amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

psscott · 12-09-2003, 01:28 PM

Hello!

I've never been in this forum before, but I need some help. We are not vegetarian, although we don't eat that much meat and are slowly gravitating toward a vegetarian, although not vegan, lifestyle.

However, our 2 yo dd is, for all practical purposes, vegan out of necessity. She is multiply challenged with cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment, seizure disorder, oral aversions, microcephaly, global developmental delays, severe reflux to the point that we are going to find out on Friday if she will be having surgery or not. This is all due to having had viral encephalitis as a newborn (onset at 8 days old). She was solely breastfed until 14 months when she began losing weight due to her anti-seizure meds and received the g-tube at that point. She weaned herself at 17 months, I think due to her reflux as I was only supplementing with the g-tube at that point.

She is now completely g-tube fed and unable to eat orally at all. She is apparently intolerant of dairy, soy and eggs. We can't use commericially prepared formulas because of her intolences (and the cost), so I make a blended diet for her of enriched Rice Dream, lentils, oatmeal, green veggies (usually spinach, broccoli and/or green beans), yellow veggies (sweet potatoes, squash, carrots and/or pumpkin) and fruits (pears, plums, peaches, small amounts of apple). We avoid bananas and large amounts of apple because she is usually constipated anyway due to the CP. I also avoid citrus for her because the acid will aggravate the reflux further. I do add olive oil for fat, Benefiber for additional fiber and 1/2 a children's chewable vitamin.

I was using chicken until her gastric emptying scan came back as abnormally slow. It is a test to determine how fast she digests food. A normal person digests about half a meal in 75 minutes; it took Emily over 4 hours. So, thinking it would help, I eliminated the chicken. However, now I am concerned that the lentils alone won't be enough protein to help her grow.

So, to finally get to my question, I am looking for easily digestible forms of protein that do not include dairy, eggs or soy. Any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Sarahd · 12-11-2003, 07:08 PM

I have little experience in this type of feeding, so I may be off base responding. However, just thought I would chime in with some ideas...

good sources of protien are beans of all kinds...baby lima beans are pretty easily digested and have very little gas or diigestion issues.

if she can handle gluten, then seiten is a good source of protien. as it is soy, dairy and egg free and made from wheat gluten.

also if she can do gluten(wheat) then 100% whole wheat bread, pastas etc are a great source of fiber AND protien

Brown rice has a ton of protien in it as well.

many veggies have tons of protien in them...for instance 1 cup of broccoli can have up to 4 gm.

Cantaloupe, strawberries and blueberries also have protien as well as TONS of other vital nutrients if she is able to tolerate them...they do cut significantly down on constipation.

if she can do nuts...then those are also an excellent source of protien and fiber...and fat for her growing body

hope some of this helps!! good luck and if I think of any other ideas I will let you know!

psscott · 12-11-2003, 07:11 PM

Thank you very much! We haven't tried wheat or gluten yet -- I've been afraid to with everything else going on. But many of your other suggestions sound good and I will try them soon.