Flegg in the rotation.

Flegg, not Frack, though that was kind of what I thought when I first had to try it. Flegg is a do-it-yourself Flax-based egg replacer.

You see, this past year, the Maestro started Kindergarten at a French Immersion school nearby, partly because the gifted school we wanted to get him into was full, and partly because we hoped that having him learn French would keep his brain busy enough that he would enjoy school. It turns out that they spent weeks learning the names of the colours and he was just bored in another language.

By Christmas break things were going so poorly that he was staying in the coat room for most of the morning, and something desperately had to change. I called the gifted school and through the judicious manipulation of conversational pause length, we got him a spot replacing someone who moved. We also started seeing a psychologist, who told us that he is an INTJ, which means, among other things, that he has "an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority...for its own sake." This is not generally an appreciated trait within a Kindergarten classroom.

We also found out that he has some pretty serious ADHD, which is also not a generally appreciated trait within a Kindergarten classroom. We knew that he was H, but were actually surprised at the AD part. He focuses so intensely on things that he likes. He got the nom de plume of the Maestro because he knew all the instruments of the orchestra by the time he was three, by sight AND by sound. An english horn and an oboe are pretty tough to distinguish. He has since moved on to submarines, whaling, space, pirates, and now Star Wars. It turns out that that is part of the profile of ADD: intense attention on interesting things. It is the not interesting things that are hard to pay attention to.

The psychologist we have been going to is really good at finding alternative ways to treat ADHD, including changes in diet. The Maestro has been developing food sensitivities other than Gluten and Casein so we have been on a rotation diet the past few months. This is partly to help identify foods that are a problem, and partly to keep other foods from becoming a problem. Scientific studies on rotation diets are generally inconclusive; they tend to find that research subjects are unable to stay on a rotation diet.

I don't disagree. We haven't been nearly precise enough to satisfy control group issues. We've done the best we can, and statistical significance aside, it seems to make a huge difference. Here is a list of foods that have had to leave the rotation.

Eggs
Beans (especially soy)
Corn, in any form.
Grapes
Nuts
Coconut
Nitrates

Other things we are sceptical of, but haven't been banned completely.

Potatoes
Millet
Citrus Fruit
Tapioca

So, Eggs. What do you do without eggs? You don't do much baking if the second thing on the banned list is beans. The thing is, the best egg replacer I have come across is 1 tsp of soy powder and 2 TBSP of water. It works as a great emulsifier, keeping everything together, and it has protein that helps hold your stuff together. But if you can't have soy, then what?

You use Flegg.