Day 17

17 days into this no gluten thing and although I have to get rather creative with food, I think it's worth it. Yesterday I unfortunately ended up eating some real (with gluten) bread and it was just...eh. My stomach was surprisingly not impressed, I didn't expect it to hurt from eating bread. Remember, I don't have Celiac's or anything, so I didn't figure I'd have any problem eating it if I had to (and I had to yesterday, long story...). So I don't know what that means, I'm guessing it may have been unhappy with the combination of food I ate, but either way, this requires further thought.

In other news I decided to try taking a digestive enzyme supplement again. This one is totally different than the others that I've taken (and have made me ill). In addition, I'm taking a pre/probiotic with a pretty impressive composition, so I'm very happy with it too. I got them in the mail today so I've been taking them and things have been pretty peaceful, a nice change from yesterday and last night!

I made mexican food tonight and found the best rice recipe ever... http://www.recipezaar.com/117892 It is soooo good. Reminds me of the type I used to eat in restaurants before moving to "The Land of No Good Mexican Food" (well, except for the one place some Americans moved here and started, but it's more Cali-Mex).

Day 10

As of today I've been gluten free for 10 days, and I have to say it's been going pretty good! Most days I haven't had the bloated tummy feeling I was getting after eating bread or pasta, my body feels a bit more in balance, and my head feels a bit clearer.

Now, I think that is probably because with most grains gone my food choices have been easier to balance protein/carb wise, but it could be because of not eating the grains themselves. I have an endocrine problem which causes me to be pretty much pre-diabetic. As a result I have to be careful about the balance of food I eat to prevent my blood sugar from spiking. No, I don't have to monitor my blood sugar or anything, but I know trying to keep my eating habits close to those of a diabetic will help keep me from developing diabetes in the future.

Anyway, the food in general has been really good! Since I eat a lot of fruits and veggies I have plenty of variety in my diet. I have to make more effort to cook these days, but that's a good thing IMO. Grain foods are convenient, we throw something on two pieces of bread and call it a sandwich so we can eat and go back to what we were doing, but I think that often we can do better. I've been eating a bit of rice, as well as some rice crackers (I've always loved them). I decided that quiona is just not for me, at least not in it's whole form, too crunchy. The texture is what I imagine caviar must be like to eat. Blech. But, I'm going to try cooking with the quinoa flakes I found at some point.

Tonight, I had my first taste of gluten free bread. Chris found out that a local burger place offers gluten free buns for their burgers, so I got one with grilled chicken, pear, caramelised onions, and brie (along with other burger toppings). Soooo good! The bun was interesting. The parts that had become damp from the tomato relish were almost a mealy texture, not doughy like you'd find with regular bread. It had that almost stale texture too, but I expected that since I've had baked goods that use "alternative" flours before. All it all it was really good though. I'd eat it again. And I'm glad I got to try it and appreciate what that restaurant is doing for the gluten free community around here. Offering diverse food choices that cater to food allergies is a great thing. They even took the time to point out on their menu that their fries are not gluten free (though I think most gluten free eaters would assume that!).

Mixing it up in the kitchen...

My body once again hates the food I eat. So what's a girl to do?

Go gluten free for a while.

"Gluten free!" you gasp. Yes, gluten free. Bye bye wheat and all your little gluten filled buddies, for several weeks I'm cutting you out!

"But why?" you ask. Simple. Something I've been eating on a daily basis is making the natives VERY restless, and that's just no way to live! Now I love bread and pasta as much as the next person (and maybe a little more considering my vegan years) but no food is worth feeling miserable all the time. And what good is any food when it can't stay in my body long enough for me to absorb any nutrients from it? None. So, I've got to figure out what's going on. And how many foods to we really eat consistently every day? For me, not that many. I eat as wide a variety of foods as I can. The only sure things in my daily diet are bread of some form, oatmeal, peanut butter, odds are some form of dairy, and whatever fruits and veggies cross my path.

Since the only tried and true way to figure out food intolerances is by some form of rotation diet, that's what I'm doing. It's always worked before. Either one food I'm eating isn't right for me anymore, or a combination of them together is causing the upset (sometimes this is found with dairy and grain together). My solution therefore is to go 3-4 weeks without gluten or oats. That gives me enough time to see if it makes any difference. During that time I'll eat some form of dairy every day. If I'm still noticing problems every day then I'll cut out the dairy and peanut butter. By then things should be calm. If not then I can only assume there is something more complex going on with my digestive system in general, and I'll suck it up and go talk to the doctor.

I should also point out that I have an autoimmune disorder (some arthritis like thing) that is flaring at the moment, so could be influencing this whole drama. However, when trying to find the source of my long standing iron deficiency anemia (still a bit of a mystery) the doctor tested me for Celiac's disease and the blood work came back negative. So I'm pretty sure I'm not having an autoimmune response to gluten at the moment. But the blood test can't tell you anything about intolerances (since they occur in different ways) so the only way to figure it out is to cut it out of my diet entirely for a while.

Should be fun I think! I'm always up for a challenge in the kitchen. After working in food service for years I've picked up some skills and am a pretty decent cook if I do say so myself. So I say bring it on...lets see how creative I can get with this! Life is too short to eat bad food (or food that hates you)!

I love food, but sometimes it doesn't love me...

I'm a food geek, I admit it. I think about the food I eat more than most people I suppose. The nutritional composition of it, where it's come from, what's in it, who made it, how it could be made better, it's all swirling around in my head every time I take a bite of something. I suppose growing up with various food restrictions (my mom was Seventh Day Adventist) caused me to pay attention to what exactly I was eating as a kid, and with a mother who was rather particular about the food she ate in general, the habit just became more complex as I got older. When I was 14 my parents decided we were all going vegan. VEGAN. Us kids were less than impressed with all that. I mean, vegetarian we could get behind, but vegan?? They had good intentions though. My siblings both had rather severe asthma and my mother was hoping cutting out dairy products would impact their asthma for the better (it did, substantially' and was so worth it.)

And then when I was 19 I developed my first food intolerance--corn. I was heart broken, it was my favorite vegetable and suddenly I couldn't eat it without becoming violently ill. It was strange to say the least. I suspect a bad case of the flu I had immediately prior to reacting to corn caused my body to be in the perfect state to have a reaction, but we'll never really know for sure I guess. All I knew was that it sucked. But, I learned to live with it and get on with life, carefully avoiding a food I used to wolf down with gusto. Then, later that summer I got the same reaction to watermelon. Oh you can imagine how mad I was. The peak of summer in the southern US? All you feel like eating is watermelon! But after pushing the issue a few weeks after the first reaction I quickly made peace with the fact that my body was less than impressed with watermelon. It was okay though, I figured I'd just eat cantaloupe or honeydew melon instead, since they were in season and had the cool, refreshing qualities I loved so much in watermelon. But my digestive system had other ideas, and they were quickly added to the growing list of "foods to avoid".

Over the next few years oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, most greens, all bagged vegetable products in the grocery stores, and even apples were added to the list, as well as whole grains. I could eat highly refined grain products like pasta or bread products made with white flour, but any whole grain would have me writhing in pain. I think that was the most mysterious of all. Why whole grains? Why was the processed versions okay? I began to notice the trend with a few other things too. Like, fresh tomatoes--bad. Ketchup--fine. Oranges--bad. Small amounts of cooked orange juice concentrate--fine. Musing about it one day my mom and I decided that perhaps the reason they worked was because the offending food was processed to the degree that my body didn't quite recognise it as offensive....either that, or whatever was offending me was removed in the processing. We figured maybe I was reacting not to the foods, but the pesticides used on them as they grew? In time I had to leave my vegan way of eating in order to diversify my diet a bit. I'd read several studies done that showed some people with a family history of food allergies can "activate" them after restricting their diet radically and was concerned maybe veganism had helped trigger it. After that the development of new sensitivities halted for the most part, which I took to be a good sign!

Fast forward several years and I found myself living here in New Zealand. Moving to a new place is always a challenge, but when you have various food sensitivities that have you living in your bathroom for days, well, it's even more so. I recall many days when I first got here spent curled up on the bed, sick from some food that somehow contained something not compatible with me. But after living here for a while and trying new "safe" things and such, I began to notice my body calming down in some ways. One day I ended up eating something I didn't intend to (tomatoes) and yet an hour later I still hadn't had a reaction. Can you imagine how elated I was? I called my mom and almost bawled over the fact that I wasn't sick, and she spoke the words that had been milling around in my head "What else do you think you might be able to eat?" What else indeed. Apples, lettuce, and tomatoes turned out to be just fine here. My only guess is that either they are a different variety, or whatever chemical I was reacting to in the US is not in use here. In the last 6 months I've added in some whole grains as well!

But, last month it started all over again. Nothing seems to sit well, I dread eating, and I know every detail of my bathroom (if I owned the place it would be totally redone by now). Not good. So what's a foodie to do? Start a new post about my solution...LOL