Concerning The New Forum Additions & Changes

Post by **tex** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:19 am

Hi Polly,

Of course, I will gladly set up another forum for MIs, if you really feel that it would be beneficial. We have so many forums already, though, that are rarely used, that it's probably somewhat difficult for newbies, or first-time viewers, to figure out where to find what they're looking for. In the long run, virtually everyone either posts here in this forum, or in the "Treatment Discussions" forum. When they post somewhere else, quite often, their posts go unnoticed, and no one responds to them, unfortunately. The "Treatment Discussions" forum is usually used for discussions of MI issues, of course, but I gather that you would prefer a forum that excludes discussions of treatment by means of medications, or at least one that accentuates treatment by diet alone. As you may recall, if you think back a few years, the reason why we set this board up the way it is, was to avoid the "us or them" attitude that resulted from "cliques" gathering in the "GF Kitchen" on the old board, so that those using meds, felt left out of the circle. After all, we're all fighting the same disease, by our chosen methods.

Having said all that, here is my personal concern: Those with multiple intolerances will naturally tend to accumulate the greatest amount of knowledge about treating MC, because they are pretty much forced to learn more, in order to achieve remission. Therefore, their input, and their expertise, is extremely valuable for anyone with MC, especially newbies. With a dedicated forum, those individuals are naturally going to spend most of their time posting in that forum, and unless they have vast amounts of time to spend here, that means that their posts in the other forums will be limited, (or almost totally absent), out of necessity. Newbies are not likely to go to the "worst case" forum, (almost everyone is in denial when they come here), so they are not likely to spend any time reading in that forum, (though they might eventually go there, out of necessity).

On the other hand, an attitude such as mine flies in the face of reality. The reality is, everyone should have the right to discuss these issues in the most effective manner, and in a way that is enjoyable, or at the very least, acceptable, to them. "Politically correct" concepts, though they sometimes appear to be sound in theory, usually suck, in the real world. Therefore, I'm going to set up a new forum, and call it Discussions On Understanding And Treating MC, For Those With Multiple Intolerances. After all, you're the doctor.

Please advise how you want this title, and/or the description, changed. Of course, this will probably "kill" the current "Treatment Discussions" forum, because, very very few of us are intolerant of gluten only. Most are also intolerant of casein, and as you are aware, about half are soy intolerant. This will also probably result in those who prefer to control their symptoms with meds, having to move their discussions to the Main Message Board, but, of course, that seems to be where most of that takes place, anyway. In view of that, perhaps we should just rename the "Treatment Discussions" forum, or move all those posts to the new forum, and close the old one. What do you think? I'm totally open to suggestions.

Much love, my dear friend,

Tex

Dee · Post by **Dee** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:41 pm

I think the forum for MI's is a good idea because I have really been curious as to what they do eat on a daily basis.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner. I'd like to just be able to add that to my options.
I know that there have been a few posts where Polly & Matthew have spoken of what they eat or have eaten.
So, if you decide to go this route, I hope they'll jump in and help people get started, if that is one option of diet that a person should choose to go.
We'll just have to be keep checking to make sure that we don't miss anybody..

Love
Dee~~~

Post by **tex** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:47 pm

Dee,

Thanks for your thoughts. The new forum is in place, (right below this one). I guess we'll see what Polly thinks when she logs in again. Maybe she'll have some suggestions for changing it.

I agree that would be a good place to add some "sticky" lists of menus, etc.

Love,
Tex

Polly · Post by **Polly** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:39 am

You called? LOL! WOW! Lots going on since I was here yesterday!

Tex, you are definitely a man of action! I didn't mean to imply that we needed to set up a new forum right away.....I was just floating a trial balloon. But you certainly are an acommodating gentleman!

Actually, Tex, I agree with your thoughts on this subject. We have always tried to keep the Board from becoming too fragmented. I'm guessing there really aren't enough MIs right now to keep a forum hopping. (This is apparent because your newly-created forum has MINUS numbers for topics and posts! HAHAHAHAHA!). Seriously though, I do agree with Dee - there may be an interest in what the hell we DO find to eat (LOL), and there might be value in having someplace to document certain websites/books/diets. I feel like I have to write the same thing again and again when I am responding to a new MI. Maybe it would be possble to have a "cave" somewhere in Dee's Kitchen. Dee, whaddya think?

Another reason for keeping the MIs in the main forums is because we have found that some who think they have only a gluten problem eventually find once they have eliminated gluten that more is involved. We have also seen "new" intolerances develop over time. So I think it's important for all MCers to be aware of these possibilities.

It's fine with me to eliminate the proposed new forum. However, I do like the rearrangement where the main message board is now first!

More thoughts, anyone?

Love,

Polly

Post by **tex** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:32 am

Polly,

Though post and/or topic counts may show negative, or otherwise incorrect numbers, when you're not logged in, your browser should show correct post and topic count's when you are logged in. IOW, that forum should show zero for both the post and topic count categories. If it's showing negative numbers, you probably need to clear your cookie cache, so that the system is forced to set a new cookie on your computer. You can easily do that by clicking on the link below, that says "Remove cookies set by this forum", and by following the on-screen directions.

There is a way to change the code so that we could set up sub-forums, (that is forums inside of forums), but unfortunately, if we do that, then a lot of the other modifications that we have on this board would cease to work properly. In fact, we would probably get a lot of parse errors, until we were able to figure out which ones were affected, and remove all the code connected with them. Since that means that no one could use the board until all that was corrected, I'm rather reluctant to try to set up sub-forums, because we have hundreds of modifications in place, and I'm not sure how many of them, or which ones, might be adversely affected. Sooooooooo, how about just setting up a paleo recipe/cooking/information forum right next to Dee's Kitchen. Probably, a lot of Dee's recipes are already paleo-qualified, and more might be with just a minor tweak or two, so those probably could be copied over to the new forum, and, of course, anyone could add anything that they wanted to see there.

Or, would you rather set up a new category of forums, which might include individual forums for discussion, general information, recipes, etc.? We could call it something like "Special Information for People Who Have Multiple Intolerances". If I get the time later today, I'll try to set up a rough example of each of those options, so that you, (and anyone who has any thoughts on this topic), can get a feel for what they would look like, and offer your suggestions. In the meantime, I suppose I'll remove the forum that I set up yesterday.

Love,
Tex

Post by **tex** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:45 am

Okay, see what you all think. Obviously, we don't need two forums for paleo recipes, so we would need to delete one or the other, depending on how we decide to categorize the recipes. Personally, I kinda like the idea of the separate category for recipes and cooking info, where it could be listed along with Dee's Kitchen. What do you think?

Tex

P S All the new forums are locked at the moment, to prevent any posting, until we can make a final decision on how we want to handle this.

kate_ce1995 · Post by **kate_ce1995** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:56 am

While you are all figuring out adjustments to where stuff is, how about a way to quickly post (and not allowing it to get cluttered with comment) what to avoid for each individual intolerance?

I've been around long enough that I've read many of the posts on the subject and feel pretty good about my recent decision to do a trial without dairy and soy, but then was so quickly reminded this morning about the issue with inert ingredients in meds. So now something else to check into.

I'm thinking along the lines of - Soy Intolerant? Avoid This. Consider This.
Same for dairy, gluten, whatever else our MIs are avoiding.

Food for thought.
Katy

Dee · Post by **Dee** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:06 am

I have given more thought to this.
I do support a MI area, but would like to see all of our MI'ers contribute so that it isn't left on the shoulders of one person.
If that area starts getting bombarded with questions, is an experienced MI'er going to be available to answer ??????
Most are in remission and don't post very often.
My, what I will call, paying it forward, is my contribution to help & show people that they do have options and there has been alot of time put into giving people the complete "how to" recipes.
I felt that if they had the recipe right in front of them it would ease the overwhelmness and if they can read, they can cook....
Sure there are alot of GF cookbooks out there, but I have found so many that just haven't fit for me or the recipes either contain items that you normally don't have on hand or the finished recipe in them
was just plain awful...
I'll go along with whatever decision you make.

Love
Dee~~~~

Post by **tex** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:32 am

Dee,

If you're willing to go through all the recipes and either sort them according to itemized allergen-free status, or verify that they already are free of all the common allergens, (or maybe tweak some of them a little), that would be a tremendous help. Assuming that you might be willing to do that, how do you want the forums set up to present the recipes. Would you prefer, for example, that each type of food intolerance have it's own recipe forum, or are almost all of them going to qualify for a single list that would be certified to be free of gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, yeast, corn, etc., (more or less - one or two of these could be left out as special cases, for a separate list, if that was more practical). What do you think?

Love,
Tex

Post by **tex** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:33 am

Katy,

That sounds like a great idea. I'm in favor of that, too.

Tex

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:47 pm

Here are my thoughts about the recipe section:

I've often wished that the recipes could be grouped according to the type, similar to the way cookbooks are organized. It would be nice to look for recipes in a vegetable section, for example. It's somewhat time-consuming to puruse through 6 pages of recipes in order to find all recipes of one type.

Once they are grouped into categories, it would be helpful if each recipe title would have GF, EF, DF, etc. to indicate which intolerances are avoided in the recipe. I don't think it would take too much time to add those labels to each recipe title. That way, all similar recipes could stay in the same location and we wouldn't have to look in each intolerance section to find them. Otherwise, it could be an organizational nightmare trying to group the recipes by intolerance. I say that as someone who loves to organize and group things together. I don't recommend we do that for food intolerances.

I like Katy's idea, too. It would be helpful to have an area which gives alternate foods for the different intolerances and what to avoid, though I think the "Information on Diet" area gives a lot of advice already. One of the biggest omissions from the site is an area which lists foods to avoid because they are irritants to a healing gut, but are not intolerances. It has taken me a long time to learn which foods are irritating. These are foods that we can hope to reintroduce into our diet once we've sufficiently healed, such as salads, high fiber foods, green peppers, etc.

Dee is also correct in saying that everyone should participate in adding content to these sections. I suspect that some of the newbies (including myself) are reluctant to offer advice because we are still learning and haven't achieved remission. I think many of the "old-timers" still visit the board, but don't get involved in the day-to-day responses, which does take time. Perhaps they'd be willing to post some suggestions in the individual intolerances areas.

Gloria

Post by **tex** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:37 pm

Gloria,

Katy's suggestion is easy to implement, because Jean has already compiled that information, so all we would have to do is to copy that information to an MI forum, with the proper description.

Dee has already checked every recipe in her kitchen, and made revisions wherever necessary, so that all of them are gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free. Most are also free of eggs, yeast and corn, but we decided that once you get past the three main intolerances, catagorizing for any additional intolerances might take more work that it was worth, and it could create so many categories that it might defeat the purposes of simplified organization, and make the whole thing more confusing for the average user. It should be fairly simple for anyone who has additional intolerances to look at the recipes that seem appealing, and quickly check the ingredients to see if they are safe for her/his particular situation. Otherwise, if we separate them out, many of the same recipes will either have to be duplicated on more than one list, which could be confusing to some users, or else, members who are only GF, DF, and SF, would have to also look at the other lists to see all the recipes which will work for them. Again, that might be confusing, and/or those recipes might be easily overlooked.

Actually, yeast probably doesn't appear in any of the recipes there, (I'm just guessing here, but surely it doesn't appear in many), and eggs can simply be substituted out of any recipe, by those who are egg-intolerant. Dee lists plenty of egg substitutes right at the top of the forum, plus a lot of other substitutions, for those who might need them.

Also, Dee and I conferred, and decided that the paleo recipe list should be left to the Paleo experts to compile, in a separate forum, since the paleo diet is so different from a "regular", (neolithic), MI diet. It could also serve as an über MI recipe list, since it should weed out virtually all intolerances, except for possibly eggs, and shellfish.

Categorizing the recipes? Hmmmmmm. That does sound like a good idea. It also sounds like a lot of work, but it would probably be worth it, in the long run. We'll have to figure out the best way to go about that. I think I see a fairly easy way to do that. How many categories are we talking about? Soups, salads, entrées, deserts, appetizers, and drinks? Or would it need to be more detailed? If we do this though, and try to do it for more than one category of diets, we could be talking about a heck of a lot of separate lists, which could prove to be somewhat unwieldy, and probably confusing, for some users.

I have to agree that your suggestion to consolidate information about foods which are irritating during the reaction/healing period, is probably a good idea, also, and that should be relatively easy to accomplish.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that as we continue to add more information, in an effort to "clarify" and "simplify" the organization of all the information here, it will probably just appear even more overwhelming to must first-time viewers who come here, because of the addition of the extra forums. Sometimes it's hard to win.

Tex

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:13 pm

Hi Tex,

I agree with you and Dee that it would be too difficult to categorize the recipes by intolerance. This is what I wrote:

it could be an organizational nightmare trying to group the recipes by intolerance. I say that as someone who loves to organize and group things together. I don't recommend we do that for food intolerances.

I also agree that the Paleo diet should be left for the Paleo experts to compile and it should be kept in a separate forum.

I've grouped my recipes in my recipe boxes using the following categories: Bread, Cake, Cookies & Candy, Desserts, Dressing, Frozen Desserts, Pastry, Meats & Casseroles, Salads, Sauces, Soups, Vegetables, and Miscellaneous. Some of these categories could be combined and you could also add an Appetizers & Beverages category. Dee will probably have some suggestions.

Although I'd love to see the EF recipes designated as such, I believe that grouping the foods into categories would suffice and be a tremendous help. We can always add the EF labels to the recipe name later, if desired. The egg requirement only represents a problem in the baking category where using egg substitues usually produces an inferior result. Most of the recipes posted in the baking category require eggs. Only a few don't and only half of those are labeled EF. I'd be happy to go through the recipes and add EF to the appropriate recipes.

Gloria

kate_ce1995 · Post by **kate_ce1995** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:05 am

Have we achieved a point where a message board format is not enough? Unfortunately, I know there are costs and time and talent needed for a good website, so it's probably a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be cool to have a nice website that could be (maybe) easier to organize than a long list of message boards?

I'm a dreamer.
Katy

Post by **tex** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:15 pm

Gloria,

15 recipe categories is a bunch. Let me think about that for a while. As you say, some could be combined, and we need to think this through, before we start drastically changing the layout.

As Dee says, if a baked recipe calls for three or more eggs, substitutions are not gonna work, so it's probably safe to simply assume that most baked recipes won't work for those who are egg-sensitive. If we decide to catagorize the recipes, we can add a note about the egg issue to the description that is included with the recipes for baked goods. That would seem to be the most practical way to handle it.

While I appreciate your offer to go through the recipes and re-label them, I have a gut feeling that we had best leave any editing of Dee's posts to Dee, lest we get thrown out of her kitchen.

That would be somewhat like going to Wolfgang Puck's website, and editing his recipes, wouldn't it?

I know that I wouldn't want someone messing with my recipes, (if I had any recipes, that is. LOL).

Tex