Preparing for the Failsafe Elimination Diet

An elimine-what? That's right an elimination diet. (Samantha is so cute when she says it.)

So what is it?

There are so many out there I mean you can eliminate carbs,or protein or sugar or yeast or anything else you want. This IS NOT that sort of diet.

We are going on the Failsafe Diet as researched and fine tuned by the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit. So you can call it the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Elimination diet. Yeah, Failsafe is way easier to say!

It is a diet free from artificial food additives, in particular about 60 additives proven to have an adverse affect on mood and behaviour. It is also very low in natural chemicals called, amines, salicylates and glutamates. these are three naturally occurring chemicals that should not cause problems but in some people they do. It is noted especially in the children and grandchildren of those exposed to harmful pesticides such as DDT

How we do on this diet and the effects may be of particular interest to BLOOD RELATIVES, as these intolerance's run in families. I am not saying the Seah's are symptom free but lets just say all the signs run pretty strong on the Pittsenbarger/Gillette side of things.

So WHY, why would we do such a thing?

Lets say family history or asthma, ADHD, ODD, depression, anxiety and insomnia, celiacs disease, lactose intolerance, IBS, migraines and a few other I could list. All these seemingly unrelated issues are surprisingly all symptoms of or exacerbated by food intolerance.  The most common causes are salicylates, amines, glutamates, food additives along with the usual suspects of gluten, dairy and soy.

Here is my arsenal:

For mor why's, wherefores and further mores please go to www.fedup.com.au

The Plan

For 3weeks we eat a limited diet from the safe food list then we challenge each group of food chemicals one at a time.

We intend to do the challenges as follows

Challenge1- Food Colours this is said to cure skepticism about whether kids are affected by additives and the benefit of doing the diet.

Challenge-2 Green peas-these have a low level of natural glutamates (aka. MSG)  which affect some sensitive people

Challenge-3 Salicylates

Challenge-4 Amines

Subsequent challenges are for specific additives such as sulphates, nitrates, MSG and others.

I  fully intend to record our adventure on this blog week by week.

We start this Sunday 11 March 2011!

Wish us luck and we'll keep you posted.



Here is my little princess.

It is surprisingly difficult to get a good picture of her, but lots of personality!