You may remember about six weeks ago in mid-April I posted about being sick and tired of being sick and tired, so I ended up visiting the naturopathic doctor for help. Well, the results are back from the testing that we did and I was definitely surprised, to say the least. Food allergies. Yup. And not the easy-to-avoid ones either. This IS ME we're talking about, and I never seem to take the simple route in anything!
So, today after writing out my new list of food to avoid I went to the local natural health store, the book store, and then came home to clean out and organize my pantry. The list includes:
Dairy of any form (which I sort of expected)
Eggs (yolk, white, any type)
Cane Sugar (white granulated, brown, cane juice, glucose, etc)
Cranberry
Pineapple (I knew this one too)
Banana
Asparagus
Broccoli
Now, the latter portion of the list is not so bad with individual items that are relatively easy to avoid using careful inspection of ingredients. However, the first three, are certainly whoppers! Above, you can see the pantry in my kitchen (we took the doors off because they were annoying bi-folds that never worked properly). It's generally a well loved, much used malaise of food items and packaging.
After my emptying everything out onto the floor throughout the kitchen, inspecting every can, container, box, and bin, there is now a significant dent in contents within. I decided to make the bottom shelf "my shelf" which now contains only the items I can eat. The rest is everything else and tea. Ack! I think I may starve soon! It's a good thing I managed to find a few staples at the healthfood store - stevia and agave nectar for sweetener; a biscuit mix that is dairy, egg, and sugar free; some sugar-free pasta (yes, surprisingly half of our pasta had sugar in it); and a sugar free, relatively tasty brand of snack bar.
Tomorrow's task? Attack the fridge in the same manner and go through all my recipes to see if they can be adapted. I am also hoping to make some granola and some biscuits so I have at least a little something to eat for breakfast. With no yogurt, no milk, no cheese, no eggs, and no bread (since it has sugar in it), breakfast pickings are looking sort of sparse! Helllllo oatmeal with maple syrup!
Do any of you have similar food allergies? Which of the soy or rice beverages do you like as a milk alternative (or other type altogether)? Any favourite recipes to share? I've heard both good and bad about the flavour of stevia, and thoughts?
Heather
8 comments:
Oh! my goodness!!! Heather.....
This means quite a change for you and your family. I have a fairly bland diet myself, out of choice more than anything. I take the course that if my Grandmother wouldn't recognise it, then don't eat it!!!! I never eat packaged anything and make everything from scratch. Keep us posted on what food you can eat and if I can share any of my recipes with you I will. I used to be a strict vegetarian for many years and now only eat meat once or twice weekly.
It's a big thing to get your head around at first, but once you develop new habits and routine you will find that it will get easier and your taste buds will re-orient themselves too!!! Hopefully you will feel the benefits within a month or so.
This seems to be so common these days. My son's girlfriend likes the Almond milk. Good luck, and if you follow these restrictions, you will be astonished how quickly you feel better.
Wow...big changes. But hopefully it'll be worth it and you'll feel better!
Wow... that's a tough one. I like the chocolate Almond milk. For bread - I would try sourdough - yeast bread uses sugar to make it rise. Canadian Living website has a lot of allergy specific recipies, you might have luck there. Also - check the website for Maximized Living - I have their cookbook and they don't use sugar in most recipies. Good luck! When baking cookies, muffins and cakes, you can substitude an egg with a TBSP of powdered soymilk and TBSP of water for each egg. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.
My problem is latex, nuts, seafood. (These items are known to cross react with latex and do so in my case--potato, tomato, wheat, kiwi, eggplant, melons, watermelon, cantelope, pineapple, papaya, and mango.) Banana a little bit. Avocado is supposed to, but I am still a little lucky. Brown rice and deli meats are a real problem for me. Beware of white vinegar and mayonnaise even if it is gluten free. Recipes? Corn tortillas with pinto beans and/or beef. Chicken. Dijon yes, yellow mustard no. Many honeycrisp apples. Blueberries, chobani plain yogurt, ground flax, and honey. Sorry, I forgot that milk is on your list. The mission corn tortillas are very good. I wish you good luck and better health.
Oh wow, sorry to read this. But I know you will eventually figure it out. My daughters husband can't have dairy or any wheat product. She started looking and now is a wonderful dairy/gluten free cook.
Just catching up on the rest of your blog I have missed.
Love your hexies and "steps"
sorry to hear about your allergies. bummer!
I think I am allergic to milk because when I stopped drinking it I could breathe. I now used unsweetened soy milk which is actually quite good.
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