playing food detective

It was Micah who finally put it all together.

He was sick again this week, waking up on Thurs. morning with the too-familiar nausea.  We talked through what he had to eat at youth group on Wed. night, and traced his reaction to marshmallows.  He had forgotten that they are usually made with gelatin, which contains a naturally-occuring form of MSG.  He's had trouble with them before, but didn't think about them being in scotch-a-roos.  I checked with another friend who cannot eat MSG, and she confirmed that marshmallows provoke a nasty reaction if she eats them.

And we used to call him Marshmallow Micah, he loved them so much when he was little.  Sniff.

After several rounds of baking soda in vegetable capsules (he can't do gel caps because they are made from...gelatin), Micah was back on his feet within 12 hours and eating.  This is so much better than the 4-5 day recovery he used to have.

But he thought about it all a bit, and came up with an explanation for his school absences over the years.

When the kids went to private school, the lunches were not subsidized.  Already spending plenty on tuition, we limited them to hot lunch once a week.  He would be sick maybe 10 days a year.

When he switched to public school two years ago, we let him eat hot lunch whenever he wanted.  His absences increased to over 20 days that year.

In Junior High, everyone eats hot lunch.  The kids can eat a la carte, and the food is pretty tasty.  Micah missed 44 days, most of them during the part of the year when we let him eat hot lunch every day.  He was mysteriously much better when we decided to stop doing hot lunch and he started carrying one from home. 
Now we understand why he seemed so healthy during the summer (we don't consume much food with MSG, even before we changed our diet) only to be so sick during the school year.

The foods our kids love to consume: chicken nuggets, some lunch meats, and many things that are heavily seasoned, contain high amounts of MSG.  These are the kinds of foods they serve in the school lunch program. 

It is also found in a lot of restaurant food, which explains why Micah has had trouble with certain restaurants since he was about 5 years old.

Case closed!  Good work, son.

**Added later: We are now remembering how much Micah enjoyed marshmallows in hot chocolate every winter.  It may be that we can't completely blame everything on the school lunch!