Chupi Sweetman - What to Eat When You Cant Eat Anything: The Complete Allergy Cookbook

ON A LOVELY day in May, the Sweetman family of Chupi, Luke, and Rosita came into my life. Chupi had come with her mom for nutritional counseling and kinesiology Chupis history, given by Rosita and herself, included years of unexplained ill health. From questions answered by both Rosita and Chupi, it became very clear that a lot of the functions of our bodies that we healthy types take for granted were not happening for Chupi. Because her food was not being absorbed, her natural defense mechanisms were deprived of minerals and vitamins vital for healthy immunity and the fats essential for healthy physical, mental, and emotional development. Years of chronic ill health and stress, plus a water supply that was not suitable for drinking or even cooking, had taken a huge toll on Chupis health. In spite of all this, I found Chupi to be a happy, contented teenager with lots of enthusiasm for living and great ambition.

As is increasingly common among the people who attend my clinic, Chupis digestion turned out to be a big part of the problem. It was failing to absorb her food and her intestinal immunity was poor, due to a proliferation of yeasts and unfriendly bacteria. The domino effect was poor resistance to infection, poor quality blood, poor healing ability, and multiple food intolerances.

The priority was to put my tried and tested structure in place, to encourage Chupis body to heal itself:

1. A menu full of good, natural, tasty whole foods.
2. Perfectly clear water to drink, cook, and bathe in.
3. Getting all the defense mechanisms back to work with good food, good water, rest, exercise, and sunshine.
4. Chupi would need to rest for a few minutes before, and again after, each meal.
5. She would take an acidophilus supplement to boost her natural defense mechanisms, boost her digestive ability, and help her to fully absorb her good food.
6. Changing her menu included switching to completely unprocessed food: yeast-free, dairy-free, wheat-free and sugar-free, additive-, color-, and preservative-free.

As with all my patients, it was a real challenge for the family. When they went home there was literally nothing they could eat. Two starving teenagers and a very depleted mom. What a shock! But they fully took on what I had prescribed and gradually they learned how to cope as a family.

During Chupis next visit, a wonderful summer day, it became obvious that she was on the road to recovery. She was extremely hungry, an excellent sign of life, because her body was like a plant adapting to new food. She, her mom, and Luke were all involved in cooking wonderful foodsand they were loving them. We arranged a meeting where we could discuss this new adventure in food, cooking, and creativity.

We agreed to share their new cooking creations with the recipes our family had been collecting for years, many of them adapted from our own mothers healthy dishes. To make them even healthier, we had moved away from commercial wheat, cut out refined sugar, yeasts, and molds, and introduced a wide range of flours, beans, seeds, nuts, and vegetables, all organically produced where possible. As a family, we had been practicing what we preached for the past thirty years. This had proved to be the biggest step toward good health. We did not cut out meat, we just reduced it in favor of lots more vegetables, brown rice, and pastas. When we do eat meat, we try to eat only organically produced, additive-free products.

The road to good health rests in the quality, quantity, preparation, cooking, and, very importantly, the serving of beautiful, unadulterated food. It is life-giving, blood-building, bone-creating, brain-nurturing, mood-healing, emotionally satisfying, and tastes wonderful. This is what Rosita, Chupi, and Luke were discovering. They found that their craving for unnatural, unwholesome foods faded away gradually, because whole foods are so satisfying.

Following our discussions, we decided to have a tasting day and share our cooking experiences. My husband Michael and I drove to the Sweetman home, the trunk of our car laden with chickpea and chicken casserole with herbs in organic tomato sauce, muffins made of whole meal flour, fruit, and a bottle of apple juice to celebrate! When we brought our contribution to the kitchen, Luke was cooking a wonderful steak with tons of vegetables, Rosita had a made beautiful vegetable soup with homemade stock, and Chupi had made spelt farls and spelt biscuits (Italian, twice-baked biscuits). Chupi and Luke had also made delicious date and orange squares, which emitted an aroma of warm welcome and a warmer taste sensation.

As we exchanged recipes, a thought planted itself: we should gather all the work of both houses together. Everyone was benefiting, our conversations were exhilarating, we were seeing the familys health change. Why not collaborate? We decided to gather up our learning and our recipes, and put them together into an allergy cookbook for all those who found themselves in the same position as Rosita, Chupi, and Luke. The book would be for allergy sufferers, for the very sensitive, the not-so-sensitive, and for those who want to eat beautiful foodperfectly well people who wish to remain in good health. This idea coincided with Chupi and Luke studying for their final examsat home. A busy time all round!