Healthy Obsessions The Adventures of a Mild Obsessive Compulsive

Tag Archives: Food

How to Feed a Celiac

 

Wooden cookware can retain gluten, even after thorough washing.

 

First, a thank you. To everyone who has fed me and dealt with my dietary limitations. In particular mom and wshaffer. You are heroes of the revolution.

Now, an apology to anyone I’ve driven crazy by minutely examining their kitchen, or not eating the food they prepared, or whose trash can I’ve sifted through to find food wrappers. It’s not personal.

Feeding a celiac guest is hard. There are a lot of things that aren’t initially obvious. I made lots of mistakes in the early days. I’m probably still making some.

Read more →

Since I'm stuck eating gluten…

I’m going to try to sample, in the three weeks I have left of the gluten challenge, as many gluteny foods as I can. If I have to feel sick, I might as well enjoy the process of getting there (I wonder if people say this about pregnancy, too….)

To that end I’m asking for suggestions of what to try.

Suggestions thus far are:

  • Pizza
  • Cookies
  • Baguettes
  • Cake
  • Brownies
  • Retch’s famous chocolate chip cookies
  • Zeppoli (I don’t even know what this is)
  • Guava pastries
  • Sourdough bread
  • Pasta
  • Sandwiches
  • Macaroni Grill food
  • Beignets
  • Mac and Cheese w/breadcrumbs on top
  • Cheesecake
  • Beer
  • Donuts (pref. hot)
  • Baked pasta
  • Churros
  • Luigi’s (local rest. I believe)

Some of these suggestions, I’ve already tried (or tried today). I have had:

  • Homemade chocolate chip cookies
  • Dutch chocolate cookies
  • Buttermilk spice cupcakes (also homemade)
  • Chocolate rum cake
  • Brownies
  • Mac and cheese (both of the Kraft and other varieties)
  • Carbonara
  • Italian bread & French bread & Sourdough
  • Crackers
  • Granola bars
  • Subway sandwiches (I know they’re awful, but I like them)
  • Bagels
  • Old Fashioned Glazed Donuts
  • Tyropita & Spanikopita
  • Braided lemon loaf (courtesy of a co-worker’s wife)
  • Pizza
  • Ravioli
  • A hamburger with a bun
  • Calamari (it was pretty meh, though)
  • Mozarella sticks
  • Fried chicken
  • Chicken pot pie

I’m going to have to keep my samples small, or else go on a massive diet after this is all over. Strangely (ha) I find that I don’t have much appetite these days. Possibly because of the constant queasy feeling…

The Elimination Diet

The Elimination Diet is by far the hardest, and most effective, diet I’ve ever been on.

The point of the diet is to isolate food sensitivities and allergies (not the same thing). And it is brilliant for doing that. It also, as a side effect, is brilliant for weight loss.

I went on the Elimination Diet in November of 2008 as a result of a visit to the Crazy Docs. And when I say crazy here, I don’t mean they were psychiatrists. They were nutritionists and they were very eccentric. Hence, the Crazy Docs.

A friend had recommended them to me, saying they’d helped her with problems similar to the ones I was having at the time: fatigue, brain fog, and sudden weight gain. Add in, in my case, constant allergic rhinitus, hormonal irregularities, and frequent bronchitis. Sounds like a party, no?

Their answer was the  modified Elimination Diet. Their suspicions was gluten sensitivity, or full blown Celiac Disease. I did not realize, at the time, that this was actually their answer to everything. In my case, it turned out they were right. (I will talk more about Celiac Disease and gluten sensitivity in a future post).

Gluten, however, was not the only thing we were taking off the menu. No dairy, no eggs, no sugar, no vinegar, no citrus, no soy…  Here’s The List of Noes:

Everything that's not allowed on the diet.

That’s a pretty big list of things you can’t eat. Add in the complication of eating out, and you’re totally (pardon my language) screwed. Citrus, for example, is problematic. A surprising number of people don’t realize that lemons are citrus. Vinegar is in most condiments: mustard, ketchup, mayo, salad dressing. And try finding a satisfying dessert that fits that list. It’s not impossible, just hard.

The Elimination Diet doesn’t stay that limited forever. The idea is to do it strictly for two weeks and then slowly start reintroducing foods. Each reintroduction takes three days. The day you eat the food and then two days following for it to get fully out of your system. If you have any problems, and I mean any, while testing a food, that food needs to be retested. Dairy shouldn’t be reintroduced until you’ve been on it for several months (I waited six months, and man was I happy to have it back). Gluten is last of all.

It took me months to reintroduce all of those foods. And, honestly, I fudged on the last few. During that time, I lost nearly 20 pounds. In part because my food choices were significantly healthier, in part because there were so few foods I could eat. I did find some decent substitutes. Pure Decadence has a great coconut milk, agave sweetened, mango flavored ice cream.

Pile o' death.

I also learned even the Modified Elimination Diet wasn’t actually limited enough. Mind you, thanks to the limited types of foods I could eat, it was a lot easier to isolate the real problems. Like tomatoes and potatoes. Turns out they give me eczema. Brussel sprouts = migraines. And anything with capsaicin is inimical to my existence. I am allergic to capsaicin. I just always avoided it instinctively, and never had much. I thought I was breaking out for quite possibly years. Turned out it was hives from spicy peppers and their kin. (For some reason, almost every guy I’ve dated seriously over the last seven years has really, really liked capsaicin).

Ironically, aside from the gluten, everything I reacted to was actually on the list of allowed foods. If you’re interested, here’s a detailed list of the foods on the diet, including an annotated version on the second page: The Elimination Diet.

The Elimination Diet  improved my health. A lot.

(Addendum: There are food sensitivity tests out there that are certainly easier. However, the jury is still out as to the effectiveness of most of them.)