Intolerant to Sugar? Wheat? Milk?

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In the early days while a student at Karitane I was assigned to a 3 year old “Problem feeder”, my duty was to monitor the child and find and solve the problem. However, the first meal he just sat there and would not eat. After contacting the mother she informed me that this was quite normal and the only way the child would eat was by bribery and or force. So by the 2nd day of offering food the child finally started to pick at his food. After a week of this he finally started eating but there was still a range of foods he would not touch.

Having the inquisitive mind that I have this was unbeknown to me and the start of a long association with food related problems in children and also in adults. While at Karitane there were always a number of young babies who “spilled” after consuming cows milk, Karitane recognized the fact that children were intolerant to cows milk and usually changed the formula to Soya or goats milk.

I went on to observe children and found that a child would never starve if offered food. They would always find something to satisfy their needs, and when refusing it was usually it was the child’s body telling them that the food offered was not what the body required. However I also found that as the child became older they started to fall into the bad habit of consuming “junk foods”, and as a result they began having cravings as an adult does if they are a smoker or an alcoholic. I found it was very important to get these children with eating problems to somebody that understands this, however is easier said than done.

Once the child/teenager becomes aware it is easy for physical problems to arise, and it is necessary to try a positive approach to find what one can have rather than what one cannot. The other way is by including the child in the shopping and preparation of foods etc, again this is sometimes easier said and done.

A lot of problems arise at school, so it is very important to make the food look like that of all the other children at school. I had a child that was allergies to wheat, sugar and milk and the challenge was huge, but with a lot of thought I overcame the problem and had to actually make a lot of the food as in the end it was the other children wanting what my child had as his food looked more interesting!

Around the time of writing my first cookbook I also discovered that there was no chocolate available that contained no added milk or sugar. So with the prompting of Karl Scara who owned a health food shop in Narrabeen I started production and one thing led to another. The next step was the production of a range of biscuits that sold nationwide.

Dr George Samra saw what I was doing and became interested in it. The next thing I knew I was heavily involved with the Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia compiling all their recipes for their newsletters and eventually their webpage. During the past 15 years I have had a very strong involvement with the Association and as a result I wrote a 2nd cookbook and have been able to give support to a large number of our members.