The 5 Happy Camps Going All Natural

In August, 2012, our family began a food program called Feingold, which completely avoids artificial colors/dyes, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, and harmful preservatives (BHA, BHT, & TBHQ). For sanity sake, we will note that those things are known as "the bad stuff" from here on out! Our child's doctor had recommended it instead of medication for one of our children who was experiencing difficulty focusing in school. Our first step was to clean out absolutely everything from our pantry and refrigerator. I gave away about 85% of our groceries, because we had been eating a traditional American diet that was laden with the bad stuff. As part of the program, I had purchased a food list, that contains lists of products that are researched and found to be free of the bad stuff. I sat down with this food list, and created a four page shopping guide, with foods broken down by category, that I knew my children would eat and I could find in the local grocery stores. At that moment, I was feeling very limited and extremely overwhelmed, but I was committed to this! My first shopping trip on this program was tedious. I walked every aisle at the store and marked prices next to the things I found on my guide, for future comparison with other stores prices. After 3 hours, I had about half of the prices listed, and over $200 worth of products in my grocery cart.

For the next three months, we did Stage 1 Feingold, which is more restrictive because it limits naturally occurring salicylates in produce. Since December, 2012, we have continued to leave out all of the bad stuff, but have added in all naturally occurring fruits and vegetables. As a family, we buy produce that is on sale, and we try to buy organic when it is cost effective. I don't fuss about GMO ingredients, yet! As of today, I can say that we have strayed from the Feingold program, but continue to eat all-natural.

So, you want to know how this has changed us and our children right? Well, for my husband and I, we don't see a huge difference mentally. I am sure it is better for us physically, but we haven't seen any major physical changes. Our children are a different story. The eldest, for whom we initially started the program, we haven't seen a huge difference but her attention and focus is better. Our middle child, who is diagnosed as autistic, is the one who we have seen the most remarkable changes. His stemming behaviors (i.e. hand flapping, noise making, clicking, etc.) have mostly disappeared. He is calmer and less-agitated by outside stimuli. Due to his age, I will say that it is possible that it isn't completely diet related, but a combination of diet and development. Prior to going all natural, he was a very picky eater and would only eat the highly processed foods (i.e. hot dogs, lunch meat, etc.). Now, he is still somewhat selective, but mostly based on texture and foods touching, and will try most anything for one bite. Our youngest child was a newborn when we started the program, so she is just starting table food. The difference with her is that I allow her to eat everything we eat, because it contains all natural ingredients.

That is how a blog is born. I have always loved Facebook, and am overly open and honest about, well, everything. You can expect to get a lot of recipes, some excitement from our home, and a few rants every now and again. Now, continue following The 5 Happy Camps!