"I'm used to eating ... whole grain bread or my discs...magic pops which are made with wheat...and pasta, and eggs, and cheese and crackers and peanut butter." along with the other foods you are listing is un-healthy eating! ... " Most of the foods you are eating sound bad! I understand you were looking for someone who has tried it and succeeded. I can only report that, although I am cheating, I have stopped buying products or eating meals that contain those foods. Easing my way there, lol. So my intake is way down. It's hard to contemplate but in reality is not all that hard to do. I guess gluten is one of the hardest to give up. Maybe dairy. I also incorporate anti-inflammatory foods in my diet. Once you start thinking this way, you will see all those processed and so-called "healthy" foods as unappealing junk food. The less the better. Of course your favorites are harder to let go of. But there are still yummy foods to eat and you don't have to go hungry as on a low calorie diet. 2000 calories of mother nature is not the same as 2000 calories of man-made junk. Your taste and the cravings do change. It's simple. Fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy lean meats, almond/coconut/flax seed milk, Soy-free Earth Balance for butter (you won't miss it!). Nuts, seeds, berries. Grass-fed beef is supposedly as healthy as fish. I don't drink milk but use one or more of the alternates on cereal and it tastes fine that way. Ick used for things like yoghurt or ice cream, but those are unhealthy processed foods anyway. The coconut ice cream I tried was edible but nothing to look forward to, imo. I have tried brown rice pasta (Joy) and it is a good substitute, better than the old wheat pasta we were supposed to be switching to. I don't know if it is on their plans and is certainly not a great choice if losing weight is your goal. I need to come up with some healthy desserts and snacks, bread alternatives. At least try Dr. Fuhrman's way of looking at things, focusing on high-nutrient foods. His patients also reap the big health benefits but are not specifically told to eliminate certain foods. He tells people to follow "the salad is the main meal". Load it with vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts. You might want to start slowly since your system is sensitive. I wonder if pro and pre-biotics would help straighten things out there. It sounds like you could have a gut imbalance. There are also enzymes for gas that a lot of people say works. I don't think you need to question whether or not it works, although of course it won't "cure" everyone. These aren't your typical infomercials. They are MD's for the most part. JJ is a Ph.D. They all have patient practices. This is now scientifically backed research. I don't think they are lying and the patients are made up stories. They aren't some of those doctors who try to sell their own magical supplements you can't live without either, although they might offer books, diet plans and some food products. This post was edited by snookums2 on Mon, Sep 23, 13 at 17:55

Mom made the ketchup,worchester, brown sugar sauce all the time back in the sixties and seventies. Love it and still do. Same goes for the coke/dr. pepper combo. My favorite bottle sauce is Head Country now and I've tried many over the years. Bone suckin', Bulls Eye, and many otheres. Hey, it is a matter of taste after all. Ann, I haven't had that TBQ in several years now. I think it was you and or Lorijean that posted that recipe. I've never made the recipe but would love a link to were I could order some more again. (lost it) My group loved it....very different but good all the same. Ina Garten has a good one too that I've made and used. I can post the recipe if anyone wants it. It is a combo of everthing if you know what I mean or watch Ina. : ) Not to forget Sue's Roadhouse ribs recipe and her oven method for ribs...another winner in my books. Then there is the Dinsaur BBQ Sauce bottles and recipes from a swap years ago. I LOVE BBQ!! All of them from KC to Memphis/Texas and yes, Oklahoma! Like Ann, my grill and smokers get used year round reguardless of the temps or snow. They were my go too way of cooking going through two ice storms and our first ever blizzard here in OK. No gas stove/range in the current house or the former cabin on the lake. David

I have seen far worse than that spaghetti one on tv. Shows like Rock of Love and the Simple Life and the Kardashians. Yes those are all cable tv shows and no I don't watch them but I do watch The Soup, a tv show that makes fun of all these stupid shows. You'd be amazed at what these shows get away with! One of these Ikea commercials during a show like that would be no big deal. Plus, has no one ever had insomnia? Even on normal cable channels like the BBC and HGTV there are ads for phone lines you can call if you're "lonely" if you watch at 3 am. I know because I record a couple of older shows that only come on at 2-3 am, and I'm glad I can fast-forward those commercials! Yes, I do think these commercials are inappropriate for kids, but I do think these were created with a specific audience (probably European) or a specific timeslot in mind. Heck, if you're letting your kids watch anything but Nickelodeon or some of the channels Nicole mentioned, then they already know A LOT more than what you saw in the Ikea ads.

Ooohh, I had an answer typed up and thought I posted it, but no, and now it's probably a bit dated after all other responses. Anyway, I made the effort to type it so I'll post it anyway, just disregard the doubling up with what other posters have already said :-) I was trying to look at it from the kids' perspective: -It must be challenging to have a mom and a stepmom in your life, especially when stepmom is the main caregiver. Even in the best of circumstances, nothing personal, don't get me wrong. -Forget for a second who did what and how this situation developed. You are now at a point where you are both not in a good place. He's sensing your irritation and my guess is this upsets him. He might be overly sensitive to rejection, which is not uncommon in kids from divorced parents. My younger SD is the same, and she used to deal with it (at our place) by keeping the unwanted behavior up. For her, to do what she knew was wrong, would give a predictable reaction. She chucked socks in a ball in the laundry basket, I would get annoyed and tell her to straighten them out. For her, to try and do it right was risky. That is when she might fail, what if there would be something else/new that I'd then criticize her for? Better/safer not to try at all. At least the outcome is no surprise when you don't try. This has a lot to do with low self esteem. Does your SS have low self esteem? It wouldn't surprise me if he did. My SD applies the same technique at school. Instead of trying she chooses to fail. Rather then having a go at answering a question she'll insist she doesn't know it, no risk taken. This is what we did when we were learning how to make things work in our house, for all of us: 1. I sat down with SD and had a talk with her. I tried to create some mutual understanding. I understood it must be hard for her to have divorced parents, different rules and a stepmom who's on your case about them, but I wasn't out to get her. I asked for understanding for my situation as well, being new at the whole stepparenting thing. It's scary for me as well, and then I asked her to please tell me if she thought any rule was unreasonable, there's always room to discuss things. SD has never really brought anything up since, but the talk did get rid of the tension. It gave us a fresh start. 2. Every time you find something SS does wrong, also try and think of something he did right. And tell him that. Nobody likes to hear what they're doing wrong all the time, a compliment can go a long way. I know plenty things I like about the skids, things they do right, or are good at, and I always assumed they knew. Until I realised they never heard me say it! Create a better atmosphere in the house, compliment SS on what he does well. This could be anything: -SS you are always so polite, that is very nice. -Thanks for taking your glass back to the sink -Thanks for helping me unload the shopping, you are nice like that. -It must be hard for you to go back and forth between your mum and us, I think you handle it very well. -I like that drawing, you are good at drawing. -Wow another high score, you are very good at that game! 3. Sit down with DH and come to a compromize. This is the hardest thing, but it needs to be done :-) You have to be on the same page, being divided means undermining yourselves. Bad situation for everyone involved. -The rules. They have to be agree on by both of you, and when DH is around he should be the one to enforce them. Our situation was similar to yours, with me enforcing the rules that I felt were appropriate. DH left it up to me as he wasn't that fussed. This led to a similar situation you are in now. So we talked and talked, and in the end we got there. This took about 2 years I'd say, and lots of practice from both of us, so you have to be patient and allow time to make these changes. FDH had to learn to step up, and I had to learn to let go. We compromised on which rules to enforce, I had to let go of about half of the rules I would have liked to have. I made a list of all of them, and we divided them into "must-have" and "not a must". For example a 'must have rule' was the having dinner at table, eat with knife and fork, and a 'not a must' was only two hours of tv a day. If FDH does not care they hang in front of tv and don't play outside, then so be it. I let go. -You have to have each others back. No arguing about rules and discipline in presence of kids. When DH got angry with you after you got angry at SS, a loose-loose situation. Next time don't go in and interrupt SS and DH, wait till you can talk to DH after, when you are alone, and agree on an approach. Ideally DH will then enforce that with SS. This was the hardest thing for me, and it still is, but I'm learning to keep a lid on it and save it for later :-) Right now SS probably sees you as the one with the rules, not you and DH. Before FDH and I were on the same page, my SD's perceived I was the one that had high standards/lots of rules. And I did!, compared to BM who doesn't have many and FDH who used to let everything slide thinking he was doing good by keeping the peace (bless him :-). Once we changed our approach and it wasn't me and my rules anymore but rather our rules the dynamics changed. Good luck!