Hemp milk recipe

My cousin has actually sparked this post.  When she told me that she has decided to try gluten free for her son and that she is avoiding some dairy, I shared my hemp milk recipe with her.  I realized than that I never shared this on my blog!!  Shame on me!  It's such an easy recipe and by using this in place of commercial hemp milk or all other commercial substitute milks, you are bypassing the yuck factor...what is the yuck factor you ask?  Preservatives, thickeners, refined sugars and cross contamination!  You pay an arm and a leg for this junk and you are using something that has been created to have a shelf life in a box, unrefrigerated....can you say yuck?!  Not to mention, it tastes nasty compared to the good old QUICK home made recipe I am about to share with you.  But before I do that, let me just share some information about the benefits of hemp, versus those other high carb, sicky sweet milk subs like rice milk and soy milk....

For starters, hemp has the perfect blend of omegas 3 and 6, and aren't we all looking for healthier ways to add omegas to our diets??  I know I am! Hemp milk is bursting with varied range of amino acids, important nutrients and trace minerals that make it the complete protein package. Hence, the best option for growing children.  Hemp seed is one of the plant kingdom's most concentrated, complete and balanced sources of essential amino acids (EAA's) and essential fatty acids (EFA's). Hemp seeds are high in essential nutrients including chlorophyll, magnesium, potassium, sulfur, phytosterols, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, calcium, fiber, histidine, iron, potassium, phosphorus, riboflavin, niacin and thiamin.  It contains linoleic acid which is inflammation reducing, therefor it is great for those with arthritis, eczema and allergies.  Hemp also helps maintain an ideal blood sugar balance, reducing hypoglycemic symptoms.

Then there is the added benefit for those who are eco-minded, it uses less water in the growing process and NO pesticides, because hemp is naturally pest-free!  Hemp nut is the most nutritious and easily digestible food on the planet, the only complete source of all the following: protein, essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. Hemp is the only food which supplies all of our dietary needs in one source -- the only food which can sustain human life without any other source of nutrition.  Now, would I be willing to try living off of hemp alone, most definitely not, but it sure makes using it as our "milk" source an easier decision!  Check out this fabulous amino acid profile...

Hemp seed contains all 10 essential amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Hemp seeds contain 33% pure digestible protein, providing readily available amino acids for building and repairing tissue. Hemp seed protein is comprised of 65% high-quality edestin protein, the most potent protein of any plant source, 35% albumin protein and glutamic acid. The globulin edestin in hemp seed closely resembles the globulin in blood plasma, and is compatible with the human digestive system. It is vital to the maintance of a healthy immune system and is also used to manufacture antibodies. Albumin is a protein manufactured by the liver that is supportive of liver and kidney health.  

For those using soy as their alternative milk, check out these facts.  Soy protein contains high levels of enzyme inhibitors blocking the uptake of trypsin and other enzymes the body uses for protein digestion. Eating a diet high in enzyme inhibitors, such as those contained in soy, can result in chronic amino acid and protein deficiencies.

So with that said, here is my easy, no frills hemp milk recipe!  Tweak it to your particular taste buds.

- 1 tablespoon of organic shelled hemp seeds
- 8 ounces of filtered water
- I like to add about 1.5 teaspoons of xylitol to sweeten it up, this is entirely up to you

Blend, strain and enjoy!   Feel free to also add some variety with a teaspoon of vanilla, a sprinkle of cinnamon, some cocoa for chocolate milk, fresh strawberries for strawberry milk, go on....get creative!

Obsession or hyper-focus? Mother Warrior Mode!

If you are reading this and you don't have a child on the spectrum or one who requires biomedicine, you probably wonder what all the hype is about. If you are reading this and you DO have a child in one of these categories, you know where I am going with this, don't you?

I hear this often..."But it's just one, can one really hurt him?" and "Does he really need all of those pills?" The perception of mothers like us is one of obsession, we research and we fill our kids with gobs of supplements daily, we restrict our kids from chlorine in swimming pools, we avoid sugar, artificial colors, preservatives, wheat and MILK,....why? Is this really necessary? Don't kids need milk? No they don't, and yes this IS necessary. The only way to recovery is complete...well, you might like to call it obsession, but I prefer hyper-focus.

Mainstream doctors don't get it, they don't get us, they don't get our kids. And why is that? It's simply, because they haven't studied biomedicine. Would you go to a heart surgeon for GI problems? I think not!! My son has quirks, yes, and so do I, BUT he also has an overgrowth of yeast and bacteria, sensitivities to a plethora of foods, high oxalates, malabsorption, vitamin deficiencies, sensory issues, the list is lengthy and I could go on explaining the symptoms I used to see on a daily basis (in fact, just read the beginning of my blog for that), but I would rather tell you what this hyper-focused mommy-warrior mode does for us. Plain and simple, it turns a very unhealthy child into a healthy one with a bright future. What mother wouldn't do this for her child, if she knew it was possible? I don't see it as anything other than necessary!

The medical community forces us to this, we need to help our kids by researching, talking to other moms, trial and error, meds and supplements. The other thing that drives us is that we are told that there is a window of opportunity when it comes to recovery and we are right in that window with Grayson now. The best and most permanent results are seen when treatment is started between the ages of 1 and 5. Beyond these years and we risk a slower recovery and perhaps a less permanent recovery. This is called "Managed Recovery" in our world. Many of our kids will actually require this and it means that they are healthy, with their previous diagnosis removed (IE-autism, ADHD, PDD-NOS, etc) however, it's the diet, supplements, chelation that are possibly continuously required to maintain this level of health. It has been described as an autoimmune disease and it's believed that it will be renamed in the near future. We wills top calling these symptoms autism and start seeing them for what they are...autoimmune dysfunction.

People who meet my son now think he is just perfect, and truly, I hear that word a lot with him..."perfect". No one is perfect, but to me as a parent, I agree, he IS perfect, however, he is far from healthy and the reason he appears "perfect" to others is because of everything I do. My job as his mother is to make sure he is given the best opportunity at a healthy (and fun) life.

So I repeat, is this an obsession? Perhaps. Is it necessary? Absolutely!

Getting started

Backing up a bit, I thought I would explain how to get started on a diet that is often greeted with hesitation and fear. When I opened the envelope from the lab and saw the list of 23 foods we needed to avoid (half of them were his favorite foods) I just about choked! When you take it one step at a time, it isn't as daunting as it appears from the overall perspective. So let's break it down:

Breath first
Big deep breaths!! It CAN be done and it WILL become habit.

Research
Go online and hit all the websites that detail recipes and alternative foods. Read, read, read!

Lists
Make lists of all the foods the child CAN have and there really are still a lot of foods available. Make lists of the foods the child cannot have, including and even more importantly the list of hidden foods/ingredients to avoid and keep those in a bag that is with you always, for the sake of shopping. You will need to refer back to these on many occasions. Make a copy of them to give to close relatives and care givers who interact with your child.

Recipes
Find recipes online, from friends, and in books that address special diets, make grocery lists from there initially, eventually you will just be replacing those items as you run out.  It becomes second nature to shop for these foods.  In the early days I found it helpful to keep a running list, as I ran out of a food, I would write it down.  Now, I have a generic list that I typed up and I just check off the foods I need as I run out, since so many are the same every time we shop =)

Talk with your child through it all.
I am amazed at how well a three year old can really comprehend what this is all about. He knows he cannot eat foods from the "red list" (the color of the reactive foods on the test, lol) and how they effect him. I believe that by feeling better on the good foods, he also gets a true life lesson about the foods he can and can't have. When he has an infraction, he feels the effect more than we do. His outward behaviors are just a sign of what is going on inside.

Journal
Keep a daily journal that not only details foods and supplements, but keep track of good and difficult behaviors, you will start noticing connections to certain things that can further be eliminated. This is also important when choosing to challenge a food. The other great thing about a journal is that you will be able to look back at the progress you are making with the diet. It is easy to forget the difficult behaviors until you are faced with them again. Something that helped me was to use color coding highlighters with one color for improved/good behaviors, one for difficult behaviors and another for the first three times foods were introduced during the diet, so I could watch for patterns. When you have umpteen pages to sift through, this will save your sanity!

Connect

Find a local or internet-based group you can share with and learn from. Yahoo and Google both have great groups you can search through. and Facebook now offers us endless reaches around the globe, instantly.  There is nothing better than having a resource like this. When a question pops up, you can gain knowledge from those who are directly effected by the very same issues you are faced with. It's a two way road, you will learn from others who are more experienced than you and eventually you will help others who are newer at it than you. I find this method of learning to be priceless and rewarding in many ways.

And last - make the switch - go shopping
We went cold turkey, but for some, a gradual approach works best. Either way, just go for it and don't look back. When you offer your child a new food, it becomes the ONLY option. The good thing about children is that they tend to have narrow food interests, so once you find a food to replace a favorite, maintaining the diet is actually pretty easy! Imagine that? Comfort and ease come with repetition. We had resistance, and still do, with two favorites - milk and bread. So basically, we have none! I do keep almond milk in the house (mainly for me, since the baby can't handle dairy either) but for bowls of cereal, it really doesn't taste much different. It's also great for baking and cooking. As long as a child is receiving supplements and eating other foods high in calcium and D, milk isn't even necessary. (note - almond milk is high oxalate, which we no longer use now)  See my more recent blog entry for pumpkin seed milk, if you need a low oxalate alternative to milk. 

Enzymes
At some point, consider researching and adding enzymes to the diet. Generally, food intolerance is related to the lack of an enzyme needed to digest the food(s) which causes a leaky gut, resulting in antibody production. Adding enzymes for a good two months while on the diet may allow you to return some food(s) to the diet, slowly, but possibly even permanently. Check out my enzyme links to the right. There is more information than you could ask for on EnzymeStuff.com.

If any readers have tips or tricks to share here, please do!

**A fabulous GFCF resource is TACA (regardless of whether autism is part of the picture, this source of dietary steps to take are priceless, after all autism is proving to be an autoimmune disease too).