IBW 2014, day 2: Size 4 Woven Wrap

International BabyWearing week day 2: This is a rucksack carry tied in a knotless Tibetan finish with a size 4 Little Frog woven wrap in Pyrope.

This carry is great for quick ups where I need Nae up out of the way so I can do something like chopping vegetables for dinner without having to worry about her grabbing the knife or getting underfoot in the kitchen.

A size 4 (3.6 meter) wrap is short enough that I can get it wrapped without dragging it on the ground if I'm out somewhere and it isn't too bulky to carry around or unwieldy to wrap, but is still long enough that I can do an extra pass or more involved tie-off for my comfort or run a pass under/over her legs to securely reinforce the carry so she can't push out of it by seat -popping/leg- straightening/excessive leaning.

This particular carry is one that I use only for relatively short periods of time because it puts more strain on my shoulders than some other carries I do with a longer wrap. But it's quick and convenient, keeps little hands out of whatever I'm doing, and Nae loves it because it puts her up high where she can see over my shoulder and feel like she's involved in what I'm doing.

This size wrap also works great for a number of quick hip and front carries that are fast to tie and easy to pop baby in and out of for quick errands, when she needs to nurse, when we're out somewhere and I know she's going to be in and out of the wrap a lot, when she just wants a quick cuddle, or I need her contained for a few minutes; but I'm not planning to have her up for long periods of time.

Someone with less sensitive shoulders would likely be able to use this size of wrap for longer - term carries as well. The thickness, weave and fiber content will also affect how comfortable a given wrap is for particular carries or lengths of time for different people.

I've been on the search for a size 4 wrap that I can wear in a single-layer carry for more than about 3 minutes at a time before it starts hurting my shoulders so much that I have to take it down quickly. The thinner Little Frog wraps at 190-210 g/m2 aren't going to be that wrap for me, but they aren't really intended to be. These lighter-weight Little Frog wraps are designed more for younger babies and will shine best in a multi-pass carry with a wee one. I do really love the colorways they have, and they are great low-budget wraps for people with younger babies,  although some people like them with older babies too.
 
The thicker Little Frog colorways such as Agate, Opal and Flourite are slightly more substantial and have a bit more cush at 240 g/m2, and the heavier cotton lines as well as the linen and wool blends will be more toddler-worthy (although the linen blends take a long time to break in well). The lightest-weight Little Frog line and the wool blends are the softest feeling of the Little Frog wraps I've had the opportunity to play with.

I had a linen-blend Little Frog Choco Agate II for a while. It was easily my favorite rainbow in appearance, but it felt somewhat harsh and unyielding in shoulder feel to me even after several weeks of breaking in. I didn't find it nearly as comfortable as some of my other wraps to wear. The new owner loves how supportive it is with her larger toddler, though, and reports that it continues to soften and break in with continued washing and use.

Both weights of the 100% cotton Little Frog wraps I've tried were pretty soft and easy to wrap with right off the bat, and I felt they were significantly faster and easier to break in enough to enjoy using than several other types of wraps I've tried.

I feel that Little Frog's broken twill is a bit denser and lays a tad bit flatter than Lenny Lamb's similarly priced basic broken twill line, so some people may prefer the feel and wrapping qualities of one over the other. (See this post for more on Lenny Lamb wraps and another comparison shot of the Little Frog and Lenny Lamb broken twill weaves: http://purplekangaroopuzzle.blogspot.com/2014/10/international-babywearing-week-2014-day.html )

If you look closely at the weaves, Little Frog almost seems to have a bit more interconnectedness between stitches, which gives me an impression of the fabric seeming very sturdy for its weight,  and makes it feel flatter and denser to me.  The Lenny Lamb weave is fluffier and a bit airier, with straighter lines in the pattern. The Little Frog stitches look like alternating S-shapes to me, rather than Vs or straight lines.

To me personally,  Little Frog's all - cotton broken twill is not quite as comfortable as Lenny Lamb's.  I prefer wraps with some fluff and cush to them over thinner,  denser wraps. But someone else may prefer the way Little Frog broken twill wraps and feels. The Little Frog wool blend, on the other hand, is one of my favorites--I have a wool blend ring sling and it is so comfy, with the cushy shoulder feel that I like.

Little Frog has also recently come out with a new jacquard-weave line that are in the 250-260 g/m2 weight range. I haven't seen any reviews on these yet, but am looking forward to hearing about and hopefully getting to play with these sometime. (Edit: So far the reviews on these have been good! One person compared the feel and wrapping qualities to the fabric of the mahogany tablecloths beloved by many in the wrapping community, but available in much longer lengths.)

One thing I really like about Little Frog is the colors, and the fact that some of their striped patterns (such as the agates) have different colored top and bottom rails. Wraps that have either different colored rails, a directional print or the front and back different colors are good for learning wrappers because they can help you tell more easily if you've unintentionally gotten the wrap twisted. Stripes also help you know which part of the wrap to pull on if you need to tighten out some slack. Little Frog also has middle markers on both the top and bottom rails, which I find very helpful; and their tails are tapered.

Wrap tastes are very much a matter of personal preference, so what you like or dislike may vary from what I or someone else thinks.  If you can go to a babywearing meetup and try things in person that's always ideal. :)

Little Frog is a great low-budget basic wrap brand that will work well for many people. They are made in Poland, but their website has the option to show text and pricing in English and US dollars as well as Polish and Russian, as well as showing the currency in these and in Euros, depending on what you select in the drop-down menu on the top right corner of the web page.

I also love that we have a Little Frog vendor here in the USA who is someone I met through the local babywearing community here. Her prices are pretty comparable to what you would pay directly from Little Frog after shipping and currency conversion/foreign transaction fees, and with free shipping in the USA you'll have it faster, with no worries about customs fees or clearance delays:  http://www.simplycarried.com/ They carry other brands too!

FMS/IBS Study

I'm writing this post from a conference room in Excellent Teaching/Research Hospital. For the past 6 weeks I've been involved in a dietary study for people with fibromyalgia and IBS.

For 4 weeks I had to completely avoid MSG, glutamates, and all other excitotoxins. Then last week and this week I came in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the challenge. Each day I drink a glass of juice and then wait 2 hours at the hospital. One week the juice is just juice. The other week it is laced with a dose of MSG equal to the amount in a Chinese meal.

I'm pretty sure I am getting the control this week and the MSG last week. After a month of feeling pretty good, shortly after drinking the juice each time I felt extremely ill.

Not only did I have severe fatigue and an increase in pain, but I even got to scare the researcher as she watched me quickly deteriorate neurologically. I got the whole brain fog, dizziness, muscle weakness, headache, loss of short-term memory, having difficulty finding words for common objects, and even starting to slur my speech. It came on quickly, with a definite difference between the before and after states.

What a relief to know that the unnerving symptoms I've been getting seemingly randomly may actually be some kind of reaction to excitotoxins. It would be wonderful if it turned out to be something I could just avoid eating, and cut down significantly a lot of those symptoms.

I'm so glad I took part in this study. Not only am I helping further knowledge for health care professionals and scientists working on treatments for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, but I'm also learning information that will be immediately helpful for myself.

Clicker Training

Sue Ailsby's Training Levels Site is the best resource I've found for training a dog. Whether you are teaching your dog to work, show, compete, or just be a great family pet, working through Sue's training levels will give you an excellent foundation.

Mira and I are currently working at level 2 or 3 on most tasks, with a few on level 1 or 4. The levels go up to 7. Even at this stage of training, Mira has a level of behavior and training that most people in the general public find impressive.

By the time we get to level 7, she will be close to rock solid and nearly 100% reliable with tasks and basic obedience on and off leash, with and without distractions. By that point the goal is to have such good communication, good teamwork and eagerness to learn that Mira should be able to learn basically any task and do it reliably with just a few minutes' work.

The best part is that clicker training is fun for both the handler and the dog.

Mystery Photo

I found this old photo stuck in the pages of a children's Bible I purchased second-hand. Isn't it interesting? I wish I knew the story behind it and who the people in it are.

Any guesses? I'm guessing the photo was taken in India, in commemoration of the little girl's first communion.

Fructose Malabsorption

The disconnected puzzle pieces may finally be starting to fall into place.

It seems fairly well-established now that Baby E is, in fact, definitely not lactose intolerant. She tolerates breastmilk, yogurt, and whole cow's milk just fine.

But we know from her symptoms and from the positive reducing substances tests that she malabsorbs some kind of sugar. Ruling out lactose as the problem sugar set me to researching again.

Sucrose intolerance or congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency doesn't seem to fit.

What does seem to fit--so far nearly flawlessly--is fructose intolerance. Yes, fructose. Apparently being able to tolerate orange juice, white grape juice and organic strawberries doesn't rule out fructose intolerance. Fructose absorption (in the non-hereditary form of intolerance) is affected by glucose levels, not just fructose levels alone. Oranges, white grapes and strawberries are less likely to cause problems for a fructose malabsorbing person because they have a good balance of fructose and glucose.

Also, now that we know better what to look for we're realizing that "tolerate" is all relative. It's hard for a baby to tell us whether she's experiencing stomach pain or intestinal cramping--especially if she's experienced those feelings almost constantly for most of her life.

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Almost all of the foods we know she has issues with (including corn, soy and other legumes) are problematic for people with fructose intolerance.

So many of the symptoms that have seemed chronic or random suddenly make sense now. Also, many of the issues we thought were the result of trace amounts of corn derivatives could have been caused by fructose instead.

Almost every single time Baby E has had a non-rash food reaction, we can correlate it to consumption of fructose or fructans (chains of fructose molecules found in certain vegetables and grains, such as artichokes and whole wheat).

All those "healthy" foods I was making with honey in them would be problematic if fructose is really the issue--honey is worse from a fructose perspective than cane sugar. So are agave nectar, grade B maple syrup, and all those other "healthy" unrefined sugars that I could never figure out why E didn't seem to tolerate all that well.

Most of the times we've been at gatherings and I thought she was reacting to trace amounts of food others were eating, I'd brought along some kind of "safe" treat for her--usually fruit or something with honey in it.

Every time we've tried whole wheat bread with regular yeast, she hasn't seemed to tolerate it well. She does much better with unsweetened sourdough bread. But it may not have been an issue of the yeast being grown on corn after all. Whole wheat contains fructose, and the yeasted bread had a small amount of honey in it. Sourdough culturing breaks down the sugars and the fructans in the grains.

E digests unenriched white rice better than brown rice, and brown rice better than wild rice. White rice has the least fructose/fructan content of the three.

Remember the probiotics that made her so miserable, that contained FOS? FOS and inulin are fructans.

The weekend we went to the coast with Malamute Rescuing family, Baby E did great at first, but got increasingly miserable throughout the weekend. We were eating a lot of fruit and artichokes while we were there. Artichokes are high in fructans.

On our last trip, Baby E kept getting increasingly uncomfortable. We were eating quite a bit of zucchini brownies that I'd made to take along as a treat. They were sweetened with honey. Zucchini is rather high in fructose also, for a green vegetable.

Now that we understand how to watch fructose and are avoiding it most of the time, we can finally see a pattern. A quarter of a pear, banana or plum gives her stomach cramping and a very soft BM within an hour or so. Her reflux gets worse, she gets a bit grumpy, and has trouble falling asleep for naps. 4 blackberries resulted in the same symptoms yesterday.

We thought she tolerated grapes well, but when we tried them this week after 24 hours off fructose, she got fussy/sleepless/gassy/diarrhea for the rest of the afternoon with some red and purple grapes. We still need to trial white grapes to see if she can tolerate them better.

We're probably going to have to do some more testing to verify this, and to make sure what she has is fructose malabsorption (a.k.a. dietary fructose intolerance) as opposed to the much more rare, severe and limiting hereditary fructose intolerance.

With hereditary fructose intolerance she would have to pretty much completely avoid all fructose and sucrose of any kind, which would mean essentially all fruits and vegetables, legumes and whole grains--as one sufferer put it, "pretty much anything that grows out of the ground". The only kinds of sugar she could have at all would be glucose (dextrose) and lactose. We would probably have to worry about cross-contamination and trace amounts of sugars in her food and medications.

But with E's symptoms and history, I think dietary fructose intolerance (fructose malabsorption) is much more likely than hereditary fructose intolerance. HFI is extremely rare--somewhere between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 100,000, while 1 in 3 have some level of FM (many people have it so mildly they never know it, or just get diagnosed with something like IBS--I've known my own IBS was at least partially sugar-related for some time now).

Baby E's fructose malabsorption seems to be fairly severe (4 blackberries?!), but it does (at least in my internet-educated opinion) seem to be malabsorption rather than the more serious form.

With fructose malabsorption, we'd just have to figure out her tolerance level in order to find out which foods she can tolerate. She may be able to tolerate things with a good balance of fructose and glucose (like cane sugar, white grapes and oranges) just fine, or in moderation. The good thing about FructMal is that we probably don't have to worry about trace amounts of foods--just what she's actually ingesting.

Either way, it's most likely not something she'll grow out of. And her diet will probably be very limited and complicated, especially if she continues to have issues with even fructose-free corn and soy products. But we specialize in limited and complicated here at the Kangaroo Cottage, right? :)

Interestingly enough, from what I've been reading the very safest foods for people with fructose issues are meat, peeled white potatoes, and (for those that can tolerate lactose) plain dairy products.

Baby E's favorite foods have always been meat of all kinds, potato chips and plain unsweetened yogurt.

Shampooless

I've always had thick, curly, hair with a tendency to get frizzy, and a scalp prone to flaking and itching. After I had kids, my hair got thinner and flatter, but it was still frizzy a lot.

I've tried tons of different shampoos and conditioners over the years, and even expensive special frizz-control treatments. Some hair products and dyes caused hives on my scalp. Others just irritated my skin or didn't do a good job balancing the moisture and control in my hair.

Even when I found a product that worked, it would only work well for a while. I eventually ended up keeping at least 2 or 3 brands of shampoo and conditioner in the shower. I'd have to rotate them to keep my hair looking relatively decent and keep my head from itching so much.

When we discovered the severity of Baby E's corn and soy intolerances, I decided to try finding a shampoo with no corn or soy in it. I had trouble finding one, so I started out trying a baking soda and vinegar treatment, then switched to just using our corn-free bar soap on my hair.

My hair was awful for the first week or so of using bar soap to wash it. After that, my hair seemed to adjust and now it looks and feels better than it ever did when using shampoo. Adding a few drops of essential oils to my vinegar rinse makes a huge difference for me.

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I wet my hair and shampoo with Kiss my Face Olive Oil bar soap. I just rub the bar on my head or rub it on my hands to get a lather and then work that into my hair.

Then I rinse with water.

Then I put about a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar in the bottom of a drinking glass. I add several drops of essential oils (maybe 5 drops lavendar and 3 drops sweet orange) and fill up the glass with about 6 oz. water. I rinse this lightly with water.

For some reason, the essential oils make a big difference. My hair not only smells good (not like vinegar!) but the texture is much better. It doesn't feel dry, soap-scummy or greasy.

I had to experiment with the correct amounts of essential oils for my head, and I'm still playing around with the proportions, but so far I'm very happy with the results. My hair is looking thicker, silkier and less frizzy than ever. My scalp isn't itchy or flaky (unless I eat foods that cause these symptoms for me). There are no split ends (a first for me, with hair this length). It starts out smooth and then curls into these amazing waves and little riglets at the ends, and sweeps when I move my head. I love it. (So does DH.)

All without shampoo.

It makes me wonder how all these shampoo and conditioner manufacturers convinced us that we really needed those expensive products with a gazillion unpronounceable ingredients.

(BTW, I have noticed that adding a few drops of the same essential oils makes a big difference in my homemade laundry soap, too--it's almost like it homogenizes it and keeps it from separating. I hear EOs can eat away at plastic, though, so I'm wondering if I should store the soap in a glass container when I add the oils.)

Baby Birds

The birdhouse we put up after finding the junco nest on the ground last summer is occupied once again.



The baby birds make quite a racket whenever someone walks past. The hungry little brood is keeping the parent birds quite busy feeding them.

The chicks should be safe in the birdhouse until they're ready to fly.

Babies in Pockets

For all those people who keep coming to my blog by searching the phrase, "What do you call a baby kangaroo," here's the answer:

A baby kangaroo is called a joey. However, the term is not specific to infant kangaroos. All marsupial babies are called joeys, so a baby opossum, koala or sugar glider goes by the same name.

What is Kosher for Passover, and why Kitniot-Free?

Friday morning I got an e-mail from someone at the Orthodox Union, the largest organization that does Kosher certification in the USA.

I had e-mailed saying:

Hello! I was just reading on your website that the OU sometimes certifies chometz-free corn syrup to be used in the manufacture of substances such as Kosher for Passover citric acid and xanthan gum.

I was wondering if the Kosher for Passover products such as candies which use the citric acid and xanthan gum grown on the chometz-free corn syrup would then be labeled OU-P or OU chometz-free?

The reason I ask is that my daughter has severe corn allergies. She reacts to even highly refined products such as citric acid and xanthan gum that are cultured on any kind of corn derivative. Even citric acid cultured on chometz-free corn syrup would be a problem for her.

Thank you very much,

[my name and contact info]

The reply from the OU said, in part:

We are very sorry, but yes, it would be labeled as OU-P (Kosher for Passover).

So I guess that answers that question. :(

Morning pointed out to me that I just suddenly started talking about Kosher for Passover food and kitniot-free status on my blog without really explaining what that means. So here's my feeble attempt at explaining. Those who are more knowledgeable, please feel free to correct me if I get any of the details wrong.

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When the nation of Israel was in captivity in Egypt, God sent Moses to lead them to freedom. Most people are probably familiar with the story of the plagues God sent when Pharaoh refused to allow the Children of Israel to leave.

The last and most serious of these plagues involved the death of all the firstborn in Egypt--even the firstborn of the livestock.

God told Moses to have the people kill a male lamb (sheep or goat) without blemish and put its blood around the door. When the Angel of Death came through Egypt, He would pass over the homes with blood on the doorposts and lintel. The firstborn of that household would be spared.

They were to roast the lamb and eat it with bitter herbs. They must eat hurriedly with their traveling clothes on, ready to leave at a moment's notice. Because there would be no time for bread to rise, God told them to bake unleavened bread.

It all happened just as God said. When all the Egyptian firstborn died in the night, Pharaoh drove the Israelites out of Egypt. They left in haste, taking their unrisen bread with them, and baked it on the way.

The book of Exodus in the Bible records the series of events, and God's instructions for commemorating it every year with the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover Supper.

Exodus 12:14-28 (NIV)

"This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

"Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread."

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' " Then the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron. "

God reiterated his instructions for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover celebration a number of times, both when giving the Law and the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, and later when people had stopped following God's commandments and had to be instructed to begin again.

The avoidance of yeast became very important at Passover time. God's instructions were to remove all leaven from the house, and even from the entire land of Israel. Anyone who ate anything with leavening in it would be essentially excommunicated from the nation of Israel.

The week of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread holds great significance for Jewish people. Many Jews who don't keep Kosher the rest of the year will even keep Kosher for Passover at this time of year.

The Passover is significant to Christians and Messianic Jews also, for additional reasons.

Passover figures heavily in the life of Jesus. He was a Jew, of course, and went with his family went to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Passover when he was growing up.

The very important Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples just before his death was a Passover Supper. Christians celebrate it with a ceremony we call Communion, with unleavened bread and wine commemorating both Passover and the death of Christ. The New Testament speaks of Jesus Christ as our Passover Lamb, the blameless and pure sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world, and compares leaven to sin in that context:

I Corinthians 5:6-8

"Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Most Gentile Christians don't celebrate Passover in the same way the Jewish people do, because we consider that Jesus was the fulfillment of that feast and of all the Law. We see ourselves as now under a new law since Jesus has fulfilled all the Old Testament and paid the penalty for our sins, instituting a new era of grace.

When we do celebrate the Old Testament feasts, it is generally with a strong emphasis on the Messianic symbolism, such as the lamb representing Christ's sacrifice on the cross. We do still see the Jewish feasts as holy and significant.

Today, the Jewish interpretation of the law for the Feast of Unleavened bread requires that they not be in possession of or receive any benefit from baker's yeast or any grain that might have leavening in it.

Since most bread grains begin to ferment and grow yeast soon after being moistened with water, they take great precautions with these grains. No wheat, barley, rye, oats or spelt that have touched water long enough to be tainted with yeast organisms before baking is allowed. As with sourdough bread, the grain captures and incubates yeast spores from the air when moist. The generally-accepted Jewish rule is that yeast may be present in the grain 18 minutes after contact with water.

Since grain is generally soaked before being ground into flour, using any normal flour or grain product is out of the question. Matzos (the traditional flat bread of Passover) and Matzo meal (a flour substitute) are made under strict supervision so that from the moment the grain touches water until it finished baking is no more than 18 minutes. Any product made from one of the 5 grains without this precaution is considered Chametz, and is forbidden during Passover.

The Jewish people have a tradition of going above and beyond the basic requirements of the law, drawing extra boundaries around it to make sure they don't come close to breaking the rules. This explains many of their traditions, including that of avoiding kitniot on Passover.

For some Jewish people, mainly those of Sefardic and Yemenite descent, they avoid only the five grains during Passover. But Ashkenazic Jews (from Europe) also avoid foods classified as kitniot, sometimes translated "small things" or legumes. Kitniot (qit'niyyoth [קִטְנִיּוֹת ,קטניות , קיטניות] also spelled kitniyot, kitnyot or kiniot) includes small grains and seeds that swell when immersed in water and can be used to make flour. These grains are often grown with the 5 grains and may be frequently contaminated with them. Corn, soy, rice, beans, anise and many other items are considered kitniot.

Jews who follow the tradition of avoiding kitniot need to be aware of which kosher-certifying agencies follow this practice since Sephardic agencies may certify something kosher for Passover which would not be K-P to an Ashkenazic Jew. The Orthodox Union (OU), Star-K, and many other certifying agencies follow Ashkenazi practices.

The actual kitniot list varies depending upon different authorities, but always includes soy and corn. That, of course, is important to us because of Baby E's adverse reactions to those foods.

However, since the avoidance of Kitniot is a minhag (tradition or custom passed down from the rabbis) rather than a law or commandment directly from God, there is much more leniency with the Kitniot rules than with the Chametz rules.

Basically, a Jewish person may not own or derive any benefit from Chametz during Passover. It's all right to own or derive benefit from Kitniot during Passover, but generally Ashkenazi Jews are forbidden to eat Kitniot. There are exceptions to this, though, especially for the very young, old or ill.

As I've recently learned, there is also a tradition of allowing the use of Kitniot as a raw material in things like fermentation processes. There's a rule of nishtaneh ha’teva (changed nature) that holds that if the kitniot has been completely changed both in chemistry and in taste, then it is no longer forbidden to use in a food. Some authorities hold that it must become inedible at some point during the process to qualify as nishtaneh, while others don't. There are certain rules about very trace amounts or accidental inclusion of kitniot in foods being allowed, too.

There is no such leniency for chametz. Nothing that has ever been in any way contaminated with chametz (or with any inherently unkosher foods) can be used, no matter how refined or changed, how tiny the amount or accidental the exposure.

That's why foods such as xanthan gum grown on corn syrup can be used in some products certified Kosher for Passover. The fermentation and refining process is considered to change the corn enough that it's no longer really kitniot.

Unfortunately, nishtaneh ha’teva doesn't change the corn enough to keep Baby E from having a reaction after eating it.

PGR 1:24

Pediatric Grand Rounds 1:24 is up. The host of Blog, MD did an excellent job putting it together. It's obvious that he read each post listed and gave careful thought to the organization and comments in this edition of PGR.

I thank him for including my post, Allergy: I do not think that word means what you think it means, in the round-up.