this question is geared towards homes in which one or more members has specific dietary needs such as gluten-free or wheat-free or won't eat poison, although I would be happy to hear answers from all of our h.com members even if you eat any and everything.

Challah is spelt.
Friday night is usually barbecued chicken. Not during the winter - there's like 10 feet of snow in our backyard, which isn't bad but I don't think my wife likes when I track snow back in when I have to get more barbecue sauce. so it's some sort of other chicken.
Roasted vegetables - onions, sweet potatoes, carrots.
salad. a rice sort of thing [not regular rice, some bizarre rice I don't even know what it's called] or quinoa, that sort of things

that's fairly typical.

lunch is chulent, cold chicken, salad. maybe dips. cut vegetables like carrots.

dessert like grapes and pineapple,
some sort of cake or cookies home baked with spelt. the gluten free girl either makes her own thing like with rice flour, or her mother does, or buys something from a gluten-free bakery.

The chulent is mostly meat and those wheat kernel things, whatever those are called.

sometimes pickled meat or roast.

never ever anything like cold cuts or deli. no white potatoes. no nightshade vegetables. just about everything is organic, within reason.

Do you buy organic meat?

No, actually we don't. We don't do that whole free-range thing either. Mostly because it exceeds the "within reason" rule - mostly because of convenience. Most organic stuff we can get very close to home but organic meat is much more difficult. Maybe in NY it's easier, but here it's difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. We do what we can but we're not fanatics and therefore compromise [compromise is a euphemism for being hypocritical]. I guess the general rule of thumb is if it's convenient enough at a supermarket, we'll generally go organic.

do you ever get bored of the same food?
who makes the spelt challah?
can't you just bring enough bbq sauce out the first time (worst case, you bring out too much and can bring the extra in, when you come back in)
rice - can you please get me the name?
doesn't chulent have wheat in it?


so you like Picking and Choosing?

Can I answer this one for melech?? Just judging from your personality on h.com, and how much you hate change, then you probably love having a predictible menu.

I gave you a "typical" menu. It's not the same thing each week. I was trying to give a sense, rather than a complete list of all possible menu permutations.


The wife, just about every week, although we don't always finish it so it gets frozen and then when we have enough she has a week off. And if it's not possible one week, she'll buy from the bakery, but that doesn't happen very often.


I don't seem to be able to. I'm always going in and out. I'm restless. And forgetful.



Not this chulent. Whatever it is she uses, it's not the wheat that gives hives.

Just to emphasize:
Again, we're not fanatics about this. It's more about making choices and substitutions when possible rather than totally banning things [other than deli; that never comes in the house].

Secondly, I do very little cooking. Ever since a certain incident that resulted in our little one being on iv antibiotics in the hospital for a week. So unfortunately I can't answer a lot of the questions. And even less of the shopping.

My brother-in-law had a friend like this where his family never let deli in the house. He was once over on a Shabbos/y"t (I forget if it was or wasn't mealtime) and my m-i-l gave them turkey deli to make their own sandwiches, the kids eyes lit up and you should've seen how much of it he devoured. (My m-i-l seemed to say this was common when he came to her house.) So don't think you're kids aren't eating it.


Can you tell us the story? (Also if your wife is an h.com member, can you direct her to this thread?)

I have news for you: the kids don't eat it even when they are at others' homes. Same thing with a lot of our stuff. I'm fully aware that kids often eat things at other homes and are excited about the opportunity [just like kids will watch tv at others' homes] but I'm pretty confident this isn't the case here. Yes, if there is nothing else they'll eat deli, but I am very confident that's very rare.
First of all, the host parents report back what the kids ate. And often the kids will tell us how the mom served X Y or Z and it was gross. Again, while I realize that people often use that excuse, well, they will just eat the stuff elsewhere, in our case, I am reasonably confident it's not a major issue.
And yes, they will eat it, but again, we're not fanatics about it. So the occasional this or that isn't the end of the world.
My kids' eyes do not light up with the opportunity to eat poison. They have pretty well internalized the dietary restrictions in the family.
Mind you, when my wife last went away, I told my oldest son how we were going to party. Partying means white bread. Out of the kitchen. But he knew it was a joke. He really doesn't like white bread and avoids it when possible.


He gets skin things really easily. Like if he gets a blister, it can get infected quickly. So anyway, he and I were baking an apple cake [Easy apple cake, from Spice and Spirit]. He was using the apple peeler and cut his finger. Wasn't such a big deal but next day his arm was getting red, it was spreading, and he had a fever. A doctor came and said we have to take him immediately to the hospital (it was shabbat, of course; these things always happen on shabbat), and then he was there for almost a week with iv antibiotics.

Melech, do you not eat deli for health reasons? I don't think it makes sense to lump salami in with turkey, for example. A reasonable argument can be made that eating turkey is (much) better for you than whatever red meat you are putting in the cholent.

Also, tomatos and peppers are very healthy. Not eating them on a whim doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. You usually have heavy reasoning behind the decisions you make. I have to say I am confused here.

Agreed. It's a nitrate issue. We don't really avoid red meat [although I try to limit my own] for the kids. We eat it in healthy moderation. But really the problem with deli is the nitrates.


This is true. They are very healthy. And indeed we don't avoid them to the same extent as deli. We'll serve tomatos and peppers to the kids, just we usually won't cook recipes with them. It has to do with linkages to arthritis and certain homeopathic issues. I'd rather not go into it. But yes, I recognize that tomatoes and peppers are healthy. Again, it's probably more a moderation issue than totally avoiding them.

But again, that's among the reasons we don't impose on hosts, since for the most part, many of these things are shtick and have more to do with moderation than total avoidance. Depending on the particular food item.

But we're into this stuff, Again, not fanatics about it, but into it. I'm not into the alternative medicine scene at all, but I have to admit my wife has done amazing things with the kids (and herself) by altering diets. She also has given advice to friends about altering diets and has seemed to make a difference. I think there's something to it. Again, I'm not into the alternative medicine scene at all, but I do think there is something to the impact of diet on health and sickness.

We try to only eat whole grains and avoid wheat. We also are pretty specific about buying good quality foods without a lot of salt and chemicals in it. For example, we buy our canned foods at natural food stroes so we can avoid additives. We make sure to buy organic or natural frozen veggies which only have salt and water in them, not preservatives. We don't use Telma cubes or soup mix.

On Shabbos, I make brown basmati rice, chicken, salad with tomatoes, corn, hearts of palm and avocado, and we'll have sorbet for dessert.

Once you get out or the idea that you have to eat very heavy foods for Shabbos, like potato kugels or luckshen kugels, it's easy to think of foods to cook that are healthy. I use www.epicurious.com alot for ideas.

Melech, we also don't bring deli into the house unless on very rare occasions. When you really look into what's in there, you totally lose your appetite for it. We've been known to buy an Aarons turkey breast, roast it, and make our own turkey breast slices for "deli" sandwiches. It's actually pretty cheap and much mroe deliciuos.

That's what it is, FYI. That's what I was talking about...

What is basmati rice? (does it taste different than my gold white rice?)

Yes, basmati rice has a different flavor than white rice.

Why are people anti-wheat (assuming they have no allergy)? What's wrong with wheat?!

So what do nitrates do to you?

there's a kosher bakery that makes spelt challah?

Yes. In Thornhill. I know one bakery that makes all sorts of products like rolls and challah. Another I think just makes bread.

Cancer. Look, I don't think anyone is going to drop dead from eating a hot dog. Just like I don't think anyone is going to drop dead from bottle feeding. But it's a matter of limiting some types of risks in a hypocritical and self serving way. Sure I can get by a bus, and sure I eat things that are worse for me than hot dogs, and sure there are things with nitrates that I still consume. That's not the point. I understand all about risk management and the stupidities of worrying about this but not about that when that is way more likely than this. If you want to get into a whole "healthy eating" debate I can, but I'm not here to preach and I'm sure you can find tons of arguments on both sides of the argument on the Internet. For every site I pull up that something is bad, I'm sure you can find 10 that discount those concerns. But I think nitrates are bad for you so I don't eat those processed meats. As for vegetables with those nitrates, don't forget we mostly eat organic vegetables so it's not as big an issue.
But I'm vary wary of getting into a debate that mimics those threads on nursing vs bottle feeding.

I don't think goyim even know what spelt is...

www.Shibolim.com

Brought to you by my relatives.

Basmati is an Indian variety of white rice, very long and thin. They age it in storehouses so it develops a special aroma.

If you cook it right (you're supposed to rinse off the excess starch) it cooks up very light and fluffy. It's delicious.

We don't have deli either (OK once in a while I will have a prepared sandwich, but at home it's always leftover meat). I try to avoid margarine, shortening etc. No soya milk, cheese, fake meat or Rich Whip--for some reason I feel queasy after eating much of any of them. I have no idea why, I don't claim it's an intolerance or allergy or anything like that (If I were really allergic I'd react to the soya lecithin in a lot of products) but i seem to have some issue with them so I don't use them.

I don't buy the nightshade vegetable issues. Good thing too because they're all staples in my house (except eggplant which I like and DH hates).

There are absolutely no issues with wheat in my family and I see no reason for us to avoid them. VLG, there are some people who blame modern grain processing for dietary issues. I personally don't (and I also have no truck with the "pasteurisation destroys the enzymes" people, don't get me started on THAT one.)

I buy organic for certain fruits and vegetables that are sprayed a lot and where I think I might actually be ingesting pesticides (such as strawberries) but I don't make any particular effort. I can't buy organic meat because the Soil Association (and the other, smaller organic certification groups) have decreed that kosher meat can't be organic. They require pre-stunning (which I think is a very political/animal rights stance and should be separate from organic), so no kosher organic meat in the UK.

Thank you NY-LON for answering. I can understand wanting for nutrients from whole wheat, but to not eat wheat seems too much (and possibly unhealthy if you don't replace those nutrients with something else).

Personally, I prefer to follow advice from studies of the effects of eating whole foods and not inferences from studies of specific ingrediants. That is, I give more weight to something which studied the effects of eating red meat, for example than to something which studied the effects of some property of red meat in the laboratory. Nitrates are bad, but unless you can show that the nitrates in a specific food are high enough to cause a problem and that eating that food shows a measurable effect in people who have eaten that food for a period of time I don't put much weight in it. It's saccharine all over again.

Anyway, the real lesson of this thread is that, like melech has repeatedly pointed out in regard to Orthodoxy, people are only satisfied when others agree with their exact point of view. Everyone who eats foods that I don't is suicidal and crazy and the people who forgo foods that I do eat are weirdos.

That pretty well sums it up, I'd say.

Is anyone else tempted to stage an intervention 'n rescue effort by mailing chocolate pies to Melech?

I avoid wheat because I have a mild allergy to it. If I eat it, I get terrible heartburn, bloating, and swollen hands and feet. I'm not prepared to give up all wheat products (we still have challah on shabbos made of wheat) but I do try and severely limit it. When I do cook with wheat, like if I make my own challah, I always use a whole wheat product because it often has less processing.

One reason many people are against wheat is because it has been so genetically modified that our bodies have intolerances to it. That's why you'll find more wheat allergies today than 50 years ago. If we didn't mess around so much with our foods, we could digest them as we were meant to. On the other hand, we modify them so that we don't have large-scale famine in case our wheat supply gets endangered by cold or disease.

Removing wheat and processed sugars from a person's diet with behavior issues has been shown by some people to work wonders on them. Many people with autistic children, for example, or ADHD children are using diet modification to control some of their symptoms with some successes.

Yes. Thank you for saying what I didn't have the strength to articulate.

I'm actually not entirely convinced by Penina's argument. Modern wheat varieties have been around for over 100 years.

Part of the 'increase' in allergies is due to increased diagnosis and awareness (and in some cases self-diagnosis and hyper-awareness) and I am always very, very cautious about blaming any particular foods (wheat, dairy, sugar, etc ad infinitum) for health issues.

There are a few diets which are claimed to have success with behavioural issues. One is Feingold (no additives). It is documented that certain additives/colourings have negative effects on children's behaviour and/or provoke allergies. A leap to "no additives" isn't so strange. Not proven, but anecdotal evidence. of all the diets out there, probably the one that hurts the least to try. It can be a PITA for the parents, but you're not losing nutrients.

The second is one that parents of autistic children use--gluten free/casein free. There is some evidence linking autism and gut issues, and anecdotal evidence on the GFCF diet.

My son tells me he wants his pb&J sandwich with only pb and no J, because he's allergic to J....

How can one be allergic to "J"???

My son has the same issue. Every paper cut warrants antibiotics, As long as you washed it off and treated it properly with antibiotic cream, I do not see how the situation was your fault at all.

I do not use soup mix in anything, only natural flavors. If I make chicken soup I put actual chicken into it to give it flavor.
Sesame seeds have been recently banned.
I use mostly fresh food and veggies instead of processed foods.
We do occasionally do puff pastry as bad as it is for everyone.

I assume if one is allergic to strawberries or some similar fruit, they would be allergic to that type of J, but my son is NOT allergic to J, he just likes making excuses for why he doesn't want J in his sandwich. I told him it's okay to say 'please don't put jelly in my sandwich, but its NOT okay to lie' (he really has no idea what allergic means)