driving myself crazy
I am fairly new to GFCF cooking. A question keeps coming to my mind. Do I need to look for a meat product (chicken for example) where the animal was only fed GFCF? For example, chicken was fed corn instead of other grains. My husband says no, but in my mind I keep hearing..."you are what you eat." Am I driving myself crazy or does the animals metabolism somehow cause his GC diet to not have an effect on my dinner plate when I cook him? dcg
DCG At this point in time, the medical research seems to indicate that the proteins are broken down enough that there are little or no traces of the original proteins in the animal meat. That said, there are those with allergies and sensitivities which cannot eat the parent animal. For example those truly allergic (read anaphylactic to dairy), sometimes cannot tolerate the meat of the beef. If you are unsure about whether your child has an ALLERGY in the true sense or is sensitive to beef, you could have him RAST tested for both IgE and IgG allergies - or you could do an elimination diet where he does not eat that product for two weeks, and then introduce it in a small quantity at the noon meal. If you see behaviour or other allergic reactions, then you could suppose your child were sensitive to something in the animal protein. Does that make sense? I would repeat the elimination and challenge just to make sure, but don't do it immediately after. If it is an allergy, you should probably give the protein four days to pass through the digestive tract before trying again, or you may end up with masked symptoms and conclude that you were wrong in your initial assessment when you really weren't. Clear as mud, right? It's a fascinating subject and disavowed by many doctors who insist that the breakdown of ingested food into the animals blood stream means that proteins have been converted to sugars and that a person cannot possibly be reacting to them. It is much the same as whether or not a baby cannot be allergic to trace proteins in his mother's breastmilk. Some say yes, some say no, and you just pretty much have to flounder around in the dark and hope you can come up with the right answer for your child. Blessings, BL ****************************** * v'col netivotcha shalom * ******************************