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The meals and the recipes that follow do not contain milk, wheat, or eggs. (For other recipes, consult Allergy Recipes, The American Dietetic Association.)

Because commercially prepared baby foods may contain additives, sugar, starch, or salt used to enhance their texture or their taste, it would be advisable for a mother to prepare her own baby foods. To do that, she needs a food mill, a strainer, or an electric blender. A food mill will puree fruits and vegetables and separate out seeds, cores, and skin as it does so.

A strainer can be used to puree soft fruits and vegetables. A good blender will puree meats, vegetables, and fruits. (Before pureeing fruit in strainer or blender, peel, core, and remove seeds.) When the baby is old enough to eat strained solids, a mother can adapt his meals to those of the family by taking out the baby’s portion after the food has been cooked (but before adding seasoning and spices) and then pureeing it.

Some easy methods for preparing baby foods are outlined here.

Fruits: Bananas need only to be mashed with a fork. All other fruits should be cut up into small pieces, steamed until soft, and pureed.

Vegetables: All vegetables should be cut into small pieces, cooked, and then pureed.

Meats, poultry, and fish: These can be baked, broiled, poached, stewed, or braised, but not fried. They should be cooked, skinned, and de-boned, cut up, and pureed. Fish (even fillet) should be carefully checked for bones before pureeing. Cooked, cut-up lamb, veal, beef, and pork can be pureed in a blender.

Other foods: Soup is a good choice. A cup for the baby should be taken out before spices are added, and, if necessary, it can be pureed.

Baby foods must be prepared with clean hands (to prevent any spread of harmful bacteria) and clean, freshly washed utensils. Unused portions must be covered and refrigerated immediately; they’ll keep for three days. Spoonfuls of the prepared foods can be dropped on a foil-covered tray and then frozen; they’ll keep for one month in the freezer.

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Most of the British doctors now working on food intolerance trace their interest back to a book, published in 1976, with the intriguing title Not All in the Mind. Written by Dr Richard Mackarness, a psychiatrist at Basingstoke District Hospital, it described the good results of dietary change on a patient called ‘Joanna’ whose severe mental disturbance had been variously diagnosed as ‘schizophrenia, schizo-affective psychosis, presenile dementia, temporal lobe epilepsy, neurotic depression and anxiety hysteria.’ During seven years of illness she had been admitted to hospital 13 times, often compulsorily during episodes of violent behaviour when she was a danger both to her children and herself. She had made determined attempts at suicide by slashing her wrists several times.

The outlook for this patient was very poor. Although his fellow psychiatrists were thoroughly sceptical about the usefulness of an elimination diet – which Dr Mackarness had learned about from clinical ecologists in America – they were desperate enough to try anything. During a five-day fast, Joanna showed a ‘very marked improvement in her condition’ and when subsequently challenged with individual foods, she responded sharply to some but not others. In follow-up tests, the same foods were given by a tube leading straight into the stomach (thus avoiding the taste-buds) to check whether she would still respond in the same way. By using the stomach tube, and portions of liquefied food identified only by a code number, the test could be carried out without either the patient or the nurse giving the test food knowing its identity. (This sort of test – known as a double-blind test – is a must if the observations are to be verified objectively. Even if the patient does not know the identity of the food – as in a single-blind test – the expectations of the experimenter can still influence the outcome.) In Joanna’s case, the double-blind test confirmed the severe mental reactions to culprit foods already identified in open testing.

This is how one of the more sceptical psychiatrists involved later described the patient’s case: ‘I must admit that such a remarkable response has been a surprise to me. However, it has been so dramatic that I think it would be difficult for us to say that it was due to anything but the dietary changes, especially in view of the double-blind trial.

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