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A special diet doesn’t have to be a miserable, restricted regime. Here is an eight-day example using recipes from this book.
Day One
Breakfast –Savoury Breakfast Cakes
Lunch – Mixed Salad with a slice of cold beef or ham without breadcrumbs; Special Crispbread; fruit
Tea – Fruit Cake
Dinner – Cauliflower Soup; Liver with Orange and Bacon, greens, root vegetables, mashed potato, gravy; Stuffed Baked Fruit
Snacks – Fruit and nuts, banana
Day Two
Breakfast – Suitable baked beans on special toast, unsweetened fruit juice
Lunch – Mixed green salad with tinned fish (in oil), mashed potato
Tea- Special Fruit Cake
Dinner – Fresh Pea Soup; Pork Chop with Apple Salad, jacket potato with special milk-free, wheat-free margarine; Fruit Dessert
Snacks – Ginger Thins, nuts
Day Three
Breakfast – Small Muesli; grilled bacon and mushrooms
Lunch – Lentil Soup, special bread (toasted) and milk-free margarine; Fruit Salad
Tea – Fruit Salad Cake
Dinner – Liver Pâté with special toast; Prawns Italian with brown rice, large green salad; orange
Snacks – Fruit and nuts, Digestive Biscuits
Day Four
Breakfast – Kedgeree
Lunch – Cold meat (chicken) and salad with mashed potato; fresh fruit
Tea – Fruit Salad Cake
Dinner – Beef Casserole with Orange, jacket potato, spinach or greens; Baked Fruit
Snacks – Crispbreads, special milk-free, wheat-free margarine and raw sugar jam (jelly)
Day Five
Breakfast – Cold meat and fried potatoes
Lunch – Fresh Pea Soup, Sippets; jacket potato with special milk-free margarine
Tea – Salad and mashed potato
Dinner – Tomato Starter; Fish Casserole, green vegetables, boiled brown rice; Stewed Fruit
Snacks – Fresh fruit
Day Six
Breakfast – Bubble and Squeak with grilled bacon
Lunch – Fish and Chips
Tea – Spiced Fruit Cookies
Dinner – Grapefruit; Chicken Curry with brown rice and green salad; Poppadoms; fresh fruit or Fruit Salad
Snacks – Bananas, nuts
Day Seven
Breakfast – Savoury Breakfast Cakes
Lunch – Cold fish, mixed salad, mashed potato; fruit
Tea – Special toast, special milk-free, wheat-free margarine and raw sugar jam (jelly)
Dinner – Lemon Chicken, boiled brown rice, stir-fry vegetables with greens; Fruit Salad (with lychees if in season)
Snacks – Spiced Fruit Cookies
Day Eight
Breakfast – Fruit Pancakes
Lunch – Roast lamb, mint sauce, roast potatoes, green vegetables; Fried Bananas
Tea – Special bread or Fruit Loaf and milk-free, wheat-free margarine; mixed salad with cold fish (tinned); special cake (from Teas and Treats section)
Snacks – Party Almonds, Special Cheese and Crispbreads
(See back of book for lists of suggestions for meals.)
Children on a very restricted diet, such as wheat, milk and egg free, need special care and understanding because being different does not make a child feel good. A sense of belonging to a group can be helped by sharing food with friends. For example, give your child a bag of home-made savoury snack nibbles to share; these are more than a match for commercial versions. Meals must be attractive, nutritious and tasty. Sharing family meals some days is good for the young special dieter and something of a relief for the cook.
For children to grow and develop properly, they need to eat regularly, and older children may need more food than adults. Food is very important to a child. As adults, we can lose sight of this as we are more geared to watching our waistlines.
The temptation to consume inappropriate food is a constant problem. Relatives and friends who don’t understand the special diet are apt to offer the wrong food as a ‘kindness’. Mostly this will be in the form of snack foods, drinks and confectionery. The child should be taught how to handle the situation and to know which foods are acceptable and which are not. That way the child gains control of the situation and not the misinformed relatives or friends.
Encourage children to eat fresh fruit such as apples and bananas. Plain toasted nuts are another good snack. Toast your own plain nuts at home and keep them in a jar.
Parents of school children on a strict diet should make sure the head teacher knows about the situation. A special packed lunch is safer and less of a worry than expecting the school meals service to cope. Encourage children to be responsible for themselves. Any friend’s mum who panics about coping with a special diet will be delighted when the special food turns up with the guest.
Always insist to the child that they are ‘special’ and that is why they need to be on a special diet. This is much more positive than taking the attitude that the child is a nuisance due to the difficulties of the diet.
Cravings for the very foods which have to be avoided are often the cause of the diet being broken. The answer to this is to provide good substitutes. The recipes in this book have been designed with this in mind.
Shopping and the Store Cupboard
You will find that a special diet needs special shopping, and unless you plan sensibly this could mean extra hours of trekking round the shops without much success. Your best friend in this project could turn out to be the telephone as