Re: OT: meals

[Guest guest]

I am so there with you, Debi! HELP! We're burned out, too, and have

picky eaters and allergies that make planning and cooking challenging!

Penny

>

> Hey all, a question. Do you all plan & buy food for a week or longer &

> have premade menus that you stick to no matter what, or do you sort of

> go with the flo of what's on hand & the request? I'm having a time

> trying to get a rotation diet going for Allie, schedules, other meals

> for everyone else, etc. Just wondering how you all handle it. Maybe I

> need to simply suck it up & get tough, this is what we're having

> period. I think some of it is that I'm not providing enough variety in

> the meals that we get burned out.

>

> Debi, the struggling housewife

>

[Guest guest]

And it seems no matter how hard I try to plan out a menu for a week

that either there is not enough time to make it or the idea of eating

is is just simply not appetizing that night. <sigh> I think homemaking

is the most difficult job ever.

Debi

>

>

> I am so there with you, Debi! HELP! We're burned out, too, and have

> picky eaters and allergies that make planning and cooking challenging!

>

> Penny

[Guest guest]

What are Allie's dietary restrictions?

We're GFCF, soy free, pineapple free, sunflower free.

> >

> >

> > I am so there with you, Debi! HELP! We're burned out, too, and have

> > picky eaters and allergies that make planning and cooking

challenging!

> >

> > Penny

>

[Guest guest]

I can't even imagine having to meal plan with all those restrictions, I

suppose like anything else, you get used to doing what you got to do... but

even in a home with no known allergies and no special diets, we still have a

hard time trying to get out of some meal ruts.

We used to do a menu each week and only buy what we needed for what was on

the menu (though meats are always purchased in bulk when on sale or at Sam's

club) and sometimes we'd have to swap days around or even have a back up

meal if I forgot to thaw something... but for the most part we stuck to the

menu... That just gets so old and quick.

And we only have so many things the kids will eat even though it is a pretty

wide range of things compared to many kids I know, we're still limited on

how the stuff is cooked or presented.

Any type of soup or casserole doesn't go over well usually. My older dd (11)

will eat it but just complain about it (she just knows she doesn't have much

of a choice but to eat what is served or go to bed without cause there won't

be a snack for those that choose not to eat dinner) But (ASD) will

sometimes throw a huge fit over food that she normally likes but it's not

what she wanted or expected right then... and she then needs to have time to

deal with the fact that this is what's for dinner. She will almost always

come back later and eat, but it could be a good hour or so later than when

dinner was served. And she has certain types of cooking she does not like.

Like chicken can be fried plain and in whole pieces, but small nuggets or

chunks can only come from mc nugguts or similar types pre-frozen, I can't

cook them myself. She'll do baked chicken easily... but rarely will she eat

pork chops or pork loin etc.

It definately seems like we have the same thing over and over again, and a

big part of my problem is hubby as well. He wants to have variety too, but

then any new dishes I find he's not fond of and we end up back to our same

old stuff.

I wish we didn't need food! LOL

>

>

> What are Allie's dietary restrictions?

>

> We're GFCF, soy free, pineapple free, sunflower free.

>

>

> > >

> > >

> > > I am so there with you, Debi! HELP! We're burned out, too, and have

> > > picky eaters and allergies that make planning and cooking

> challenging!

> > >

> > > Penny

> >

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

No gluten, casein, avoid soy, fruit juices, peanuts but not 100% on

the avoidance. The problem is SHE self-limits. She has reached the

point in feeding therapy that she will tolerate about 1T. of

applesauce, and eat some turkey, ham, and chicken. But at home she

won't eat any of that.

Debi

>

>

> What are Allie's dietary restrictions?

>

> We're GFCF, soy free, pineapple free, sunflower free.

>

[Guest guest]

i gave up a long time ago, with the gagging, the crying, the tantrums....hannah

never hardly eats a meal with us...we will now all sit down, and she is

wondering around, i tell her to eat fruit, or make some noodles, which is what

she does...i have her on supplements..............it might be a cop out, but i

just couldnt do it anymore...now just getting her used to have her periods is

going to be enough i can see. she doesn't look malnutritioned.........so for

now.........

Cheryl S [chez]

To: Autism_in_Girls@...: bubbetta@...: Sun, 28 Dec

2008 23:18:49 +0000Subject: Re: OT: meals

I am so there with you, Debi! HELP! We're burned out, too, and havepicky eaters

and allergies that make planning and cooking challenging!Penny>> Hey all, a

question. Do you all plan & buy food for a week or longer & > have premade menus

that you stick to no matter what, or do you sort of> go with the flo of what's

on hand & the request? I'm having a time> trying to get a rotation diet going

for Allie, schedules, other meals> for everyone else, etc. Just wondering how

you all handle it. Maybe I> need to simply suck it up & get tough, this is what

we're having> period. I think some of it is that I'm not providing enough

variety in> the meals that we get burned out.>> Debi, the struggling housewife>

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[Guest guest]

Hey Debi,

We do keep a menu, but I could never keep up with it if it was " no matter

what " . I know what we do won't work for everyone, but we fought the food

battles and dealt with the gagging and whining and OT food therapy when Allie

was

4 so we wouldn't have to fight them now. So ....

I got so sick and tired of the food wars, that one day I sat down and made a

list of every entreé I'd ever seen Allie eat at least a survivable amount

of. I made a file with every one of the recipes to keep on the counter. Each

weekend we sit down as a family, and fill in that week's menu and shopping

list together using the master list of what's in the file (a pecs list would

work just fine).

I set basic rules: how many meals of beef, poultry, fish; suggest some

veggie / entreé exchanges if any two combined together would have too high an

ick

factor for Allie. We go around the table and take turns filling in the main

dish for each night so that everyone feels they have a chance to pick what

they like. We try hard to give each person one " Pleeeease no, we've had that

every week for a month! " veto.

Then we go around again adding the veggies, using the list of what Allie

will eat. I make sure the veggies are getting rotated too, to randomize the

menu and for a healthy diet. I keep an eye out for recipes I think Allie might

tolerate, and we deliberately try those dishes once in a while - but we

always have them with her favorite side dishes to make sure she gets a filling

meal. Once in a great while, we actually find one she thinks " isn't too

horrible " , and we add it to the file. She's 13, and we're up to ... I don't

know

maybe 30 now? I'm not saying they all thrill her, but she'll eat at least some

of every one and she gets to pick several of her favorite dishes each week.

Sometimes I make double recipes, and freeze what we don't eat. The next

time someone picks it dh can pull it out and heat it, and voilá I don't cook

that night! :-) Sometimes, Allie gets left-overs of one of her own picks

while

dh and I get to have something she'd NEVER eat - a nice treat for us without

too much hassle, especially if we all eat the same veg.

One day I was so sick to death of doing all the cooking that I got smart,

and from then on made sure half of the menu each week was something dh could

fix. We always fix lots more than we need of favorite dishes, so we can have

leftovers for lunches or just collapse occasionally and heat up leftovers one

night for supper and ignore the menu.

If a meal doesn't get cooked by the end of the week, well it's still in the

freezer no big deal. We just roll it over to the next week's menu. Each

night the cook can pick any main dish off the menu. No night of the week is

locked in, but the cook has to fix the veg that's listed with their entreé.

Otherwise we could wind up at the end of the week with an entire meal that's

marginal for Allie instead of just one item. One night a week is dinner out or

take-out.

I hope there's something here that can be of help!

Sandi (Houston)

In a message dated 12/28/2008 5:15:03 P.M. Central Standard Time,

fightingautism@... writes:

Do you all plan & buy food for a week or longer &

have premade menus that you stick to no matter what

go with the flo of what's on hand & the request?

Debi, the struggling housewife

..

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[Guest guest]

I think all & all for us the feeding issues has been one of the

biggest, most frustrating aspects of autism. I'm not expecting her to

eat everything I give her, but at least 1 or 2 fruits, at least 1 or 2

veggies other than potatoes. Heck, I could live with her being a

vegetarian if she would at least eat SOME protein source. A bean, a

protein powder, something. If it weren't for supplements Allie would

have died years ago.

Debi

>

>

> i gave up a long time ago, with the gagging, the crying, the

tantrums....hannah never hardly eats a meal with us...we will now all

sit down, and she is wondering around, i tell her to eat fruit, or

make some noodles, which is what she does...i have her on

supplements..............it might be a cop out, but i just couldnt do

it anymore...now just getting her used to have her periods is going to

be enough i can see. she doesn't look malnutritioned.........so for

now.........

>

> Cheryl S [chez]

>

[Guest guest]

Hi am late in on this one. We considered the CF/GF diet for my kids but we would

of been left with water. I remember taking my son to the pead and him looking at

me at 160 pounds with this 25 pound 8 yr old who was eating 99%fat free chips

and drinking a can of diet coke... Yeah well you tell him he needs the calories

, if he would eat every chocolate in the store I would of brought them but noooo

he only likes low fat everything....

 

Subject: Re: OT: meals

To: Autism_in_Girls

Received: Monday, 29 December, 2008, 2:47 PM

No gluten, casein, avoid soy, fruit juices, peanuts but not 100% on

the avoidance. The problem is SHE self-limits. She has reached the

point in feeding therapy that she will tolerate about 1T. of

applesauce, and eat some turkey, ham, and chicken. But at home she

won't eat any of that.

Debi

>

>

> What are Allie's dietary restrictions?

>

> We're GFCF, soy free, pineapple free, sunflower free.

>

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[Guest guest]

We pretty much eat the same few things over and over and over. We're

dealing with 4 out of 5 family members with different food allergies,

me nursing on a baby-safe diet, and 4 out of 5 of us being vegetarian

(not the same 4 as the allergic ones). Plus my 2 year old has suddenly

become picky, although in weird ways, not your typical toddler white

foods diet. And my youngest is so far only tolerating 3 of the foods

we tried introducing

Trying to add variety to our meals takes WAY too much time, reading

new labels, shopping at even more stores, finding safe/well

balanced/easy to prepare after a full day of work foods...so I have

officially given up. We rotate pizza, ravioli, pasta, peirogies,

potato pancakes, grilled cheese, and a couple of others that are

escaping me right now. My husband complained and so now he prepares

his own meals (which opened up the cheese filled meals for us anyway!).

I know some people prepare different meals for different family

members based on diet, but here, I aim for the common denominator. I

just don't have the time or energy for making 5 different dinners.

Other meals, I am a little more lenient. I will make my older 2 eggs

for breakfast, for example. Or I'll give my oldest soy burgers/hot

dogs for lunch while my daughter has PB & J on regular bread. But

mostly...I just feed them the same stuff over and over. The kids would

rather always eat the same things anyway.

Amnesty

>

> Hey all, a question. Do you all plan & buy food for a week or longer &

> have premade menus that you stick to no matter what, or do you sort of

> go with the flo of what's on hand & the request? I'm having a time

> trying to get a rotation diet going for Allie, schedules, other meals

> for everyone else, etc. Just wondering how you all handle it. Maybe I

> need to simply suck it up & get tough, this is what we're having

> period. I think some of it is that I'm not providing enough variety in

> the meals that we get burned out.

>

> Debi, the struggling housewife

>

[Guest guest]

There is a " file " section here at " Autism in Girls " , if anyone would

like to post their favorite recipe(s) it would be very helpful to

others looking for information.

In addition, there is an area for " links " , you are welcomed and I am

encouraging you to please, post links of websites that might help

other with creating meals. I am one of the parents who needs ideas

when is comes to meal creation.

If we post to the " file " or " links " , area this information will be

available for everyone and in the unfortunate event of a computer

crash, which I have crashed a few, the websites can easily be re-obtained.

Sincerely,

Bev

[Guest guest]

I'll try to move the recipe links there next week, and add some recipes

we do use there, too.

>

> There is a " file " section here at " Autism in Girls " , if anyone would

> like to post their favorite recipe(s) it would be very helpful to

> others looking for information.

>

> In addition, there is an area for " links " , you are welcomed and I am

> encouraging you to please, post links of websites that might help

> other with creating meals. I am one of the parents who needs ideas

> when is comes to meal creation.

>

> If we post to the " file " or " links " , area this information will be

> available for everyone and in the unfortunate event of a computer

> crash, which I have crashed a few, the websites can easily be

re-obtained.

>

> Sincerely,

> Bev

>

[Guest guest]

We have picky eaters and problem feeders at my house, too, and I am

slowly cooking new twists on familiar foods and adding a few new things

at a time, and asking everyone to taste them, but not eat them. With

some repetition, they'll taste a bit more the second time I make

something, and I'm seeing my kids liking new foods (although not all of

them like everything--it's a challenge).

Penny

> >

> >

> > What are Allie's dietary restrictions?

> >

> > We're GFCF, soy free, pineapple free, sunflower free.

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Patti told me today about some label for a theory that says a few tiny

pieces of food is more likely to be tried that larger pieces. Allie

ate turkey on Thanksgiving but won't eat it now. We (therapist & I)

talked with Allie this morning about eating some if I cut it up in a

few tiny-tiny pieces with her fries, she agreed. Allie also ate 1/2 of

a jello cup, which for us is huge. Once she gets to enjoying it I'm

gonna switch over to homemade gelatin with natural fruit juices.

Debi

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