What a great turnout at yesterday’s rally to protest restrictions on the sale of raw milk. Here are some photos from the reporter mom perspective!

For full coverage, check out my article at The Washington Times Communities Family Today

Also visit Kimberly Hartke’s blog post about the rally.

Pasteurized milk is really a blip, historically speaking!

Know your farmer, know your cow!

Everyone enjoying the criminally transported goods!

Or check out all this great coverage!

Only 15 months old and she's already taking notes!

The Complete Patient

San Francisco Chronicle

TBD/News Channel 8

Christian Broadcasting Network

Delmarva Now

Gaithersburg Patch

Moms do not appreciate the government telling them how to feed their children and restricting their access to what they feel is a healthful food.

On November 1, 2011, mothers from around the country will protest outside the Food and Drug Administration building in Silver Spring, Maryland to protest the FDA’s restriction on the purchase of raw milk across state lines.

According to a press release from The Campaign for Real Milk, a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation, these moms want to:

“protest the FDA’s crackdown on raw milk production and distribution, arguing that the government campaign not only criminalizes raw milk, but criminalizes the American citizens who buy and consume it.

Prior to their peaceful demonstration, a caravan of mothers will cross state lines with raw milk and invite the FDA to witness what the agency wrongly considers to be a criminal act. Media are invited to ride along as embedded reporters to report on how the FDA responds to what it wrongly terms a violation of the law.”

If you agree that Americans should be able to control our own health choices, consider joining the demonstration at FDA Headquarters at 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD. The event is slated for 12 noon to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, November 1. More information on the event and the route the demonstrators will be taking is available at http://rawmilkfreedomriders.com/ ,at NaturalNews.com at the Farm Food Freedom Coalition and on Facebook.

The rally is hosting some big names in food freedom, including Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, featured in the documentaries Food, Inc., Farmageddon, and Fresh; Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures dairy, the largest raw dairy company in the U.S.;  David Gumpert, journalist and author of Raw Milk Revolution; Max Kane, currently fighting the state of Wisconsin for right to private contracts; and Michael Schmidt, farmer currently staging a hunger strike in Canada regarding raw milk access.

Weston A. Price Foundation president and Nourishing Traditions author Sally Fallon Morell and WAPF publicist and HartkeIsOnline.com Real Food blogger Kimberly Hartke share resources on raw milk and traditional diets.

Although my head is reeling from attending two conferences this weekend and I’d like to just put my feet up at home for the next month, I’ve got this date on my calendar!

Even if I don’t personally tolerate any dairy very well, I certainly want my family and all other families to have access to this healthful living food humans drank for centuries until industrial farming created unhealthy conditions. Today’s small sustainable farms know what they are doing, and their customers reap the health benefits of raw milk obtained from happy grassfed cows.

And I see no reason why the federal government should waste its time and money on restricting consumers’ choices and bankrupting small family farms.

Isn’t this a free country? Aren’t there a lot of other needs for our tax dollars?

A tale of two conferences

I’ve had a split personality this weekend.

Much of my time has been spent at the wonderful blogging conference, Blogalicious. Since I first arrived at the conference Friday morning, I’ve met great people, caught up with friends, and learned a ton about social media and media resources in general. A favorite session so far was a panel on finding “balance” led by Jessica Smith and Jeannette Kaplun. I’ll do more of a recap later this week for TheDCMoms.com.

Most of the Blogalicious attendees are staying on site at National Harbor, but I still have a baby who nurses through the night, and I live only nine miles away. I also have an extremely restricted diet and feel a whole lot better if I cook my own food. So I’ve spent mornings and evenings here at home with my family.

Take Back Your Health Conference expo hall

But the split doesn’t stop there. This weekend is also the inaugural Take Back Your Health Conference right in my backyard in Arlington, Virginia. Organized by an amazing young woman who was so sick she had to leave college but then found healing through diet and lifestyle changes, the conference has a great line-up of giants in the field of holistic health. So I spent some of today there, too.

It’s been interesting to be at the blogging conference thinking about my priorities and passions and then to see so many people engaged in those passions at the health conference. And then to come home and live some of those passions — at least attachment parenting and healthful eating, anyway. A few other aspects of healthy living are taking a back seat with so much shuttling around.

Think I’ll go have a mindful moment with my partner now!

That is, if my daughter doesn’t wake up first.

When my nutritionist friend suggested I try integrating some animal protein and animal fat back into my diet, I was offended. Didn’t she know how bad it was for the earth to waste all those resources on raising animals instead of vegetables and grain? Didn’t she know that a low-fat diet was healthier?

Since I was grappling with infertility, depression, cystic acne and digestive issues and she had recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and infertility to be midway through a healthy pregnancy, I decided to give her way a shot. It turns out that she knew a lot more than I did.

Unlike pale yellow battery eggs, pastured eggs are the color of a richly orange setting sun.

The processed soy I was consuming three or more times a day was terrible for my health, and it wasn’t good for the environment either. Once I added animal products back into my diet — slowly at first — my periods came back, my mood improved, and I felt stronger than ever before.

What followed was a move to gluten-free and dairy-free living and better mental and physical health than I’d ever known.

And, later, a baby.

I’ve now had two easy pregnancies but twice found my system struggling in the postpartum year. Both times I’ve improved dramatically by cutting back or cutting out all grains, starchy vegetables and sugar, even fruit.

Like more and more people I know, I’m following the GAPS diet. Designed by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride with a nod to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome. It has helped children on the autism spectrum, people with Crohn’s Disease, and so many more. I have become a believer that my body and mind were poisoned by all the gluten-full food my unknowing Celiac Disease self ate for so long and by so much processed food.

Now I keep my tummy happy by eating only Real Food I make myself. A staple is bone broth, or stock made from the bones of pasture-raised chicken and beef from sustainable farms. If animals were all eating the foods they were designed to eat — grass for cows, bugs and such for chickens — there wouldn’t be much of an environmental argument against being an omnivore. Maybe there are too many people in the world to feed them all on small family farms, but I can eat that way.

To get my fresh, vital phytonutrients, I use a juicer most mornings, using as much local and seasonal produce I can. Although I used to eat salad three times a day, until I can handle the fiber of raw foods again, juicing is the best I can do.

All my efforts come from the belief that food is medicine. There is nothing that mainstream medicine could do for me that would fix my problems if I didn’t address them at the source through nutrition. My body had 30+ years of eating the wrong food for it (and often, not good stuff for anyone), and it may take a while to repair itself, especially while breastfeeding and slowly returning to non-pregnancy hormone levels.

In November, I will hear Campbell-McBride speak about GAPS and hear other Real Food renegades bust myths at the Weston A. Price Foundation conference in Dallas, Texas. I hope everyone who cares about food for health and about the health of the planet will join me!

Related posts:

GAPS Diet update

Why I’m not a vegetarian anymore

Gluten-free expo showcases products galore

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Read more posts about food at Blog Action Day 2011!

I’d always been intrigued by the lectures I saw Dr. Felix Liao giving about the connection between dental health and whole body health, but his Whole Health Dental Center just seemed too far away.  Then I noticed someone posting on the Northern Virgina Families for Natural Living list that his office had moved inside the Beltway, to Falls Church. And one of my friends and members of my Holistic Moms chapter, health and fitness guru Nina Elliott of Health and Wholeness, posted an event and mentioned she was getting her mercury amalgams removed by Dr. Liao.

So I finally scheduled myself an appointment for an initial consult this summer to talk about my TMJ issues and the recurrence of my thyroid disorder and the related health woes I have been dealing with in recent months.

Could the poor alignment of my face and other cranial restrictions possibly be part of the picture?

Is my pituitary gland struggling because of the way I put pressure into my jaw every night and whenever I am the least big stressed or upset.

What about my son’s jaw tension and his tendency to clench or want to bit when he gets upset?

With a tired baby on my lap and her brother in a playdate, I started the conversation last month with the intention to schedule a CBCT scan in the future and probably develop some kind of appliance. Meanwhile, my husband has long complained of ENT problems he associates with his orthontia and teeth he had removed. When Dr. Liao told me he was giving a lecture on helping children avoid that kind of fate, I set about to get there.

Below is an excerpt from the article I wrote about the lecture for my column at the Washington Times Communities. It was sponsored by the Northern Virginia Whole Food Meetup group and organized by the fabulous Alana Sugar, nutritionist extraordinaire.

With limited childcare, I still haven’t gone in for my scan, but my husband called Dr. Liao’s office the next day and has already had his!

Dr. Liao will be presenting at the upcoming Take Back Your Health Conference in Arlington on October 22 and 23. I’ll update this post when I know when he’s set to speak.

At the lecture I attended, folks had their heads spinning as they saw examples of form following function. Before and after photos of children and adults who had their bite corrected were startling: one boy looked as if he’d grown half a head in just a week. Facial symmetry and general vibrance improved, too.

The crux of the message was that nothing in the body happens in isolation. When we attempt to straighten teeth for cosmetic purposes, we risk causing a whole host of other problems if we don’t look at posture, alignment, and position of the bite.

If children have persistent headaches, ear problems, fatigue even after resting, chances are there is something amiss in their bite. Posture is related to the way our mouth lines up with our spine and the way our jaws line up. Cranio-Dental Disorder, Dr. Liao explained, can manifest not only in colicky babies and preschoolers with persistent ear infections; it can also contribute to struggles with academics and sports throughout life.

So why do some children come into the world with poor mouth and dental structures? A variety of causes can contribute, with nutrition one of the most powerful. Dr. Liao cited the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist who traveled the world in the 1920s and found compromised dental and overall health among people whose parents had abandoned their traditional, nutrient-dense diets for processed foods.

Photographs reveal startling differences between groups who had incorporated convenience foods and those – even in nearby villages – who held onto their ancestral diets, which were often rich in fats and almost never vegetarian,  Picture wide jaws with straight teeth among the native peoples Price studied in contrast to narrow, V-shaped bites and crooked teeth in populations that ate processed food.

Other causes can include pollution from the 200 chemicals found in baby cord blood, as identified by the Environmental Working Group, and birth trauma that is not addressed early on by a chiropractor, osteopath or craniosacral therapist. Children who don’t want to give up a pacifier or stop sucking their thumb are likely trying to relieve a cranial strain, Dr. Liao said. “They are treating themselves the best way they know how,” he offered, but these habits will not address the core problem and can, in fact, create others.

Dr. Liao explained that our bite is not static, and it’s not simply mechanical. It’s part of our entire body structure. “You can’t drive straight if the steering system in your body” is not properly aligned, he explained. His “whole health” model of thinking rejects compartmentalizing the body, which he says works as a unit. By contrast, he said, many dentists fail to see he ripple effect of the jaw to other health issues, as though treating back pain, neck pain, or headaches does not fall under their job description.

Dr. Liao posited that a dental appliance should be “the first line of treatment” for snoring as it can help get the tongue out of the throat by correcting a narrow or receded jaw. It’s also possibly to expand the base of the nose by widening the palate, Dr. Liao said.

Not only can larger nostrils help with snoring, but addressing airway problems can alleviate oxygen deficiency that often results in headaches and depression in women and erectile dysfunction in men. In some cases, large tonsils restrict airways. Dr. Liao recommends working with a nutritionist, like event host Alana Sugar, to address food allergies that might affect tonsil size.

Breastfeeding helps to naturally develop a wide palate, and good nutrition from childhood can also keep a healthy individual developing a healthy bite. If children do develop problems, getting treatment early – often with expanders – can change a child’s medical fate. Dr. Liao quoted Dr. Jay Gerber who said that any treatment after age 12 is a compromise.

So what is a parent to do? Prenatally, both parents should get good nutrition from whole foods with plenty of healthy fats. Consider doing a cleanse before even trying to get pregnant. Breastfeed and follow a green lifestyle so that your children have the best chance of developing a healthy jaw and healthy body.

Observe your child’s face for balance vs. asymmetry or for other problems like pronated feet, and have him or her evaluated by age eight if you have any concerns. Dr. Liao uses a three-dimensional CBCT scan to see look not just at the bite and jaw structure but also to see if the head is mounted squarely over the body. From there, he has the information he needs to determine the right kind of appliance or complementary therapies.

The first time I heard of the Weston A. Price Foundation was the day after Thanksgiving 2003. My face was full of acne, my belly was full of gas, mind was muddled, and I hadn’t had a period in almost three months. Not exactly the picture of health.

But I was still offended when the nutritionist I spoke to suggested that my vegetarianism — near veganism — might have contributed to my gut and skin problems, my fertility, and my depression. How could this woman call herself a nutritionist? Meat was so bad, I thought.

Still, her five-month pregnant belly and her regained health after years of chronic fatigue syndrome convinced me that her wisdom might be valid.

Although I wouldn’t actually purchase Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions cookbook for another three years, I did start to eat eggs and full-fat dairy, and I stopped eating soy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I ovulated two weeks later and began having regular cycles from then on. Soon after, I started eating meat again, and my health improved.

A traditional diet, I believe was key to my healing, including from the the thyroid disorder I was diagnosed with just after that meeting with the nutritionist. Now, eight years later, I have two children and a much better sense of health and wellness.

I’m so grateful to have learned about this approach, and it’s wonderful to see so many people writing about this way of eating, including Kelly the Kitchen Kop and Jenny at Nourished Kitchen. One of the other top Real Food bloggers is Kimberly Hartke of Hartke Is Online! Kimberly also serves as the publicist for the Weston A. Price Foundation, and she’ll be speaking on September 15 to the Arlington/Alexandria chapter of Holistic Moms Network. Her talk, “A Respect for Tradition: How Looking Back Can Show the Way to Wellness” will address some of the following questions:

• How can the wisdom of traditional diets address modern-day health concerns?

• What connections between health and nutrition did pioneering dentist Weston A. Price find when he traveled the world in the 1920s, and how can we benefit from what he learned?

• What is so great about raw milk?

• How come obesity rates started rising when low-fat diets came on the scene?

• What are healthy fats and why do we (and our children, especially) need them in our diets?

The presentation will be the focus of the group’s September meeting, which is 7-9 p.m. at 716 S. Glebe Road, Arlington, Virginia on Thursday, September 15, 2011. For more details, visit the Holistic Moms blog.

It was a day when every hour looked like 5 p.m.

Grey. Rain. Then rainier, and windy.

My boys, on their way home through the hurricane. (Alternate title: A visual representation of the fog I've been feeling in my body and mind for weeks.)

So why am I feeling better than I’ve felt since, like, June?

One guess is the yoga. I did about 20 minutes alone upstairs in my bedroom this morning, after 5 minutes using the chi machine. Post-juice, pre-breakfast. And pre-arrival of babysitter who was to spend four glorious hours keeping the kids entertained. The wash of ooh-ah-um after even a short bridge pose is amazing. The high is so obvious when you don’t do it for a while.

Yes, yoga probably helped. But what else?

Last night and this morning I used some Bach flower essences. Olive for exhaustion. Scleranthus for indecision. Elm and something else for responsibility/burden and blaming self. Or maybe I chose the one on forgiveness.

Speaking of forgiveness, last night I brought up an unresolved hurt from last weekend with my husband. I wouldn’t say I have zero fear of the same kind of thing happening again that I initially got upset about, but I did feel reasonably heard. So that probably helped. As did some Tivo’d Saturday Night Live we watched after clearing the air. (Thanks, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph for the opening monologue/duet on the Mother’s Day episode).

Reading about letting go and being mindful in Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children and Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life has probably helped my mood (and my willingness to drop last weekend’s scuffle once I’d had the chance to shout about it).

Though I find myself often slightly annoyed at the authors of these books — with a crabby, “Yes, I already know that’s how I should be. But how? Map it out for me in my actual life!” –  I also notice that just the act of reading about Zen makes me breathe more slowly and deliberately. Chew more. Pause. All important things. All possibly due some credit when it comes to my improved mood and energy.

On a more physical level, some changes might finally be taking effect. It’s Saturday night, four days since I saw a chiropractor/healer who adjusted me, muscle-tested me, gave me two doses of homeopathic remedies and loaded me up with supplements. I had so much going on, I sucked up my daughter’s appointment too, taking almost two full hours of this doctor’s time!

My thyroid is low, and my cholesterol super high. My adrenals are a wreck. I’ve felt not just depressed but fatigued beyond my years since early July.  Some bodywork a few weeks ago might have helped, but I was banking on a visit to this healer to get me on the road to recovery. Some Standard Process supplements and others should help with my fat metabolism problem, which is probably the cause of my high cholesterol and thanks to  my thyroid disorder, which is probably exacerbated by my adrenal fatigue, which probably also messes with my digestion and means I’m not absorbing nutrients. I’ve got supplements for all those issues, at least for a short time until I round a corner. Maybe the new pills I’m popping — or the extra food-based B vitamin with dinner — are starting to take effect.

Just before the earthquake started, the doctor was muscle-testing me about sleep, coming up with the prescription for 8-10 hours and a bedtime as close to 9:00 as possible. The rumble of the ground, I believe, was the universe hearing the doctor’s pronouncement and pounding exclamation marks over and over like a teenage girl’s note about a crush.

Okay, I get it. I need to sleep.

One of the tidbits of wisdom in the Buddhism for Mothers book was a quote from someone else to the effect of: it’s not at the gas pump that you actually use gas. Right. Store up the good to use later, or pay for it if you run on empty. I believe I’m now — one year postpartum — feeling the effects of doing too much after A’s birth, not napping with her at all (like I did daily with my son back in the day), and having even more interrupted nights very early on postpartum (thanks to my champion newborn night pooper!).

No wonder my digestion got so wonky. No wonder my skin is scaly and red. No wonder I bruise if you breathe on me.

And now the hair shedding has begun. And my belly has the look of an ad with the headline “Is your thyroid making you fat?” And since July, it’s been all I can do to walk around the block by myself, or up the stairs carrying the baby. Whose body is this?

Today, it feels a little more like mine.

Maybe the fact that my house is finally getting back in order after a kitchen remodel has helped. I can see the floor of my office again. Drywall dust has been wiped off the dining room table. The kitchen is usable enough to go from clean to messy to clean again several times a day, just like normal (except with more room, and prettier!) I got to inhabit my home all alone for a short time today, and it’s so much prettier and happier. Me too.

As Hurricane Irene pounds the coast and darkens our skies, there was nowhere to go this afternoon. Nothing to do, so we moved the couch and did yoga together. It was one of the rare times I’ve looked around and though simply, without any qualifiers, “This is my life.” And I smiled.

After my husband checked the gutters, we all went for a walk in the pouring rain, happy in hats and summer heat. Soaked enough to peel off everything upon our return. I washed my hair for possibly the first time this week.

Power may be lost soon, but for now we all have bellies full of delicious roasted chicken. Pathways have opened in my home.

Thanks be to my babysitter, who took kids outside before the rains came and to a rec center after they descended.

Thanks also to my husband for earning the money to build a kitchen I can love.  And to my doctor and everyone whose skill and hands have helped my weary bones.

Thanks to wise mama writers and wise-cracking mom actors for reminding me to smile.

And thanks to the threat of natural disasters for helping me see clearer priorities, for shining light on this darkest of summer days.

May the world look familiar tomorrow.

The sunflower that wasn't eaten by deer. Just appeared this week. Maybe I should give it some credit for the sun in my heart.

Once upon a time, I could go on a road trip without making all my own unprocessed, organic, starch-free food.

Once upon a time I could go to my parents’ house without drooling over idea of family-provided childcare so that I could enjoy some time to catch up on all things computer — email (professional and person), internet research, volunteerism and activism, blog writing and community-building/social networking.

Once upon a time, I did not measure my life in the time between naps and meals.

This is not that time.

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike

I have so much to say about my travels thus far, here in the Midwest with family while our kitchen gets expanded back home in Virginia. From an four-hands energy healing session at a groovy new spa in Ann Arbor to images of my son driving a golf cart, there’s plenty to say.

But the baby, who was listening to my old Fisher Price clock sing “90 Years Without Slumbering” is now done laughing at me in irony of the tune and is instead going for the computer cords, just like she does at home.

And I need to eat.

So I will catch up later. But I am here. And I will have plenty to say when I can find the time to say it.

I was invited to participate in an interview recently with Dr. Keith Ayoob, a nutritionist who appears regularly on “Good Morning America,” CNN, and ABC news and who writes for SchoolMenu.com. One of my favorite articles of his is called “D Pressed;” it highlights the importance of Vitamin D to mental health.  Anyone familiar with Julia Ross’s book The Mood Cure knows that a Vitamin D test is essential if you’re dealing with any mental health issues, and with most physical ones, too. Dr. Joseph Mercola has a great Vitamin D Resource Page on his website, Mercola.com.

When asked what foods he recommends for children, Dr. Ayoob said he’s always looking to get into people what they might be missing. Vitamin D is one of these important nutrients. Although some foods are fortified with Vitamin D, the Weston A. Price Foundation cites high-quality cod liver oil as a key source of this fat-soluble vitamin and raises concerns about synthetic forms of Vitamin D in this article.

Of particular concern to Dr. Ayoob was that all children and adults start their day with breakfast. Children who eat breakfast do better in school, he said, and everyone who eats breakfast is less likely to get tired in the afternoon. “You cannot have a healthy diet without breakfast,” Ayoob asserted.

Parents can get creative with breakfast, he said. Last night’s leftover chicken drumstick is a fine source of protein and has fat that will leave a child sated, the “stick-to-your-ribs” quality. In hot summer months, families might opt for cooked foods in the mornings and cooler foods in the evening.

When we do fire up the option, he urged, we should “over cook,” not in quality but in quantity. Don’t warm up the whole house for just a few baked potatoes; rather, plan ahead to cook many things at once that you can eat throughout the week with less effort.

This is a great strategy, but start early! I have been known to let dinner get way too late because I was determined not to start the oven until I had a chicken, four vegetables and my grain-free almond “bread” to bake all at once.

Another summer consideration is hydration. Dr. Ayoob wanted to remind parents that you don’t only drink water; eat your water too! Cool off with fruits and veggies that have high water content, like melons and cucumbers. Of course, many of these foods (including berries, peaches, apples, celery and green pepper) must be organic because they are on the dirty dozen list of worst produce when it comes to pesticide residue.

Back to time-planning, be sure to prioritize eating as a calm, community experience. Meals are a time to model social skills and manners. The more distractions kids have, the harder it is to enjoy eating. Even if breakfast seems to take only 6-7 minutes to eat, Dr. Ayoob said, plan for a 20-minute eating experience to show that you value healthy eating and family time as an important part of your day.

When I asked Dr. Ayoob about the importance of soaking grains for optimum digestibility, he suggested eating a piece of citrus with cereal instead. Dr. Ayoob’s interview was sponsored by General Mills, a company that produces many varieties of what Dr. Ayoob referred to as “ready-to-eat” cereal, or boxed cereal, including many gluten-free brands. This study shows that 86% of parents think cereal is a healthy breakfast choice, and it links to FAQ pages extolling the virtues of cereal and to the website cerealbenefits.com

In contrast to the concerns I raised about extrusion (the industrial process that creates boxed cereals out of making a slurry that is then heated at high temperatures) at the beginning of our interview and in posts here and here (concerns that were elaborated on in a recent post at Nourished Kitchen), Dr. Ayoob expressed a very positive outlook on whole-grain boxed cereal as a good source of nutrients. He first referenced it served with low-fat and fat-free dairy as part of a healthy breakfast.

When asked more about fat, Dr. Ayoob did admit that fat can provide satiety, and in later references to dairy he offered whole milk as a fine solution, though he did not support the drinking of raw milk, which had been in the news shortly before our interview.

He explained that his main concern when addressing issues of obesity is the number of calories. Having more than 25-30% of your calories from fat — a concentrated source of calories — would require one to reduce portions, Dr. Ayoob said, adding, however, that it’s important for children to get enough calories and enough protein in the morning. He suggested that keeping a hard-boiled egg in the fridge is a good way to have a quick source of protein for kids.

Overall, Dr. Ayoob was most interested in getting across the point that it’s important to eat breakfast of some kind for many reasons, including to stave off obesity.

For the full picture, check out our interview here!

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For more on what it means to be into Real Food, as I mentioned at the beginning of my interview, visit Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesday blog carnival

Going gluten-free in 2004 was part of my holistic effort to bring my body into balance and heal my thyroid from Graves’ Disease, autoimmune hyperthyroidism. My goal was to get off anti-thyroid medication and get healthy enough to get pregnant. Although I also hoped to go off anti-depressant medication, I didn’t really expect that a gluten-free, dairy-free diet and other alternative health measures would also make such a dramatic change in my mental outlook.

That year of diet changes and nutritional supplements ended with me in a healthier, happier place than I’d ever been.

But gluten-free is not enough for me. I reduced carbs dramatically after some rough gastrointestinal episodes shortly my son was born in 2006. It became clear that I could not tolerate corn and that even limiting rice and other starches helped my gut and my psyche, especially since my body was so challenged by recovering from a surgical delivery and from exclusively breastfeeding my son until he became interested in food around one year.

My nutritionist introduced me to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and the Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet (GAPS), protocols that limit sugars to monosaccharides and that eliminate all grain and starchy vegetables. Yesterday, Jenny at Nourished Kitchen blog posted a great intro to GAPS: “Why everyone is talking about the GAPS diet and 5 resources to get started.”

As my son grew,  I started baking to provide him gluten-free substitutes for preschool and parties, but he wasn’t the only one to eat them! The more I ate of these breads and cookies — even if they used only a little maple syrup — the worse I felt. Finally, this past February, I felt I had no choice but to commit to the GAPS diet.

I generally prefer grown foods to processed foods, but caution must be exercised in moving from the introductory phase of the GAPS diet to the full GAPS diet. A sensitive gut can only take so much acid, sugar, and fiber.

There was good progress until peaches showed up at the farmers market and yellow cherry tomatoes that taste like sunshine popped up in every corner of our garden. It’s been hard to resist the fruits of the summer harvest, but my tummy today is telling me that I’ve moved too fast. For people like me whose gut has experienced such damage, patience needs to be had before one can tolerate the sugar and fiber of fresh fruits and vegetables in any substantial quantities.

Many approaches to gluten-free living simply substitute gluten-free grains for gluten grains. So I’m interested to see what the vendors and experts will say at tomorrow’s Gluten-Free Expo sponsored by the Celiac Disease Program at Children’s National Medical Center. The issue of Living Without magazine where I learned about the expo contained an article about SCD/GAPS, so I’m hopeful that people are getting on board the grain-free, low-sugar bandwagon.

The expo is 4-8 p.m. and is followed by a cocktail reception, both at the Embassy Suites downtown. Details and tickets are available at  www.DCGlutenFreeExpo.com. There will be over 50 vendors talking up and/or selling their wares (some at a significant discount), and participants can learn more about the gluten-free community in and around D.C.

Submit a comment below about what diet works best for you and enter to win a free entrance to the expo ($10) and the cocktail party ($75).