Tuesday, July 22, 2008

GF/CF chicken nuggets and other misadventures


We have jumped on to the bandwagon of the gluten free/ casein free diet. This has been tough! It seems everything in the known world has gluten and or casein in it! If you add to this the fact that my little guys craves bread and breaded things like a crack addict, then you can see the recipe for disaster.

I've had help along the way with removing all offending foods from the house. Other Moms have directed me to Whole Foods Market with lists of gf/cf items, things that are soy, almond, loaded with proteins, and other good things. My daughters, Connor, and I made a trial run to this store, just to see if the atmosphere was acceptable. Check the lighting and glare of the frozen food section. There is no toy department so this is a major plus. Though my youngest daughter did say the seafood section smelt like a penguin exhibit.

We all loved this place! Connor had his little basket and we did manage to get cf soy cheese, a watermelon, spinach, and juice smoothies before we had to go. He never had a meltdown or run across anyplace in the store he couldn't stand to be, but he had his engine on high and wanted to see every bit of the place at lightning speed. The girls and I did our 'divide and conquer' move, and made sure he was in someones sight and safe at all times.

After our trip it was time for me to make the gf/cf versions of his favorite foods; cheese bread and chicken nuggets. The cheese bread was easiest. A premade personal sized pizza crust, soy cheese, cf butter with garlic microwaved for a minute and he ate the whole thing. The chicken nuggets have been a bit more challenging.

Every single recipe I have tried he has looked at the nuggets then looked at me and said "No! Chicken nuggets!". So I tried to fix the shape of the nugget to look more like what you would get from fast food places or the store. "NO! Chicken Nuggets! No! Chicken Nuggets!"

I bought the microwave dinners with chicken nuggets and french fries, taken out the nuggets that come in it, replaced them with the gluten free ones and popped the tray back in the box and back into the freezer. This seemed to work until he picked one up. "No! Chicken Nuggets! No! Chicken nuggets!" Have you ever picked up a chicken nugget from a fast food place? If you squeeze it a little it is kind of spongy. If you take a bite and look at the meat inside it you will see that it is preformed meat. After lots of research I found out that those little beauties my sons loves so much are not only preformed Frankenstein meat but it yields a surprisingly large amount of skin. Yeah, I don't know how I'll get over this stumbling block. I'll figure out something.

I would like to give a special thanks my sister and her co-worker Mrs. Kimbrough
for directing me to A Year of Crockpotting.
The family has enjoyed 2 solid weeks of gluten free/ casein free meals! While Connor has enjoyed his chicken nuggets.

8 comments:

mommy~dearest said...

Welcome back!

Wow- you are brave. Mine won't eat much, and I know I couldn't mess with his chicken nuggets.

Could've lived without the Frankenskin nugget discription just before lunch though. ;)

dgibbs said...

Thanks, sorry to ruin your lunch :D

Anonymous said...

I was once advised to try Amy on a gluten free diet but I couldn't stand it. She loves her food so much it would have been cruel!!

CJ xx

The Kimbrough Family said...

I am so touched by my shout- out!! AND happy that you finally updated your blog!!

Maddy said...

Welcome back indeed. I keep debating about this one myself too. For the moment they're both sooo skinny I'm not brave enough to try. Good for you.
Best wishes

Jade said...

Ohh my the GF/CF diet can be difficult. Plus most of the stuff tastes horrible! lol a few of my clients are giving a go at the diet, and the parent are running into huge hurdles as well. One dad even stopped the diet for his son because he finally tasted what he was trying to feed the 4 year old and realized that it tasted like cardboard. Hee hee. He said if he doesn't like it he's not going to make his kid eat it.
But non of my clients have "leaky gut" so its more of a behavior modification attempt than a health change for them. Good luck with the food change! Keep me updated on how its working; I'd love to hear of a success story with the diet.

Anonymous said...

I have an autistic son, 6 years old. Who like many kids LOVES his chicken nuggets. I was actually thinking of try the whole bait and switch method.....I have to at least try changing his diet, I have to help him some how.

Anonymous said...

I'm trying this diet as well and was worried about finding a chicken nugget my son would eat. He's always had fast food and processed nuggets. I made my own with chicken breast tender so they were thin, and used Southern Homestyle Corn Flake Crumbs, which are GFCF as the breading. I was shocked when my son ate them. He loves them. I thought the texture of the chicken would be a problem, but it wasn't. Good luck.