Salicylates Challenge = FAIL

Over this long weekend we did our sals challenge. And we failed :(




According to the challenge guidelines, for a sals challenge you must consume at least 6 serves of salicylate rich foods per day for 7-10 days or until you see a reaction. Each serve is the equivilent of 1 cup of sal-only fruits and vegies (so no tomatoes, spinach, grapes, etc that contain aminies and glutimates as well), 150 mL unpreserved apple juice, 1 tbsp honey or curry powder, 1 cup strong tea.

The girls were very excited to do the challenge and actually get to eat fruit again, so on Saturday our food diary looked like this:

10am: 1 cup watermelon each, 150mL nudie apple juice each
11am: (girls only) 1/2 royal gala apple, 1/6 granny smith apple
12.45pm: (Em and I, Z took one bite and didn't like it!)Homemade cream corn on toast (2 cups corn cooked, 1/2 tub philly cream for cooking - blitzed in the food proccessor then toasted in a sandwhich press - pepper on mine)
1pm: (girls) 1 cup watermelon
5pm: Failsafe dinner (leftover chicken alfredo)
6.30pm: (girls) 1/2 royal gala apple, 1/6 granny smith apple
7.30pm: (girls) 1 cup each coles organic sweet and salty popcorn
9pm: (Me only) English breakfast tea

So over the course of the day Z and I had 6 serves and Em had 7.

Besides one tanty at the shops by Z that was diffused in about 5 minutes, Saturday was a really good day. The girls were listening, playing nicely and overally being nice to be around. That night I was awake until 3am. Not sure if it was the sals or caffiene in the tea, or just the fact that I was still doing things until that time.

Things were looking promising - I even started looking at my cook books to see what recipes I could add once we had finished the challenges . . .

Then came Sunday.

Shan had been fishing the previous night and got home about 9am. Before this time the girls had been playing nicely, even walking out of their bedroom in the morning hand in hand. Then things went downhill. We had had 1 cup of watermelon and 150mL coles cloudy apple juice before Shan had gotten home.

Shan has a tendency to stir the girls to get a reaction. Well he got one. Crying, yelling, running around like kids gone crazy, jumping on the lounge, hitting each other and Z bit Emily. Em's cheeks became very hot and red too. Out came the caltrate.

At this stage there was no reaction with Abby or I, so I kept going and had a big serve of apple juice (400 mls, so nearly 3 serves) and some salad vegies at lunch (butter lettuce, carrot, cucumber). I had a couple of episodes of tinnitis, which I had only had one since starting falsafe but it was after Abby did a poo that I knew it was time for me to stop too. Her bottom was raw and bleeding. Game over.

We've since gone back to straight failsafe eating and it will be interesting to see how the next few days pan out. Over Monday and today, I have already had several more tinnitis episodes, the big girls are very teary, fighting a lot and not going to bed. We were terribly late for school today because Em would not get dressed and at the time that her classmates were going into class, she was sill in her pjs and hadn't had breakfast - and we still had to walk to school. I was very tempted to keep her home but I don't think I could have handled her today. Thankfully one of my friends was also running late and drove past when we were trying to finally get out the door and was able to drive Em while I walked Z to kindy.

Abby is now covered all over her tummy and legs with ezcema. Her bottom is healing with the help of a lot of nappy free time and liberal amounts of calendula cream. When I showed Shan her bottom his response was "It's because she isn't used to those foods" well der!!!!! That is the whole point!!! We have also discovered that Abby reacts to synthetic fibres, so have to be careful with what she wears and lays on - we can't pop her straight on our carpet without her rashing up.

Shan still doesn't think that the diet is working, and thinks that maybe the icecream that they had last night before one of their beating-each-other-up bouts was the cause of the fight. *sigh*

Hoping to get back to baseline now in time for the June school holidays which are just under 2 weeks away so that we can do the amine challenge when they don't have to go to school.