I'm not allowed to eat milk, wheat, fruit, sugar, or anything that comes from a package for the next month. How to make the best of it?

Since you need rice dishes you might want to browse though Latin American (should be a lot of Mexican cookbooks on the shelves) and Asian cook books for ideas.

Latin America:
– Arroz con Pollo

- Carne Asada with onions and lime, and side of rice and black beans
Ropa vieja with rice and tostones

- Roasted chicken with spicy corn on the cob (make a mixture of chili powder and salt and sprinkle it on.

- Soft corn tortillas with pulled pork, or shredded chicken, or grilled veggies you just heat the tortillas in a toaster oven or in a pan, and put whatever you want in them.

- Or, you can roll up corn tortillas with chicken or meat or mashed potato inside, and fry them to make taquitos and serve with salsa.

- Or, you can make like a quesadilla and cook corn tortillas in a pan with peppers and onions and steak, or do that concoction with rice like a fajita.

- Chicken chop chop salad. Salad with some whole black beans, rice and chicken on top.

Asian:
– Sushi can be a really fun project. You don’t have to make it raw fish if you don’t like the idea of it; it can just be rice with fillings like cucumber, avocado, cooked crab, or lox and cream cheese.

- Stir fry made with rice, zuchini, mushrooms, corn, bok choy, and any meat you want to throw in. Are you not eating soy products also? You can just salt and add sesame seeds if you cannot use soy sauce.

- Can you eat agg rolls? I am not sure if they have gluten. I make homeade egg rolls, you can buy the wrapper in the produce section of the supermarket.

Others:
– Chicken salad on a bed of lettuce
– Steak with grilled asparagus vidalia onions and potatoes. (are potatoes ok?)
– Meat and rice stuffed, peppers, cabbage, or tomatoes.
– chili with rice

The thing is if you eliminate everything at once, you won’t know which thing is making you feel better if you do feel better.

Oh, and BabyCakes brownies are the yummiest ever, no gluten. They have a recipe book sold in store. http://www.babycakesnyc.com/books.html

Wow! How do you feel about her having so much control over what you eat?

Oh, my husband feels the same way about food as your mom – it’s just something you do to keep your body fueled. I think eating is one of the joys of living!

But at least you’re doing this during the summer, when you can get all kinds of luscious fresh veggies! Sauteed in olive oil with garlic (garlic scapes if you can get them), you can do squash, green beans (boil or steam a little first), carrots, lots of stuff. Fresh spinach makes a great salad, and you can throw lots of things in that – beets, radish, carrots, lettuce (of course), cucumber, peppers, olives. Olive oil and lemon juice is a pretty good dressing, and if you have lots of fresh veggies in there the dressing is almost not needed (how about mashed avocado with lemon?).

Make some homemade chili, with ground beef, onions, tomatoes, several different kinds of peppers, and chili powder. If you can have corn, that’s good in it, too. And add cooked beans to stretch it out a little and add some more texture and variety.

Chicken roasted either in the crockpot or the oven, coated with olive oil and topped with fresh rosemary, and lemon juice as a liquid, is wonderful! Game hen works cooked that way, too. And the leftovers make a good meat topping for your salad.

Don’t forget salmon – slice some lemons (you can have lemons, can’t you?), and coat the salmon with olive oil, sprinkle with a little dill, and cover with lemon slices before cooking in an indoor “Foreman”-type grill or in the oven. When the fish is done, discard the lemon slices. Again, leftovers are good on salad, or I like to just break up the salmon and serve it hot over the cold salad.

Are you avoiding eggs? If not, a good mayo is 1 egg, ½ tsp dry mustard, ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp paprika, 2 tbsp either vinegar or lemon juice, and 1 cup oil. Put into a blender everything except the oil, add ¼ cup of the oil, and start the blender on a medium speed. While blending, slowly drizzle the rest of the oil in, until it firms up. Then you can use that to make dressings.

Coleslaw – grate cabbage and carrot, add a little onion if you like, then put in some mayo (just to moisten, not much) and a little mild vinegar (I use white wine). If you can have honey, add a tiny amount to the vinegar and mayo. I’m not a big coleslaw fan, but I love this stuff.

Send me a message if you want more – I’ve probably gone on too long as it is.

It seems like it would be hard to know what is working if you cut everything out at one time (for instance if it’s wheat that’s problematic, it may be unecessary to cut out milk)....is she concerned about allergies? Maybe an allergist could help. I think it’s definitely possible to have great, tasty meals without the things you mentioned but it may be all for naught….

It’s true that it will be hard to tell what the problem is if you cut out everything at once. But if it works and you are feeling better, then just add in one thing at a time, and see if you feel worse again. Probably what the mom is aiming for is for ChocolateReigns to feel better. And when you feel better, it will be easier to experiment than if you’re feeling lousy.

@KhiaKarma No, it’s not allergies that she’s worried about. This is just what she thinks the human body wasn’t built to handle without a break (thus, only this month, not the rest of my life).

@ChocolateReigns But, will you reintroduce things one at a time? I recommend it. The best way to know how much better you feel is to see how shitty you feel when you eat something you have not eaten in a long time. It is very likely that when you go back to eating cheese and dairy you will feel full of fat and yuck the first few days.

@ChocolateReigns…How old are you?

@Dutchess_III public comments on profile indicate 13

Many cultures exist exclusively on rice with a few vegetables. @JLeslie has some great suggestions.

O. Well. Good look @ChocolateReigns! You just might find that you like it! :) And let me know the results, please. My daughter has breathing issues too. Has had all of her life.

It shouldn’t be hard to survive on fresh meats and fresh vegetables.

@YARNLADY Yep soon 14.