The Power of Knowledge

Knowledge is power and sometimes extremely overwhelming. This is the second part to my soul friends story, the reason behind my writing about my friends in the first place. They are as always there for support, encouragement and to just make me feel better about things. Recently my daughter has been diagnosed with an MSG intolerance, up until this point I had been under the delusion that msg was only found in fast foods and Chinese foods. So it came as a complete surprise to me to find out that my daughter may be suffering from an MSG intolerance, after all we ate a pretty healthy diet, we tried to avoid eating out and I was pretty concise of what I was making for the kids to eat even going so far as to compare nutrition labels when buying products at the grocery store, I can’t say that we always ate healthy (I am like many other people my age a fast food junkie) but we didn’t indulge in fast food all that often and I had made a point of planning out meals so as to avoid those nights of ordering out just because I had forgotten to take something out for dinner , better for us and much cheaper on the wallet.
So imagine my surprise when the doctor said that he thought that the reactions that my daughter had been having to what seemed to me to be completely unrelated foods might be that of an MSG intolerance. She had a lot of the known symptoms and reactions and by this point I was open to any suggestions as to what might possibly be making my poor little princesses face go all red and puffy. So the suggestion was to completely remove it from her system, great no problem how hard could it be after all it couldn’t possibly be in that many things, could it? Wow was I ever wrong. You see MSG is not just listed on the ingredients list as MSG it is cleverly disguised under other names I now have a list the length of my arm long posted to the fridge of things I need to look for on food packaging, and when I went through my cupboards for the first time I cried literally, how could it be that almost everything that I had in my house could contain msg and why did I not know about this?, What was I going to feed my daughter? So after a good cry and a good vent I went to work, I started to research and with help from some great friends and family found a wealth of information and recipes.
I am already noticing a difference in my daughters health and in my own as well. I am nowhere near an expert when it comes to our new “real” food life style but It gets a little easier every day and I have found some great recipes, and links and now have some new found cooking skills. I still dread the grocery store and will admit I snuck in a msg loaded burger and fries the other day when I was out without the kids( I blame the addictive nature of msg) . Because I don’t believe in making separate meals for each person I have now adapted this change for all of our family members, my husband I am pretty sure thinks that I am going to kill him with healthy foods and home cooking, I guess after thirty years of eating foods laden with extra’s your body needs a little bit of time to adjust to what real food tastes like. I get a real satisfaction out of making a meal from scratch and then sitting down at the table and watching as my kids not only like it but devour it. The only thing I am missing is pizza, I haven’t attempted a real pizza yet but think that will be coming up soon.
So I have embraced the challenge, here is to good health, good eats and good friends.