Paleo Diet: High Risk for those who go Off-Track? / Cheat?

[goodsamaritan]

Recently my 8 year old boy suffered intense abdominal pain and continuous bleeding.  CT-Scan turned out intussusception (telescoping of large intestine stage with another stage and stuck).  Of course since I'm the family healer he avoided surgery and got well and enabled the miracle cure.

I discussed this with another doctor and I said my son was on cooked / some raw paleo diet plus organic rice.  Absolutely no wheat, corn, beans, etc.  My theory is since days prior to the incident, he was sleeping over at cousins who fed him pizza and noodles.  He wasn't used to that stuff.  Violent detox ensued, diarrhea.  In the process of the violent detox his intestines dried and stuck up with the wheat crap like hardened dried paste.

My doctor friend said maybe my son is not used to wheat.  And since wheat is today considered normal food.  We should train the boy to eat "normal food" so he doesn't get that kind of episode again.  She said you can't possibly police everything a child eats when he's growing up.

Many of us here have violent detox reactions to non-raw paleo food.  As adults many of us know what to do.  But what about our children?

Need thoughts and opinions.

[TylerDurden]

Why not do experiments to see what cooked, non-palaeo  foods they have the least reactions to?

[Josh]

I don't know about the wheat, but people do manage with kids that have severe allergies, if the kid can take responsibility themself...if your son's prepared to not eat wheat then you can probably educate him to avoid the wrong foods.

[kurite]

Unfortunately children that young arent generally prepared for making big choices such as the diet they will be on the rest of their life. You could try wheat but at least make sure its 100% organic whole wheat.

[TylerDurden]

I agree. Young children can't always easily avoid junk-foods so sometimes offering high-quality versions of unhealthy foods re whole grain bread etc. can be a solution. Re things like raw dairy, the child could do better on pasteurised butter than pasteurised milk and so on.

[miles]

I thought refined grains were better than whole, for digestive health. Either way, you shouldn't underestimate young children... You should just explain stuff to them, many of them can understand. From my memories, in many ways I was not much different from what I am now.

[TylerDurden]

I thought refined grains were better than whole, for digestive health. Either way, you shouldn't underestimate young children... You should just explain stuff to them, many of them can understand. From my memories, in many ways I was not much different from what I am now.

  No, it's fermented grains that are better, not refined grains.

[cliff]

  No, it's fermented grains that are better, not refined grains.

Refined grains are easier on digestion as well, the hull is largely indigestible.  Whole grains with a long ferment are probably the best option tho if wheat is added to the diet.