When I tell people that I have been on diet since birth, I often get asked if I ever cheat. Especially since I have classical PKU and in general, my tolerance is pretty low. Typically I can consume about 400 PHEs in one day and have levels in the range of 6mg/dl and below. This is pretty tight considering that for most of my life I have not really had much in the way of low protein foods to add variety to my diet. My mom was a single parent for a while so the budget was limited and up until the last ten years, the low protein foods offered were not so pleasing to my picky palate. For these reasons, for me, it was best to rely upon low-cost, commercially available food items such as Baskin Robbins Fruit Ices, Hunt’s Lemon Pudding, Popsicles, Kool Aide and soda pops to meet my caloric needs. I remember also eating low protein breads for sandwiches at school and my mom would bake low protein cookies and cakes for snacks. There were times that I cheated beginning around fourth grade when I was home after school by myself doing homework and munching on Biscos waffle cremes while doing homework. This was not a “no” food for me if eaten as directed. However, I do remember being quite hungry and needing to fill up on something. Without direction I just kept on eating those wafers until I was full. I do not remember this being reflected in my levels negatively, but my mom wanted to nip this cheating problem in the bud. She made me tell my dietician at my next visit what I had done – perhaps to embarrass me enough to keep me from doing it again. My

.....approximately 24% of the document is displayed.