My name is Heather, and I live in the Midwest with my wonderful husband and my amazing son. Over the past few years since my son was born, I have been on a journey to find and learn to prepare radically nourishing foods in the most healthy ways I can. Our food journey mainly stemmed from my son's digestive problems related to dairy. My son was adopted from Guatemala when he was 10 months old and had always had some digestive issues when on formula. He was also diagnosed "failure to thrive" and was slightly malnourished when he came home to us. Because of this, we kept him on infant formula and tried to "bulk up" on healthy rich foods, and before long, his weight increased and his face filled out nicely.
However, when he turned 2, we decided to switch him from formula to regular cow's milk. The digestive issues immediately worsened, and sometimes he had such terrible stomach pains that it brought him to tears. Our poor baby was in pain! Like any good parents, we tried to eliminate the problem as best as we could. We tried to remove all milk once we realized that was the likely culprit, but our son was so emotionally attached to his milk at night that we were spending night after night listening to his sobs. We suspected lactose intolerance, and after speaking with our doctor, we tried soy milk. That seemed to help at first, but soon we found his weight dropping dramatically, and he was once again falling off the growth charts. The doctors were no help to me. Both our local doctor as well as an international specialist told me "he will always be small" and offered no suggestions other than to try Pediasure. That worked temporarily, but I was hesitant to continue feeding him a sugar-laden, artificially-flavored beverage on a daily basis.
After doing some research on soy milk and discovering that it can often interfere with young boys' hormones and growth, we knew we had to cut that out of his diet too. In my search for information, I had read that some people who are lactose intolerant can drink raw milk (milk that has not been pasteurized). I sought out a local source for raw milk and was fortunate enough to find an excellent dairy farm that offers cow-shares so we could legally obtain raw milk in our state. Score! I was a little nervous at first, having heard the dangers of unpasteurized milk, but as I did more research and investigated further in the farm's practices, my fears subsided. We switched to raw milk, and within one month my son was back on the growth curve with no digestive issues! It felt like a miracle! That was the catalyst for our other diet changes, and the more I learn the healthier we get. It's not mainstream, but neither is good health.
