Friday, October 25, 2013

My First Month Intolerance-Free (Warning: absurdly long post as I felt the need to introduce everything)

So I've been debating for awhile whether or not to go ahead and blog about my whole experience getting used to cutting out the foods I'm intolerant to. On the one hand, I know I find it helpful to read about other people going through similar things, and what they have discovered that does and doesn't work for them. So I like the idea that if someone out there is going through something similar, that maybe this could help them. Also I want a way to keep family and friends informed who are either also dealing with intolerances or just want to hear about how I'm getting on figuring it all out, without being that person who is constantly posting Facebook statuses related to food... I've done a few of them but usually restrain myself because I know most people don't care. But this way those who do care can read away, and those who aren't interested aren't bothered with it cluttering up their news feed. This second reason is why I decided to go ahead and start this blog, even though I really don't feel like I have time to post as often as I would like.

Anyways, this week officially marks the start of my second month without eating foods I'm intolerant to, so it seemed like a good time to start, and look back on my first month. I've learned a lot in that time and things have gotten much easier. And I feel so much better as well! To go back to the start, I took the ELISA food allergy/intolerance test because I was suffering from a relatively wide range of symptoms that could be caused by food issues (eczema, digestive issues, stomach pain, poor immune system, poor circulation, fatigue, headaches, runny nose, etc.). The test came back positive for several items (see top of page), and implied that, as I had expected, I was suffering from leaky gut syndrome(basically my intestines have tiny holes in them that are letting partially digested food particles and bacteria into my blood stream, which naturally my body attacks, causing food intolerances).  My doctor had me cut out all level II and up foods and start taking L-glutamine to help heal my gut, as well as a few other supplements.

For the most part this wasn't too bad. I don't really like coffee, I've always been more of a tea drinker. I've probably had lobster 2 or 3 times ever, crab once every year or two, and scallops once or twice a year, usually because someone else in my family wanted them (they're okay but never what I crave when I'm wanting seafood). So I am perfectly happy with those being the only seafood items I have to cut out (aside from shrimp, but that's short-term). If it weren't for cheese I'd be okay with the dairy free thing, I like coconut milk and nut milks. The hardest things for me to cut out are blueberries, almonds, and cheese, I do miss them. But I can have every other nut, other berries (except cranberries, which I also miss though didn't used to have as often), and vegan cheese is okay...not the same, but better than nothing. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, the sugar and yeast thing is hard only in the sense that it's in freaking everything! So I've been doing a lot of my own cooking (as in pretty much every meal I've had in the last month haha).

In addition to cutting out foods, I have to rotate all grains and proteins on a 4-day rotation so I don't develop new intolerances. This was the hardest thing to get used to (and the day I realized different kinds of rice, beans, etc. count as different items to rotate was a great day, because you can't always have rice with the same kind of protein...). It's one thing to suddenly have to cut out several food items and most processed foods, but to then have to take your now limited food selection and divide it by 4 so you can rotate your days, that was tough. It's gotten easier though; it was mostly just a matter of adjusting. I discovered Pepperplate, a website/phone app that involves a meal planner/calendar and where you can upload recipes manually or copy them from other sites to have your own recipe database, so when you look at the planner the items you entered in will have links to the recipe. This way you don't have to worry about finding the recipe in cookbooks/pinterest/wherever, it's just all right there. It made a HUGE difference in helping me with the rotation diet, partly because I could keep track of what I was eating and know when I could eat things again, and partly because saving lots of recipes to it helped me no longer feel like I only had a small handful of meal options to choose from (which is how my first week or two went).

The other nice thing about the rotation diet is it helps you discover foods you have issues with that the test missed or didn't test for. For me I tested level I on wheat, which is low enough that I wasn't told to cut it out, but apparently my body doesn't like it anyways, as I got a stomachache every time had it since I cut my intolerance foods out. That's the thing, before you cut things out all your symptoms run together, and it's hard to notice what could be causing it. Also, your body reacts a little more violently when you have something bad once you start cutting things out. It's like before your body was just trying to scrape through, and symptoms were very regular but bearable, but once you cut it out your body gets the chance to start healing, and it likes it, and if you have something bad it's like "Whoa there, what the heck!". Still, having no symptoms at all 99% of the time and bad symptoms 1% of the time is better than having medium-to-bad symptoms nearly all the time.

Most of my recipes are new to me, and tweaked for my food issues. For whatever reason it took me nearly 3 weeks to realize that for recipes that don't involve meat anyways, such as baked goods, it's easier to google "vegan ___" than try to get the search to understand that you're looking for recipes that are FREE FROM dairy, eggs, and whatever else (since I try to use my egg days on eating actual eggs, as opposed to wasting them in recipes where you don't taste them anyways). I've also discovered it's usually easier to do your own conversions to what you know you can have than to try and find a recipe that actually works for you entirely (which is another think I love about Pepperplate, I can manually edit the recipes to fit my restrictions instead of having to look up things such as sugar to stevia conversions every time I make stuff). I'm sure for many people these things seem like common sense, but when you're just getting used to all this it's a little overwhelming and you're focusing on so much that sometimes the obvious stuff escapes you for awhile.

My doctor said once 3 weeks had passed I could start reintroducing level II items, eating one 3 times in a day and then nothing new (including that food) for the next 4 days. That way I can tell if I am safe to start having it again (it can take up to 4 days for a reaction). I can't reintroduce sugar, yeast, or mushrooms yet though, as those feed bad bacteria and hinder the healing of my gut, and that's obviously priority for now. Anyways, my first reintroduced item was oats, as I had been missing steel cut oats, and as it would be very useful to have another breakfast food option to rotate through. I had it with berries for breakfast, grated pear for lunch, and after a light dinner, I made it with unsweetened cocoa powder, stevia, chopped walnuts, and some nut milk as a dessert. It was AMAZING! Basically brownie in a porridge form, which was really nice as I'd been craving brownies. And since it's whole grain oats, nuts, and cocoa sweetened with stevia instead of sugar, it's actually pretty healthy, so I've decided I can totally justify having it for breakfast on my oat days (as 4 days came and went and I had no reaction at all!). Next week I'll be reintroducing shrimp, hopefully that goes well too!

There are other recipes I've discovered I can make that are really good, and that always excites me. For example, I was really craving tuna casserole in my first week, before I realised I can't have wheat either. It's one of my favorite recipes my dad always made as I grew up, so it's very much a comfort food. Also, it means I'm a bit particular on my tuna casserole, people who bake it or add celery, it's just not right to me! But that's how some foods you grow up on go... so the challenge was to try and make tuna casserole without dairy or mushrooms, which of course is what cream of mushroom soup is. I decided to try it anyways though. For the sauce I used thick coconut milk mixed with minced garlic and onion, salt, and some herbs and spices. And then of course I mixed it into my noodles. It was actually really good, though it didn't taste much like tuna casserole; oddly enough, the sauce tasted like clam chowder, which I was fine with because I like clam chowder haha. I had my boyfriend (let's call him Kirby on here) try it the next day and didn't mention the clam chowder taste and he said the same thing, so it wasn't just me! And he doesn't even like tuna casserole much, but he liked this, so it was a great discovery! Unfortunately I've since discovered I can't do wheat, but I can do this with either rice noodles or just pour the sauce over quinoa or rice :)

Kirby is actually really great about this overall. He's supportive even though he doesn't fully understand it, and he's fine with eating my foods (which I hadn't expected). When I first made breaded chicken I used bread crumbs for him and made my own from Trader Joe's Quinoa & Black Bean Tortilla Chips (which I would highly recommend by the way, and is also excellent on pork chops, and I don't even like pork chops but they were amazing!). It wasn't hard to dip his chicken in a different kind of crumbs, and as I'm intolerant, not allergic, I was able to put both chicken breasts in the same baking pan. I had him try mine though, and he said it was really good and he totally doesn't mind me doing them the same in the future. He said he doesn't want me to worry about cooking things separate for him, he can eat what I eat. I really appreciate that he feels that way, as it makes things so much easier! But for certain foods I'll still make them separate. For example, it's easy enough to make enchiladas it 2 small trays instead of 1 big one, and that way I can use real cheese for him, which not only tastes better and melts better, but is also much cheaper. Free-from foods tend to cost more, so if it's not much more work I don't mind making some things separate. But it's also nice that most days I don't have to!

Anyways, I'm not going to go over every little food I've discovered that turned out well in the last month, as I've already written half a novel. But I felt like I needed a somewhat thorough intro to this page, so there you go. Future posts will be much shorter, don't worry :)


No comments:

Post a Comment