jakkrabbit

Well, because we're in the middle of moving to another place better suited to my medical needs and are packing up and whatnot, we're really low on groceries, I decided to compromise and add some of my brother's peanut butter to my fruit smoothie just for some added calories till we go grocery shopping. It's nasty Kraft peanut butter, with all kinds of added sugars, but I thought that if I just used it as kind of an emergency fill in for the next few days it wouldn't due any irreparable harm. Well, not only do I feel just plain icky and sluggish on all that fat and chemicals, but my throat has gotten sore and I've gotten a little bit of a mucus reaction again. In a backwards way, I'm glad I took it because i think it helped me discover something - I think I have a corn allergy! The only ingredient which match up between my canned formula and the peanut butter is maltodextrin/corn dextrin. I've been having another corn allergy symptom which is a painful, bumpy, cracking, non-healing blister on one of my fingers which I couldn't for the life of me figure out the cause of. I wonder if I actually developed a corn allergy purely due to being on formula for so long with corn syrup and maltodextrin. I've heard before of people developing food allergies due to the extremely limited nature of the food ingredients in the formulas alone - you are eating the exact same ingredients every single day seven times a day without variation.

I've been having a lot of mucus/sore throat issues before going raw, and I assumed this was just sinus irritation due to my facial nerve damage, or dehydration, so I would take lots of water and it would help somewhat - perhaps because the water was helping my body flush out the corn faster!

Of course I haven't taken any allergy tests, but I've been reading that when it comes to corn, allergy tests are inconclusive at best. To me the fact that the only similar ingredient between the two foods which produced a reaction is maltodextrin is conclusive enough for me, and it explains a lot of the previously unexplainable problems I've been having. I guess this means any supplement, liquid vitamin, medication, etc that I might ever decide to take, I would have to check the ingredients carefully. And also I guess I should probably avoid getting any frozen veggie mixes for my blender which have corn kernels in them.

It's astounding when you start learning how many foods, packaging materials, clothing materials, and consumer goods have corn derivatives in them. Between that and soy, seems like it's invaded everything! I remember seeing something from the documentary Food Inc which said that almost everything you buy in the grocery store (aside from fresh produce, i would presume) contains corn derivitives. Which I guess make s a raw diet even better for me now...

Yup, it's detox. Your body is cleansing itself of mucus, toxins, waste, etc. The same thing happened to me the first half week of going raw. Sore throats are a pretty common detox symptom. It should clear up in about a week.

The funny thing for me was, after going raw, I decided to go back to my canned formula (I live on a stomach tube) for a little while just to save some money while we're in the middle of paying a damage deposit and first months rent on a new place. My canned formula has chicken and milk in it, and when I tried to go back on it, not only did I have absolutely no energy and constant blood sugar crashes, but my body reacted violently to the meat/milk - I had such an immense mucus reaction that I was drowning in it. I could not breathe through my nose, I could barely swallow because my throat was so full of it, and I could barely breathe through my mouth, I was gasping for air. The mucus was so thick I couldn't even spit it out. It was frightening. My throat was agonizingly sore. I switched back to raw and I'm fine. I'm never going back to my canned formula, period.

Hey, RawKidChef - it's a scientific fact proven in a number of studies that teenagers need more sleep than adults. Whereas the average adult need 8 hrs of sleep per night, the average teen needs 12. This is because a teenager's body and brain connections are growing at a rate never approximated in their whole life axcept during infanthood. You know how babies need to sleep so much? They're bodies and brain connections are growing at a phenomenal rate too! So don't worry about needing more sleep right now... it's natural.