The Great Food Allergy Experiment: Week 3

Today is day 21 of following some dietary guidelines as a test to determine whether I will feel better after cutting out certain foods I may be allergic to. Do I feel any better? Is the diet working to resolve my health issues? Is it ridiculous to say I have no idea? I might feel better. But maybe that's because I'm paying incredibly close attnetion to what I'm eating and how much of it I'm eating. Regardless, I was advised to eliminate dairy and eggs for at least three months, so even if I'm not seeing results after three weeks, I'm not going to dive into a block of jack cheese, as tempting as that might be.

The doctor's next suggestion was to use a rotation diet, which means that the foods I CAN eat should be alternated and not eaten more than once every four days. This is more involved than eating some tortilla chips one day and then putting the bag on top of the fridge for three days. The rotation diet means that after eating some tortilla chips I would have to avoid eating ALL corn products for three days, including corn syrup and all corn by-products. Similarly if I eat wheat one day, I should avoid all wheat products for the next three days. To me, that is pure insanity. It's irksome to have to read labels so closely and think so hard about what to buy and how to construct a meal, but the added difficulty of rotating is too much. I could make an allergen-free soup and then not eat the leftovers for four days (as well as not eat any corn, beef, black beans or tomatoes, since that's what was in the soup). My compromise is to not eat too much of any one type of food, even if I am eating corn or soy more than once every four days. Variety is the spice of life, right?

I grew accustomed to thinking about each morsel I was consuming surprisingly quickly. "Can I eat this?" is the most common thought crossing my mind in a grocery store. And questions like "How much tuna have I already eaten this week?" or "What else can I make using salsa and garbanzo beans?" frequently skitter around my brain when I'm in the kitchen. But what I have not quite gotten used to is explaining to people that I have an allergy. I don't like it. I realize it's something beyond my control, but I can't shake the feeling that it's a weakness, or vulnerability and something I don't want to talk about. At the same time, it consumes so much of my brain-power that is makes sense to talk about it with friends.

When I break the news to anyone, I try to be very casual because I'm not dying, I don't go into anaphylactic shock, and it won't affect my interactions with most people most of the time. I also DO NOT want to talk about any health problems that may or may not be caused by the allergies. But inevitably when I am invited over for dinner, or to a party, someone will notice my strange eating habits. Others' reactions range from, "If I had to do that I would slit my throat" to "Oh."

Beyond this, I am incredibly annoyed when people conclude that I have lost weight because I have a food allergy. "I guess that explains how you got so thin!" I know I should not be annoyed by this. I am anyway. I have only been on this limited diet for three weeks, beginning in the middle of January. I was already thinner when I arrived back from Germany in December, and in fact already swimming in my clothes a bit as far back as October. So no, I did not lose weight from eating this way. I got thinner because I was too sick to run or rock climb or do anything else vigorous. All my muscle mass is gone. And because I knew I wasn't able to be active, I ate less. This means I got thinner. Of course, it probably is easier to remain thin if one can't eat cookies or candy or factory-produced breads, but there are plenty of ways to still overeat and under-exercise. Coconut milk, peanut butter, refried beans, cashews, and dried apricots won't do wonders for your figure either.

The next thing people tend to do when they discover I can't eat certain foods is apologize for eating those foods. I would rather no one ever know I can't eat donuts than hear things like, "I would stop in at Krispy Kreme, but I'd feel bad for you!" I don't want others to feel pressured to alter their eating patterns because of my issue. I am constantly reassuring people that it's okay to eat in front of me. Oddly I find it more cathartic to watch someone else eat something that I have a craving for than to just see the item sitting on the counter uneaten.

In the three weeks that I've been sticking to the "vegan plus meat" diet (I know, REAL vegans also would avoid honey, molasses, gelatin etc., but gimmie a break)I have been experimenting with dairy alternatives. Fortunately, I never liked cow's milk. (Why do we just call it "milk"? Shouldn't it be "cow's milk" because really milk from human should be what we just call "milk"...Right?) So as it turned out, when I tried some soy milk, I liked it much better than cow's milk anyway. Not missing out on anything there--score one for Suzanne! I also tried a couple of yogurt substitutes, one of which was made from rice protein and tasted disappointingly although not surprisingly, like rice. I do not want my yogurt to taste like rice. I tried a passable raspberry coconut milk yogurt, but the issue with this is two-fold. First, it costs a fortune--$1.79 per 6-oz container if you find it cheap (and if you can find it at all). Secondly, compared to the protein-rich, non-fat, low calorie Greek yogurt I love, coconut milk yogurt doesn't really count as healthy. It's high in saturated fat, calories, and sugar, and there's only a single gram of protein. Alas. The experiment continues.