is the best drink, it can be filtered, bottled,
spring, mineral or soda water – and tap water if it tastes okay - but not soft
drinks, cordial or juice. As an occasional treat you can make magic cordial
(see the Failsafe Booklet).
§
Avoid nasty additives, especially artificial
colours, preservatives, flavour enhancers.
§
You might like to cut down on salicylates by
avoiding broccoli, citrus, tomatoes, grapes and their products.
§
Use the recipes in the Failsafe Booklet or
Friendly Food.
If this doesn’t help, or if you are desperate, it is
best to do the full diet. There is a huge gap between avoiding food additives
and doing a low salicylate, low amine elimination diet. Like most mothers, when
I first saw the dietitians’ booklet, I thought ‘this is too hard!’ The whole
point about elimination diets is to get them right, so you have to stick
strictly to the foods in the shopping list. The key is to be well prepared.
1. Check with your doctor that there is not
some other cause for your problems. For example, children with significant
hearing loss or painful dental decay can sometimes appear to have ADHD.
2. The diet that was a magic answer for us is called
the Simplified Elimination Diet from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy
Clinic in
3. If weight loss is a problem especially for
children, weigh your child and record the weight once a week. If a skinny child
loses weight, ask your dietitian about caloric supplements such as Polycose or
stop the diet. Medication for ADHD is a common cause of poor appetite and
stunted growth. It is easiest to start this diet with your child unmedicated if
possible. Families of medicated children often start during school - and drug -
holidays.
4. Decide how many foods you will exclude.
This is the hard part. If you don't exclude enough food chemicals, the diet
won't work. If you exclude everything from the start, the diet might be
unnecessarily difficult.
§
For most people, the best place to start is failsafe (free of additives, low in
salicylates, amines and flavour enhancers) and now that A2 milk is available,
it is easy to switch to that too. Most of the recipes are failsafe with dairy
and gluten free options. Moderate salicylates and amines in recipes are listed
as options and avoided during the elimination stage.
§
If you have any reason to suspect dairy foods – pale face, dark circles
under eyes, stuffy or runny nose, breathes through mouth, constant throat
clearing, another family member reacts to milk, problems with milk as a baby,
frequent ear infections, grommets, would live on milk if you let him/her,
drinks litres of milk a day, or hates milk, see point 27 below.
§
For autism,
severe symptoms or if there is a family member with coeliac disease, see point 27 below.
§
For severe symptoms including autism and chronic
fatigue syndrome, you may have to work especially hard at avoiding environmental chemicals, see point 24
below.
5. Read the shopping list in the Failsafe
Booklet or the food lists in your dietitians’ booklet.
6. Check Product Updates on the website, in
case manufacturers have changed ingredients. This happens frequently.
7. Establish a failsafe house by eating or
giving away all the unsuitable food in your kitchen. It is best for the whole
family to do the diet for support. It is common for fathers to refuse to do
this, but at least they can appear to support the diet while at home. Children
who are expected to stick to this diet while others at home eat tempting foods
beside them will very reasonably sneak food or money.
8. Negotiate incentives with your child -
'what's this worth to you?'. Daily credit points and weekly rewards with a
bonus after three weeks are better than one big bribe. Ask for the support of
your partner and anyone else in the household.
9. Mark D-day - diet day - on your calendar,
preferably on a Monday. You might want to wait until a special occasion,
birthday party or school camp is out of the way.
10. Using the recipes and sample menus in the
Failsafe Booklet, any of my books, or Friendly Food, draw up a week's menu
plan, including snacks, which you feel is workable for your family. It
doesn't have to include a lot of variety. There might be a lot of home made
chicken and chips at first. In the first three weeks, you just want to get rid
of food chemicals and cravings.
11. Go shopping. Take a list of the
ingredients you need for your recipes and the shopping list for other ideas.
Keep an Additives to Avoid card in your wallet. The first failsafe shop will be
time consuming while you read labels, after that it will be quicker and cheaper
than usual.
12. Try out some recipes before you get to
D-day. For children, cook and freeze some
meals and treats such as failsafe mince, pear muffins and biscuits. Have magic
cordial, pear jam and icypoles ready.
13. Rate your child’s behaviour on the
checklist in the Failsafe Booklet or draw up a list of the behaviours which you
would most like to see change on the diet (for example, won't go to bed, argues
with sibling, refuses to do chores, refuses to do homework, low reading
ability) so that you have a starting point from which to measure your progress.
14. On D-day, start the diet.
15. Join the mailing list so you can get
newsletter updates about product changes, recipes and inspiration. You might
also like to join a failsafe email discussion group so you can hear from others
who are also doing the diet, or failsafe products in your area. (Send an email
with "subscribe" in the subject line to failsafe_newsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com).
16. Keep a diary of everything that goes in
the mouth or on the skin (foods, toothpaste, medications). Record any
behaviour, learning and health problems during the diet. It is easier to see
effects when looking back. Note any positive behaviours, such as 'fed dog
without being asked', 'went to bed without arguing'. After the diet, keep your
diary in a safe place.
17. Expect withdrawal symptoms within the
first two weeks, often on days four and five. These can be feeling tearful and
overwhelmed, strong food cravings, irritability and the same symptoms you had
before you started the diet, but can also include flu, mouth ulcers and other
physical symptoms. You can minimise withdrawal symptoms by reducing additives
over a few weeks before the full diet and don't binge on fruit and takeaways -
the way we did - the weekend before starting.
18. Read the Checklist of Common Mistakes on
the website many times. There are many foods allowed on the dietitians’ lists
that affect our family and other failsafers, so your diet might need
fine-tuning. If there is no improvement after two weeks, ask your dietitian,
failsafe contact or email group or write to suedengate@ozemail.com.au for help.
Some children improve within days, others improve slowly, going through the
second week blahs and only coming good in the middle of the third week. Success
is the greatest motivator. Families who see huge improvements are highly
motivated to continue, so it is worth getting the diet right.
19. Give your child extra love, hugs and time.
Children cannot be punished into sticking to this diet. Set a good example
yourself by sticking to the diet and praise your child often for sticking to it
too. Encourage positivity. Laughter therapy really works so be sure to have fun
such as family nights with a comedy video, or go through family photo albums
and remember the good times.
20. Rate your progress after three weeks. At
first, most people can hardly wait to start challenges. In my experience,
people who do best in the long term are the ones who take an extra week or two
to settle into the diet, so it’s best to stick to the diet strictly for at
least three weeks for behaviour, although skin rashes and chronic fatigue may
take longer.
21. You are ready to start challenges when
you have completed at least three weeks of the diet including a week without
symptoms. It’s okay to take a few more weeks to enjoy family harmony before
embarking on challenges. People with asthma or suicidal feelings must be supervised by an experienced
dietitian. If there is no improvement after six weeks, do the challenges anyway
because some people are best able to notice effects through challenges. Talk to
other people in your email support group and read the Challenges section of the
Checklist of Common Mistakes because it is easy to make mistakes.
22. As the diet kicks in and your child becomes more
amenable to discipline, establish a behaviour management program in your
household. I have found that
23. When you have learned which foods affect you and
established a new food routine, go back to your dietitian and have your
nutrition checked if you are avoiding gluten or salicylates and dairy foods
especially in a very young child.
24. Food chemical sensitivity varies depending on
the total load to which we are exposed. Environmental chemicals, stress, lack
of sleep, illness and hormones can all contribute. Avoid unnecessary
chemicals including aerosols; house renovation solvents, glues and paints;
new furniture, and pesticides, perfumed household cleaners, sunblock and
personal care products, see shopping list for alternatives. This is important
for everyone but even more so for people with eczema, autism and CFS. Allow
time for exercise, sleep and relaxation.
25. Most children like to eat some fatty and sugary
foods while being weaned off nasty food chemicals and takeaways. As your
child's tastes settle down, reduce the intake of fats and sugars, and eat
more failsafe vegetables, see Hide the Vegetables in the Failsafe Booklet.
26. It is not necessary to avoid sugar. Many
people think that sugar causes children’s behaviour problems, but it doesn’t.
Food chemicals in with the sugar - such as artificial colours or salicylates in
mint and fruit flavours - are most likely to be the cause of bad behaviour.
Although salicylate-induced hypoglycemia was first described in a medical
journal decades ago, most people are still unaware that salicylates in healthy
food like fruit and vegetables can actually cause sugar cravings and
hypoglycemic symptoms in some people. Home-made toffees and caramels from
natural ingredients are some of the safest lollies for children. About 95 per
cent of the confectionery in Australian supermarkets contains artificial
colours and most of the rest contain salicylates, for example in mint
flavouring. You can buy failsafe lollies for children from www.smashi.com and www.littlelollyshop.com. A word of
warning though, sugar lacks essential nutrients, contributes to obesity and is
bad for teeth so it is best limited and eaten as part of a balanced meal. Save
lollies for special treats.
27. Avoiding milk and wheat
Statistically speaking, additives and salicylates
are most likely to be the cause of your problems. However, milk can be a
problem for many and the introduction of A2 milk (www.A2australia.com.au) has made life
much easier for people with food intolerance. It is worth switching to A2 from
the beginning because along additive-free bread, it is the easiest of all diet
changes to make.
• Avoiding Dairy Foods
As well as avoiding milk, you need to avoid yoghurt,
skim milk powder in bread and biscuits,
icecream, cheese, cream and butter in that order of importance, where
milk, yoghurt and milk powder are the most important. Alternatives include
soymilk or ricemilk - and Nuttelex margarine - see shopping list. None of these
are suitable for infant feeding.
Babies need breastmilk or baby formula and there are
special formulas such as Neocate for babies with food intolerance available by
prescription only. See our lactation consultant listed under local contacts or
ask others on the failsafebaby group for more information. Some dietitians say
that people who improve on A2 milk will do better on soy or ricemilk, but many
families find it easier to switch to A2 milk first, then switch to soy or
ricemilk after a few weeks if necessary.
Some other soy issues: some people are affected by
soymilk as well as cows milk; ingredients change constantly in soymilks and you
can be caught by a non-failsafe ingredient, see Checklist of Common Mistakes,
and some people worry about possible gender ambiguity effects of phytoestrogens
in soymilks in infants and young children. For people avoiding dairy foods, it
is probably a good idea to break your diet with small regular amounts of dairy
foods such as weekly yoghurt to maintain your lactose tolerance.
• Avoiding Wheat or Gluten
It’s probably best not to start gluten free unless
there's a very good reason such as out of control symptoms, you really want to
and you know what you are doing. Suspect coeliac disease if there is a
coeliac in the family or a family history of short stature, insulin dependent
diabetes, unexplained anemia, osteoporosis, alopecia areata (patchy baldness)
or male or female infertility. If coeliac disease is a possibility, a blood
test is recommended first because the test only works while you are eating
wheat. You don’t have to be a coeliac to be affected by gluten, but
statistically speaking, gluten is less likely to cause problems than additives,
salicylates or amines.
Reversible gluten intolerance can be induced by
antibiotics or gastrointestinal infections. Many people mistakenly think they
are sensitive to wheat when it is really the bread preservative that affects
them. Going wheat free or especially gluten free is difficult and can lead to
mistakes. Sulphite preservatives in commercial gluten free flours can be a
problem and some coeliacs develop asthma or eczema for the first time when they
go gluten free. It is much harder to go gluten free and low sulphite. Except
for autism or if your dietitian recommends it, most people find it easiest to
leave wheat or gluten avoidance for a few weeks until they are settled into the
diet. By then many children will have improved so much it will be obvious they
don’t need to worry about avoiding wheat or gluten.
www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info
The information given is not intended as
medical advice. Always consult with your doctor for underlying illness. Before
beginning dietary investigation, consult a dietician with an interest in food
intolerance. You can find a supportive dietitian through the Dietitians
Association of
© Sue Dengate Update
June 2006
