How Much Contaiminated Food Is Too Much

[angelsmummy]

Thayne is on day 3 of his elimination diet, yesterday and today he has eaten contaiminated foods. Yesterday a girl at the park gave him some pretzels, and today his brother kindly left a sandwich on the table, so Thayne like a vulture honed in on it and was stuffing it in his mouth with both hands so here I was, digging around in his mouth trying to scoop all food particles out!

Do I now need to start from the beginning of the elimination diet, or do I just plod along?, in some ways it would have been so much easier to just have the biopsies instead of the diet route.

Thanks for any advice, Jacinda

[Guest cassidy]

I'm not sure what you mean by starting all over. If he had pretzels and a sandwich then he definitely ingesting enough gluten that would make him sick if he has a problem with gluten. I'm sure it is very difficult to control what little children get their hands on.

If you are really going to see if gluten is a problem for him, he can't have any. Not even a crumb or you won't know if it makes a difference. I don't know how many children you have, but could you feed them all gluten-free for a few weeks? That way they couldn't give him anything he couldn't eat.

[Nantzie]

Unfortunately, when we talk about contaminated food, we mean extremely small amounts of gluten. Like if you touched a piece of bread and then gave him some gluten-free food. Because of the small amounts of gluten that will stick to your hands just by touching the bread, the gluten-free food is no longer gluten-free. It's contaminated.

So your son eating pretzels and part of a sandwich, he didn't eat contaminated food. He just plain ate gluten.

If it were me, I'd probably start over. If you don't, you'll won't have reliable information to determine if gluten is a problem.

Maybe you can offer your other child a big treat (going to a movie? new video game?) if he agrees to only eat the foods your 3yo can eat as he's going through the elimination diet. Not having the foods around is really the only way you can control it since a reaction can happen with such small amounts.

Nancy

[wonkabar]

Unfortunately, when we talk about contaminated food, we mean extremely small amounts of gluten. Like if you touched a piece of bread and then gave him some gluten-free food. Because of the small amounts of gluten that will stick to your hands just by touching the bread, the gluten-free food is no longer gluten-free. It's contaminated.

I just threw out an entire bag of gluten-free animal crackers b/c I was eating a hunk of Italian bread and reached into the bag to get cookies for the kids before I washed my hands. I'm so aggravated because I'm religious about washing my hands before I touch the gluten-free stuff. Truly, any amount of contaminated food isn't good because a little bit of contamination here and there adds. The only way you can avoid cross-contamination at home is by having a gluten-free house. I am having labs done soon and once they're done my house will be 100% gluten-free. You're always at risk when you're out, but you do the very best you can.

The moral of this story is that I shouldn' t have had Italian bread in the house.

--Kristy