The last several months have been frustrating in our home. I rarely, am able to make something for dinner without at least one child whining about how disgusting it is. Just as I was learning to cope with the daily insults by my children and their broken tongues we took my oldest to the doctor for what we thought was a sinus infection. The doctor told us that this was not a sinus infection but allergies. And told us we could take her to an allergist, try over the counter allergy medications, or experiment with elimination.
We tried the allergy medication. Nothing worked. My daughter really was terrified of seeing an allergist (who wouldn't be . . . tons of shots in your back sounds miserable to me) so we went with trying elimination. I remembered one of my friends mentioning that her son was allergic to milk, and if he drank it he got really congested. As I researched the topic, it seamed more and more likely that this was it. One thing that really set me off to this was that milk allergies are not responsive to allergy medication.
It was Christmas time and I did the worst possible thing a mother could do to their child at Christmas time - take milk out of her diet. Think of all the wonderful candy goodness. . . all with milk. Hot chocolate - with milk. Sugar cookies, and cream cheese frosting! the list goes on and on. Not to mention all the Christmas Parties, that you have to decline eating anything. She was Miserable! And she let everyone know it. But IT WORKED!
After she had cleared up, she wanted to prove it was just a coincidence and she pleaded to be able to have milk again. We said ok. And all of the congestion, and grossesness, it all came back. My husband got fed up and told her no more!!!!!!!!!! We have tried to buy alternatives for her, so it doesn't seam so bad, almond milk, soy milk, almond ice cream, etc. She hates it. Not the flavor, just having an alternate. She hates being different. We went to a family party and all the deserts had milk in them. So my sister pulled out a box of Thin Mint cookies (she loves Thin Mints) everyone else was jealous, but she wasn't she ran out of the house bawling. We went to a wedding reception and they had a hot chocolate bar and she couldn't have it. I knew they were having a hot chocolate bar, I had considered bringing some chocolate soy milk to heat up in the microwave so she could join in there, but decided the last time it was such a nightmare I left it home. They were having every type of Oreo you could dream of and Oreo's are milk free (they are 100% not natural) so she should be fine just consuming as many oreos as she had wanted. But that wasn't enough. So I told her that she could take home one of the special hot chocolate paper cups and tiny straws, put what ever topping she wanted in it and I would make her hot chocolate when we got home. That night, as she was getting her jammies on I made her hot soy milk with Nesquik in it. She blew up. She wanted the Nesquik made with water. I said fine and I made her some hot water with Nesquik and she took one sip and said it was disgusting. We had a heated discussion about how she needed to get over being the victim. She made it difficult for me to feel bad for her when everyone was bending over backwards for her and she couldn't even say thank you. I informed her that some people chose to be dairy free because it is healthier. That her new diet was actually a step up from what others ate, not to mention lots more expensive.
That was a Saturday night. Sunday I tried making her chocolate chip cookies, with real chocolate chips with no milk products. They were made with the GOOD chocolate. This is not a substitute I tried to explain her, the other chocolate chips that we normally buy are the substitute. She didn't believe me. My mom joined in on the conversation and she was able to convince her that milk is only used in cheap chocolate.
The milk allergy has only complicated the whole dinner thing, the few things that everyone likes eating were things like pizza, fish sticks with cheesy pasta, creamy chicken pot pie, tacos, nachos, mashed potatoes and gravy. Suddenly my meals that no one complained about were out of the question. So my quest has been to figure out how to make meals we are use to without milk. and desserts so that she doesn't know I substituted.
Monday, was Family Home Evening, We sing songs, play games, have a dessert, and have a lesson. We talked about Eve. Eve lived in a beautiful garden, where nothing ever went wrong, she didn't have to work, there were no weeds to pull, no thorns to cause pain, just lovely fruit to eat. And then she partook of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why did she partake of the fruit? Because she knew that she really could not experience life in the Garden. She understood that if she partook of the fruit she would have to leave. But she also understood the blessing that would come from leaving. She really didn't know what it was like to be healthy, because she had never been sick. She didn't know what happiness was, because she had never experienced sadness, she was in a state of nothing. She couldn't learn, she knew there must be opposition in all things, because if there is no opposite, we can not experience what it truly is like to taste the sweet without the bitter. So next time we have a problem that frustrates us, such as we can not have milk we can blame it all on Eve. But then me must thank her after we blame her, because we could not have ever experienced the good without the bad.
Since that day, we haven't heard any complaining. She just politely declines the Parmesan cheese when we have spaghetti. At school she will eat chips and salsa when everyone else is eating nachos. And in the mean time I have been trying to figure out how to alter some of our favorite recipes to be dairy free. Banana Bread has failed miserably. But this morning I figured out how to modify my kid's favorite Blueberry Muffins to be dairy free.
My kids loved them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We tried the allergy medication. Nothing worked. My daughter really was terrified of seeing an allergist (who wouldn't be . . . tons of shots in your back sounds miserable to me) so we went with trying elimination. I remembered one of my friends mentioning that her son was allergic to milk, and if he drank it he got really congested. As I researched the topic, it seamed more and more likely that this was it. One thing that really set me off to this was that milk allergies are not responsive to allergy medication.
It was Christmas time and I did the worst possible thing a mother could do to their child at Christmas time - take milk out of her diet. Think of all the wonderful candy goodness. . . all with milk. Hot chocolate - with milk. Sugar cookies, and cream cheese frosting! the list goes on and on. Not to mention all the Christmas Parties, that you have to decline eating anything. She was Miserable! And she let everyone know it. But IT WORKED!
After she had cleared up, she wanted to prove it was just a coincidence and she pleaded to be able to have milk again. We said ok. And all of the congestion, and grossesness, it all came back. My husband got fed up and told her no more!!!!!!!!!! We have tried to buy alternatives for her, so it doesn't seam so bad, almond milk, soy milk, almond ice cream, etc. She hates it. Not the flavor, just having an alternate. She hates being different. We went to a family party and all the deserts had milk in them. So my sister pulled out a box of Thin Mint cookies (she loves Thin Mints) everyone else was jealous, but she wasn't she ran out of the house bawling. We went to a wedding reception and they had a hot chocolate bar and she couldn't have it. I knew they were having a hot chocolate bar, I had considered bringing some chocolate soy milk to heat up in the microwave so she could join in there, but decided the last time it was such a nightmare I left it home. They were having every type of Oreo you could dream of and Oreo's are milk free (they are 100% not natural) so she should be fine just consuming as many oreos as she had wanted. But that wasn't enough. So I told her that she could take home one of the special hot chocolate paper cups and tiny straws, put what ever topping she wanted in it and I would make her hot chocolate when we got home. That night, as she was getting her jammies on I made her hot soy milk with Nesquik in it. She blew up. She wanted the Nesquik made with water. I said fine and I made her some hot water with Nesquik and she took one sip and said it was disgusting. We had a heated discussion about how she needed to get over being the victim. She made it difficult for me to feel bad for her when everyone was bending over backwards for her and she couldn't even say thank you. I informed her that some people chose to be dairy free because it is healthier. That her new diet was actually a step up from what others ate, not to mention lots more expensive.
That was a Saturday night. Sunday I tried making her chocolate chip cookies, with real chocolate chips with no milk products. They were made with the GOOD chocolate. This is not a substitute I tried to explain her, the other chocolate chips that we normally buy are the substitute. She didn't believe me. My mom joined in on the conversation and she was able to convince her that milk is only used in cheap chocolate.
The milk allergy has only complicated the whole dinner thing, the few things that everyone likes eating were things like pizza, fish sticks with cheesy pasta, creamy chicken pot pie, tacos, nachos, mashed potatoes and gravy. Suddenly my meals that no one complained about were out of the question. So my quest has been to figure out how to make meals we are use to without milk. and desserts so that she doesn't know I substituted.
Monday, was Family Home Evening, We sing songs, play games, have a dessert, and have a lesson. We talked about Eve. Eve lived in a beautiful garden, where nothing ever went wrong, she didn't have to work, there were no weeds to pull, no thorns to cause pain, just lovely fruit to eat. And then she partook of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why did she partake of the fruit? Because she knew that she really could not experience life in the Garden. She understood that if she partook of the fruit she would have to leave. But she also understood the blessing that would come from leaving. She really didn't know what it was like to be healthy, because she had never been sick. She didn't know what happiness was, because she had never experienced sadness, she was in a state of nothing. She couldn't learn, she knew there must be opposition in all things, because if there is no opposite, we can not experience what it truly is like to taste the sweet without the bitter. So next time we have a problem that frustrates us, such as we can not have milk we can blame it all on Eve. But then me must thank her after we blame her, because we could not have ever experienced the good without the bad.
Since that day, we haven't heard any complaining. She just politely declines the Parmesan cheese when we have spaghetti. At school she will eat chips and salsa when everyone else is eating nachos. And in the mean time I have been trying to figure out how to alter some of our favorite recipes to be dairy free. Banana Bread has failed miserably. But this morning I figured out how to modify my kid's favorite Blueberry Muffins to be dairy free.
Milk Free Blueberry Muffins
- 1 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour
- 1/4 cup ground flax seed (I buy whole flax seed, it last longer that way, and then grind it)
- 1/4 cup pecans (ground with a spice grinder, I do half of the pecans, with the oats and half of them with the hot cereal to prevent making pecan butter)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 container of soy blueberry yogurt
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp. canola oil
- zest from 1 orange
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp of vanilla
- 2 cups of blue berries
mix all wet ingredients in, and then slowly add the dry ingredients. mix the blue berries in last.
I make them small, I divide into 24 cup cake cups. Bake at 375 for 22 minutes. Let cool for ten minutes before taking off cupcake liner because the crumble really bad when they are hot. So eat warm.
My kids loved them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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