Many of you know my story of why I started on my Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Whole Foods journey. I decided to change due to my daughter's growing health issues and my health issues. In the beginning, I didn't know food was even an issue until I met a sweet lady by the name of Eileen Bader. A close friend had given me her email and told me that Eileen had made these radical food changes in her family's life. I contacted Eileen mainly out of curiosity and desperation to make some change in my own family's life. I wasn't sure what she was going to tell me but I sure was open because everything I was trying, on my own accord, was not working. Eileen's story inspired me to make a change for myself and my family. She has been gracious enough to share on our blog her experiences in hopes of reaching you...Thank you Eileen!
Gluten Free Momma
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| The Bader Family Tulsa, Oklahoma |
HOPE. Such a simple four-letter
word which means so much. This is all
that I wanted for our family when I realized my children’s significant learning
difficulties.
In 2009 I brought our 1st grade daughter home from a school environment
to join her older brother to be homeschooled.
She had a difficult time in Kindergarten and I was hoping that
one-on-one teaching would be the key to her learning. What shocked me when I brought our daughter
home was that she couldn’t sit still through any of our lessons. She had always been a very energetic child and
I knew she had a joy for life, but I never realized that energy was spilling
over to the point of a lack of self control.
She would physically rock back and forth in her chair, fall out of her
chair, and have a complete lack of focus on anything I would try to teach
her. She also has many challenges with
her impulse control. We have had these
issues since she was young but I never related them to ADD/ADHD until I started
homeschooling and putting all the pieces of her behavior together.
Life was very hard and it was heart wrenching not having an answer for
what could help. That is when I started
my research about diet/nutrition and how food affects the body. What I found is that there is a gut/brain
connection and everything we eat can affect our bodies in more ways than we can
imagine.
What we realized for our daughter, and also son, is that both of them
are very sensitive to sugar, artificial preservatives, artificial colors,
artificial flavors, milk, and gluten. We
started supplementing with fish oil to help with brain development. http://www.diannecraft.org/article-009.htm We also started taking probioitics to help
digestion, strengthen their immune system, and balance their gut flora. Balanced gut flora is important to all the
functions of the body.
Within one month of starting on this new diet I saw a completely new
child immerge. She could sit in her
chair (no rocking or falling out of it).
She could focus on her work for the first time. She was able to have more self control. I was amazed and ecstatic that a simple diet
change could have so much affect on her.
Also, in the process of changing our family’s diet I reaped quite a few
unexpected benefits. Some of these
include: lost 30 pounds, no more joint
pain, no more fatigue, unbelievable energy, no more PMS, an indescribable
feeling of joy and contentment, no more foot and arch pain, no more
prescription allergy medication, and no more sinus infections.
Some of the books I read that helped me to understand the link between
food and our brains/bodies are:
· Gut
and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
· Healing
the New Childhood Epidemics by Dr. Kenneth Bock
It was then that I went further in the research and watched some movies
(from the library) that talked about how much our food supply has changed in
the last 50 years:
· Food
Inc.
· Future
of Food
For the first time I had hope that the future was going to be bright! What a wonderful feeling of joy knowing there
was something I could do to help my family.
This article was written by Eileen Bader. Eileen currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband and two children. She is a proud homeschool mom.
