when counseling a mom to go to a very basic diet, we talk about specifically about what to eat and only generally what to avoid - with a heavier emphasis on what to do. many moms fear they 'won't have anything to eat' or 'my friend did that and she was always starving'. if they are guided in the direction of 1)baking a pan of chicken//turkey/bison (whatever parts they like....boneless skinless if they prefer) with a heavy drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper to taste..... 2)use chicken pan drippings mixed water divided in half.....half going towards making some summer squash or zuchini the other half added to a pot of millet... 3)bake up some sweet potato/winter squash (very easy, just poke holes in them baking them whole)..... 4)plenty of pears, grapes and whatever other fruit she didn't eat much of during the pregnancy. Because a diet like this is quite deficient in vitamin D (as are all diets ftmp since we were never meant to get d from the sun), calcium, zinc (unless using red meat) and some other things, i very much encourage the mom to take supplemental D (specific ones in terms of formulation) and a allergy safe cal/mag supplement (i'd be happy to answer supplement questions off list). There is also a great 'allergy' multiple with a fabulous formulation. of course, it's *always* better to get it from food, but it's very very common for there to be significant holes in dietary nutrition, esp on a diet that is not using processed 'fortified' foods (ie processed grain cereal, bread etc ........ which imo is very little better than say, processed cheese food product or infant formula) She also needs fish oil for the time being imo as dietary efa's will be very low for the short term. anyway, going to a very basic diet like the one above, there has never been a time when i haven't seen a complete turnaround in whatever seemed to be diet related - eczema, bloody stools, unusual stooling patterns. after a week, the mom is usually able to start fairly rapidly adding things back one at a time, finding blood/reactions again from the most unusual things - carrots, fish, melon, sesame seeds and the more obvious common ones - soy, gluten, corn, dairy, eggs (those are definitely the biggies that i've seen - and not in that order) as she gets some options back, other things quickly float to the surface as possibilities ~unsweetened almond milk if baby is okay with nuts (ppl seem to be obsessed with the idea of having milk or at least a milk sub). ~sardines or tuna or other high selenium ocean fish beef ~kale, collards, lettuce etc (which should be the bulk of our diet anyway....along with fruit) ~mango, apples, oranges, blueberries, kiwi etc etc giving the baby probiotics is helpful.....a pubmed search will bring up some benefits. it's also probably helpful for the mom to take probiotics and digestive enzymes. babies who haven't been fed any formula get gut issues b/c their moms have gut issues and nutritional issues.....fix the moms issues and the baby's will follow. we will see this current issue with vitamin D insufficiency floating to the top as a major player in the issues of gut health (as we're seeing in IBS research), allergies, food intolerances, structural issues (think of all the tongue ties we're seeing), hormonal issues and more. it's importance cannot be underestimated. vitamindcouncil.com has all of the research in one place. all of it. the mainstream easily accesible and the fringe as well. :) katherine in atl *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html Mail all commands to [log in to unmask] To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask]) To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]