"Gotta Make Soup"

 “I gotta go make soup” has become a bit of a catchphrase for me during the last few months, since starting our new food experiment. I might be out for a cup of coffee with my fab foodie friend, and after a while she’ll ask if I want another, to which I reply “No sorry, gotta go make soup.” I really should be more organised at this stage and batch-cook, but I don't have a chest freezer so fitting everything in the fridge would be tricky! I managed it once, and as you can see there was very little room for anything else!

Soup and stock making has become second nature at this stage, which is just as well as it needs to be done fairly often. With 5 hungry people in our house, food just disappears as fast as I can make it.  I used to be the type of person who stuck religiously to a recipe, weighing out every item carefully, but in the last four months I find I’m making soup in the “toss it in and see” method! It’s much quicker than weighing everything, and the soup is delicious, if slightly different every time! Little Einstein’s favourite soup is squash and vegetable soup so I make a lot of this. Sometimes it tastes more of squash and sometimes it tastes more of leek or carrot but he eats it every time. His appetite is huge. He has two bowls of soup every day when he comes home after school and today he had three!

Soup really is one of the most nourishing things you can eat, and so is a very important part of the SCD. Soups should be made from home-made stock (which is surprisingly easy) and they will keep in the fridge for a week or so and of course can be frozen. I make stock once or twice a week from a chicken or duck carcass or from beef or pork bones. If you have chicken drumsticks or thighs for dinner you can keep the bones in the freezer until you have a good collection of them and make lovely stock from these. You don’t even have to defrost them first.  Just put them in a BIG pot with some vegetables for flavour, like onion, leek, or carrot and boil for a few hours. I like to have different types of stock so I can vary the flavour of soups or sauces for dinner. I made fish stock once but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to do that again, the SMELL in my kitchen was rotten!!

Squash and Vegetable soup

1.5 to 2 litres of stock, chicken or duck is best

1 small butternut squash, or ½ a large one, peeled, de-seeded and cut into chunks

1 or 2 leeks, washed, trimmed and sliced

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 or 2 carrots, peeled and sliced

Parsley, about a handful, chopped (or any other herbs you have)

Salt and Pepper

Put everything into a large pot, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about half an hour. Blend until smooth.

This makes a nice thick soup, which I find is easiest for little people, they don’t tend to spill so much! You can play around with this recipe too, adding broccoli or garlic or any other veg really. The veg I use are pretty easy on the gut, and so are good choices when you’re starting out on the diet.

Progress!

Yesterday was our 4 month anniversary of starting the diet.  And what a difference it has made to all of us. Speaking for myself, I'm full of energy, my sinus pain has decreased, my asthma has improved and best of all I've lost 32 pounds!!  My husband has lost weight too, and feels great.  I don't really see much change in the older kids, other than they are eating better, both of them were pretty healthy before we started. But the changes in my younger son have improved the quality of life of everyone in the family.

Living with a child with autism can be pretty difficult at times, for everyone in the house. We used to have to tiptoe around him quite a lot, and give in to his demands. He could get upset easily over the smallest things. Sometimes it would take ages to figure out what he was crying about, it could just be that someone said the wrong thing to him, or that someone said something in the wrong way.  I had to have schedules for him every day so he would know what was happening during the day. He would get very anxious and sometimes aggressive if there was something unexpected. He needed to be watched while eating and dressing as he would often drift off and forget what he was doing, or just sit there as if in a trance. My other kids would have to be careful around him as the slightest loud word or even simply moving something he was playing with might upset him. He didn't play with them much, or even talk to them, he preferred his own company.  He could be very lethargic and sometimes the only thing he was interested in was the tv or the Wii.

I have been keeping a diary since Day 6 on the diet, to track exactly what foods he is eating and any reaction he might have to any particular food.  Some days I also wrote a note on his form and mood and it has been a good way to remind myself of his progression.  About 2 weeks after starting the diet, my husband noticed that our little man was staring at his brother and sister across the dinner table.  He was watching them and listening to what they were talking about. This was definitely new. A few days after that, I wrote that he was staying in my hugs for longer, and not pushing me away, and that he seemed "different." After a few weeks, he began to reject his schedules, at first he would ask me to change them, or remove an item, and then he started tearing them up! Even at school, where he loved his laminated schedule on his desk, he started ticking off boxes before he had completed tasks, especially if it was a task he didn't like! So, he was thinking differently.

On the 31st January, he asked me a "WHY" question for the first time. A few days after that he said "Imagine if" in the car on the way to school, "Imagine if those two cars crashed, they would be broken."  It was all I could do to drive the rest of the way to school, as the tears were running down my face. He had never said anything like this before.  I knew it was a big step.

These days, these words are part of his everyday language.  He talks all the time, about everything! In fact, he never shuts up!! I hear him running to his brother or sister, calling them, and saying "You know what guys..." The interaction between them all is just wonderful, and particularly between the two brothers. They share a room and it is so heartwarming to stand outside their door after the lights have been switched off and quietly listen to their conversations. Their LONG conversations.

For many people the first change they notice about him, is in his eyes.  He looks right at people now, and not through them.  He is starting to show interest in the other kids at school, and in visitors to our house.  He is more interested in doing things for himself, like dressing and eating. He is so much more content in himself. 


He is no longer in a world of his own, he has come back into ours.