Fatty, Non-dairy Foods

Did anyone mention coconut?? I skimmed through but didn't see that. Coconut has tons of fat in it. And I second the idea to mix avocado with something else. Put it in the blender with frozen berries and make a smoothie/pudding type of deal?

If you do end up frying up french fries use olive oil. Olive oil is considered a "good fat" and they often suggest people with stomach issues eat lots of olive oil because it helps coat the stomach. My son is allergic to dairy and soy. Vegetable oil is made with soybean so we only cook his vegetables in olive oil. If he could live on french fries every day he would but we don't mind because it's a vegetable and it's cooked (even in the deep fryer) in a good fat like olive oil.

No nuts yet, sorry. Its easy, yes, but too risky and not worth it. Its also not necessary--you can try every kind of meat or bean for the protein. There are also wide variety of dairy-free items like "cheese" or soy products. Good luck!

Hi A.,

A number of us; me, family, and friends; have found the information found on the below websites to be of great benefit to our health. One doesn't need to be overweight - it will help with that - to find help from this diet. Our problems were gastro-intestinal related. The change in diet also helped with other problems that are not considered by the medical establishment to be diet related . Good luck to you and your child!

Maureen

http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/introduction1.htm... a number one (1) at the end of introduction, not a lower-case letter L.) The Cambridge World History of Food, Cambridge University (England) website
http://www.ThePaleodiet.com, http://www.PaleoDiet.com, htpp://www.thepaleodiet.com/newsletters
http://www.sofdesign.com/neanderthin/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/AncestralLifestyle
http://www.paleofood.com - recipes and ingredient conversions.

Hi A.,
Milk allergy 15 month old son. He was below the 0 mark on the growth chart but now 25%. I give him. Tahini( mixed with cereal)( this is made out of seseme seed so no peanut issues) I also do Avocado( mixed with the same rice cereal). As for "milk" I was doing soy until I read some articals. Now we are doing Hemp milk made from hemp seeds- There are 2 brands- The organic one has 7% fat. I hope this helps.

Babies need the good fats. Here is something I gleaned off an article.
The best fats are those you eat IN parts of plants – whole grains, beans, nuts and other seeds. When you eat corn, olives, wheat berries, soybeans, sunflower seeds or peanuts instead of their extracted oils, you get all the fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals nature packages with the fat, not just the calories.

I, personally, would put him on goat's milk. It is the closest thing to mother's milk and is easy on bellies. Has he been checked for a parasite??

No one 'needs' cow milk. On fact, cow milk is very bad for some. Have you tried soy milk? We use soy milk and it's really very good.
Where does your milk come from? Try purer (is that a word??)milk. Maybe your baby is reacting to something in the milk.
Good luck!
J.

Hi A., As far as meats go, lamb is a high fat meat and it was my child's favorite...she had trouble gaining wait when she was that age and lamb helped. Also, my daughter has food allergies and most all of her digestive and health problems stemmed from those allergies (dairy being one of them). It might not be a bad idea to see a pediatric allergist to do a prick test and/or RAST test, especially if you plan on introducing nuts.They are a good source of fat(walnuts, almonds etc.), but for my children it was not an option due to their allergies. Good luck!

Be very careful of intoducing nuts into your little ones diet. An allergic reaction could be deadly and children who are allergic to nuts frequently have an allergy to sesame so be careful of any sesame based products. Check with your pediatrican before giving any nuts.

You have received some great posts regarding soy, flax seed, olive oil, and nut butters. Those are all great. I make fabulous French toast for my son using 1 cup soy milk, 3 scoops soy protein powder, 2 eggs and lots of cinnamon. I use whole grain bread with flax seeds, and cook it in Smart Balance butter substitute. The cinnamon colors white bread and whole grain brain the same way so the kids can't tell the difference! I put some in the blender with the milk/egg mix, and then sprinkle it directly on the battered slice once the bread is in the pan. Another thing you can do is whole wheat pancakes with a mix of whole wheat and soy flour, ground flax seeds, wheat germ, oatmeal, and a handful of frozen blueberries.

I agree about cow's milk - I once heard someone say that the purpose of cow's milk is to turn a 100 pound calf into an 800 pound steer in 6 months. Not sure we need it, especially if the cows are taking hormones!

Finally, there is a wonderful children's nutritional supplement that can be added to milk, soy milk, rice milk, applesauce, or even water, and/or mixed into a smoothie with fruit of your choice. It comes in vanilla and chocolate and some kids even mix it with peanut butter (for a sort of Reese's PB cup taste) or a small amount of water (and eat it like frosting!). It has all the brain food that kids need, plus balanced nutrition - everything in the right proportions, which is KEY. No more guess work in the vitamin aisle! There are GREAT results with digestive issues, reflux, food allergies, etc., plus a strong boost to the immune system so kids just aren't getting really sick all the time. The company's science director is the scientist who worked on ProSoBee and Enfamil formulas at Mead/Johnson, and he is a real nutrition guru. The company is in its 20th year, holds 6 of only 12 patents available on food in the US, and has a strong support system of other parents with similar issues. It's great to hear others share their stories, either in person or through conference calls. It is sold only through direct, one-on-one marketing because stores don't take the time to work with you or give you support. If you are interested, I would be happy to talk more with you as well as connect you with other parents whose kids had similar issues as your little one. Feel free to email me or call me at ###-###-####.

Good luck!

You've already got some great suggestions--For our very thin, super active little boy (who at 4 is now tolerating some dairy), we added Earth Balance to everything, for example: sweetpotato, peas, beans, etc. Veggies burgers fried in oil. 'Buttered' toast. He didn't care (still doesn't) for avacodo. We introduced nut butters (slowly) & tahini at about a year & 1/2. We found the most helpful thing was just adding oil/Earth Balance to everything we could think of. Good luck.

My daughter also has a milk allergy/intolerance (not sure which since we have avoided testing) and she eats a lot of pasta - she has put on a few lbs in the last 2 mos.
Hope this helps.

My son never had dairy until he was 2 and half due to many food allergies. I was still breastfeeding all that time so he got some healthy fats from that, but I also used organic extra virgin olive oil in many things where I would normally use another oil or butter. I also supplemented with fish oil to make sure he was getting plenty of omegas and DHA etc. Carlson's and Nordic Naturals are good brands that do third party testing and get their oils from fish at the top of the food chain. Good luck!

hi Amiee.
My son is allergic to Dairy, Egg, Peanut and treenuts. He has a hard time keeping weight on as well. You didn't say your son was allergic to or sensitive to soy products. I use soynut butter (like peanut butter) for sandwhiches and cookies, you can even make soynut butter balls covered in chocolate!! We love toffuti products - pizza, icecream, icecream sandwhiches, the list goes on. There are also NON DAIRY butters high in fat! Flechman's unsalted is one of them. Also most potato chips & oreos, and vienna fingers are safe last I checked. no dairy.
also I have found that it takes my allergic son longer to try new foods. I to believe he is "wired" to be weary of them. Lucky it keeps him safer, but harder when trying to get him to try safe new foods. We have gotten him to try a few new items by showing him the box and re-reading the ingredients with him present. (we are trying to teach him to recognize item on labels he can't have - he is almost 5y)
Good Luck with your little man!
M.

Hi A.!
Children need fats for their brain developement. Good fats like nut butters, flax oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil are great for this purpose. For children who have nut allergies there is cashew butter which most children can tolerate as cashews are really a seed of a fruit not a nut. Tahini (sesame seed butter) is a great fat as well. Look for hummus made with tahini. Keep trying those avocados. He may come to like them. Try mashing them with lemon juice like a simple quacamole and see if he likes that. If he can suck from a straw smoothies are a wonderful way to sneak in good fats by just adding them to the smoothie. If you bake add ground flax seeds to everything. Just a few tablespoons are all you need to help get some of those good fats into his little body.

Sahm,

I have a dairy allergic child. I can help you. Make a kind of guacamole for children. (ripe avacado, olive oil 1 tsp. , juice of 1/2 lemon, garlic powder a tiny bit and a tiny bit of miso) My son hate them chopped up plain too. Try giving him a cracker or tortilla chip to dip it in. Make it a game.

Here are a few more suggestion. My son existed on tofu scrambles, guacamole, smoothies made in the blender. At whole foods or GNC there is a soy based non-gmo vanilla protein shake called Spirutein. Try a scoop of that with rice or soy milk, 1 banana and a few ice cubes and blend. My kids still eat these in a pinch for breakfast. Serve in a cool cup with a straw. Teaching my daughters to use a straw was key. I baked a lot of banana bread and kept a big supply of peanut butter cookies. I would place two cookies together with toffuti vanilla ice cream in the middle. My son was very tiny due to reflux. Once he stopped vomitting we had to put weight on fast. Good luck.

Hi A.,

I have been battling a severe milk and soy protein intolerance with my 2 1/2 yr old daughter since her birth. Being a breastfeeding mother from the beginning, I had to avoid everything dairy. Now that she eats solids it is definitely a challenge, especially with protein and fats. She cannot tolerate peanut butter with such a sensitive G.I. tract so I opted for SunButter (made from sunflower seeds) it is delicious........for a butter subsitute I use olive oil on spaghetti if she doesn't want sauce....it is a challenge, but don't give up.

My son went through the same thing at that age. He is allergic to wheat and dairy. He drinks rice milk (with a drop of olive oil or flaxseed oil shaken in!) I add one of these oils to most of his food to fatten it up. Bacon is great if he can eat that! If he eats meat like hamburgers, be sure to buy the higher fat (85% lean as opposed to 93% lean) and pan fry it rather than grilling. Once his issues clear up, wait a few weeks and then introduce clarified butter, aka GHEE. This is casein and lactose free, so most people with dairy allergies do not react to it. Once he is ok with that, wait another 2 weeks and you can try introducing yogurt. Again, naturally lactose free, and if you go low fat instead of full-fat, it's easier to digest. OOh, salmon! My son loves smoked salmon. I also make lots of polenta, minus the cheese. I add eggs to the broth before I add the cornmeal so it's more substantial. I wouldn't introduce nuts early if he has any tummy issues, it could cause more problems. Please feel free to contact me if you'd like any recipes- we've been doing this for 2 years now and I'm always cooking for our little guy.

Best of luck!

M.
____@____.com

Hi A.,

Some of the most healthy fats are nut, olive and avacado. Has he tried guacamole with some healthy chips? Perhaps he'd like it even though he doesn't like avacado. There is an awesome good tasting healthy margarine out there called Earth Balance. It is vegan, non-hydrogenated expeller-pressed oils. It does contain soy. You can find it in health food stores like Whole Foods as well as some Stop N Shop stores. If he likes hummus, you can drizzle olive oil into it. My picky four year old loves hummus. He is probably too young for pop corn , but it is excellent with olive oil and sea salt instead of butter. My daughter always loved raw tofu drizzled with olive oil and a little sea salt. She loved it so much, that I used to send it in her daycare lunch. There must be some books about feeding vegetarian and vegan kids as well as recipe books. I know you didn't say that you are either of these, but you won't find any dairy in vegan recipes, so it would be a good place to look.
Best of Luck!
E.

My daughter has always been really skinny, so her pediatrician suggested adding olive oil to her food - it's a very healthy fat you can put in just about anything.

Check with your pediatrician before introducing any nut butters; some health professionals advise starting with a less-frequently allergenic butter like cashew butter.

As a mother of a peanut allergic son (surprise, no family history), I would recommend using Soynut Butter instead of nut butters. The IM Healthy brand tastes good. It has fats just like nut butters, but it doesn't carry the attendant risks associated with introducing nuts too early. You can use it just like peanut butter; your son will be none the wiser; and you will not have to worry about a potential nut allergy while you are still sorting through digestive issues.

I would be causcious with the nuts at this early of an age. My doctor had told me to wait until my child was 2-3 yrs old. Unfortunately, he got a bite of his sisters peanut butter sandwich and swelled right up, threw up and off to the emergency room we went. None of us are allergic to peanuts or anything else. This was not something that we expected. I also know that when my son was young that he could not have whole milk. That was the only thing that bothered him, so we had to go down to 2%. Have you tried a lower % of milk or even soy? They do make a sunflower butter, which is like peanut butter, but without the allergens. That might be something to try.

What about margerine? I don't believe it has any dairy in it - and is just as fattening as butter.

What about adding some fatty foods to what he normally eats? Potato chips with lunch, pork sausage for breakfast, etc. Rice made with coconut milk (and some shredded coconut!) is a really good side dish for dinner and has a lot more fat in it than regular rice. And I second the other poster who says to add olive oil liberally to everything - bread, veggies, potatoes, pasta, etc. Good luck!

Have you tried egg yolks yet? You can hard-boil an egg and then cut the yolk into bite-sized pieces. At first, my son didn't like it, but I tried it a couple times and now he loves them! Babies under one can have the yolk but not the white of the egg (for allergy reasons). My son used to love avocados but now turns his nose up at them...but I tried mashing an avocado and mixing it with a mashed-up banana, and he ate that right up (he LOVES bananas!) We've also tried sun butter (sunflower seed butter) and he likes that on crackers and bananas. My son just turned one, but we're avoiding peanuts until he's three because my sister-in-law is highly allergic to peanuts. Sun Butter has pretty much the same fat and protein content as peanut butter. Good luck!

I would try tofu! You can either dice up and feed him chunks or add to other dishes like scrambled eggs (you should be able to do whole eggs by now, but if you don't want to do the whites, just add to the yolk. Or mix up silken tofu in a blender with fruits for a smoothie. I bet you could sneak some avocado in that smoothie, too. He probably doesn't like the texture, but tit's sweet and in a smoothie, he may love it.

Is he still losing weight even after the change in diet? If so, I would push your doc to look at other issues, like irritible bowel or chrone's (sp?) disease. Good luck to you!

I would reintroduce avocado's - b/c it is a great healthy fat and kids often need several tries to take to something, but beyond that - olive oil mixed in with veggies or potatoes. Perhaps not a nut butter, but a sunflower seed butter or soy "nut" butter, scrambled eggs, smoothies fortified with protein powder and flax seed or wheat germ.
Sorry, I don't have more suggestions, but it's a start.
Ask your Doc.

good luck

You can mix egg yolks in with other foods

Also, even though he does not like avocados you could "hide" them in other foods

Tahini (aka Sesame Butter) is a great source of protein and fat

Tofu (though too much soy is not great for anyone)

Fish oil supplements for kids/babies

FLAX Oil & ground Flax Seed

Cooking with Coconut oil

Hope that these are helpful additions

Have you tried goat milk? My 2 year old is cow milk intolerant, he was vomiting blood at 5 weeks from his intolerance, and he still gets diarrhea and bloody diaper rash if he has cow milk. I wasn't too cool with giving him rice milk (he can't digest soy either, and is allergic to peanuts), so I started giving him goat milk. He has no problem with it. And goat milk is closer to human milk than cow milk is, protein, fat and enzyme-wise. I found a woman a few towns over who raises goats for her family to have the milk and I buy it from her.
Also, coconut milk is verry fatty.
Good luck, and if you are interested in goat milk and you are in MA on the South Shore, let me know.

If you are looking to get fats from nuts, I would just like to point out that there may be some risk in such exposure, particularly with peanuts, with the number of allergies that kids are developing these days. I have several friends whose children have dangerous peanut allergies and ended up in the hospital when their child was given a taste on a fingertip of peanut butter. I delayed exposure to nuts with my kids until they were much older. Some say to wait until kids are at least 3 years old (I didn't wait quite that long). Given these factors, you might want to try out some soy alternatives. My son (who is now six) never took to dairy products - he prefers soy milk and eats tofu (along with chicken, meats & fish). You could also utilize meats to boost caloric intake. Another friend who has a toddler with dairy sensitivity started using Lactaid and her daughter started to put on some pounds that way and the Lactaid didn't bother her tummy. Is yogurt ok for your son? Sometimes a dairy sensitve person tolerates yogurt ... hard cheeses, goat/sheep milk/cheese are also other possibilities. Good luck!

A.,

Try fish, especially salmon and tuna. My son loved these foods at your son's age. I grilled the salmon in the broiler with some olive oil and mustard spread over the fish. I also add ground flax seed to his oatmeal or other mushy food. These both have the Omega fatty acids that are raved about.

Good luck.

-M.

Don't give up on the avacado. Keep trying every once and awhile and he might surprise you. They are one of the best foods you could give a child. Other than avacado, for calories, you use wheat germ, olive oil, mayo, beans, dried fruits. Eggs, nuts, peanut butter are also excellent high caloric foods, but since they are high allergenic foods you may want to hold off on them, especially since it sounds like your little one has some food issues, whether they be true allergies or sensitivities, but you can always check with you pedi.

Hi A.,

My daughter has been allergic to dairy for six years and the issue of getting fat into her diet when she was younger was an issue. I made sure to get a few tablespoons of olive oil a day into her diet through stir-fries, in mashed potatoes (plain and sweet) and cooking other things. I also highly recommend Trader Joe's soynut butter (smooth and crunchy). Both of my kids start their days with that on bread and I've also used it to make a sauce (soynut butter, little hot water, dash of soy sauce) to toss pasta in as well.

I hope that helps!

D. Pangonis
www.sweetsforall.com

you can oven fry potatoes. Cut them into the type of slices you want, then arrange them on a baking sheet. Spray with PAM or other type of non stick spray (this will make them crisp) and bake at 400 degrees until they look crispy and brown. You need to turn them over so that both sides are browned.

Have you tried Ritz crackers and cheese or peanut butter? Also, ginger is known for soothing stomachs. Peppermint and chamomile are also natural herbs that you may be able to put into his food.

Hello- just a note that sometimes kids that are sensitive to dairy, may also be sensitive to soy (tofu) so be on the look out if any issues if introducing that. I would also talk to your pedi or nurse practitioner about using a NON- dairy based probiotic for a little while- they can seriously do wonders for intestinal issues by setting up friendly bacteria to protect the lining. One kind is called HLC neonate by Pharmax.

I also wanted to add about the avocado- my daughter used to not be such a big fan either, but I found if I used the hand mill (or food processor) to add fresh apples to it- it improved the texture (not so slimy) and she likes it. (even I like eating it!) How about slow cooked (rolled) oat cereal? (the real stuff, not infant cereal) to pack some extra calories.