Compared with many others, my food allergies are mild and very manageable.  I have several of them, but to date have no severe reactions such as anaphylaxis.  I had thought celiac was my largest issue because of the irreversible damage that occurs when gluten is ingested.  Now I’m not so sure.  I think my biggest enemy is sugar.

My doctor tells me how fabulously rare I am because I clinically test as allergic to sugar cane.  Sugar is 100% carbohydrate – there is no protein against which to mount an allergic response.  When I consume any variety of sugar cane I quickly get a pounding headache and feel very queasy.  I am proud to say I have been cane sugar-free since 2007.

My other issue with sugar is hypoglycemia.  To help balance my blood sugar I eat approximately every two hours while awake.  I try to keep food by my bed so I can eat when I wake; sometimes I need to eat in the middle of the night.  There have been days when my blood sugar as been so low that I couldn’t walk into the kitchen to get something to help raise it.

Unfortunately, I sometimes forget to eat.  I know that sounds silly, but it’s true.  If I’m deeply involved with a project or activity, I do forget.  There are other times when I do not have enough food with me and I get behind.  Not being prepared for eating is awful because my special diet renders many of the things I could quickly access as unsafe.  This usually leads to a crash, which depending on the severity may include shaking, feeling disoriented, compromised vision, headache, or disconnecting from surroundings.  It also often leads to wicked food cravings.

Over the weekend I asked my body to do more than it could reasonably manage.  I went far too long without eating for average activity, but I threw in about three hours of heavy activity on top of that.  Not my best work.  While I was out of the house and very close to shutting down, I figured I would stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things.  I reasoned that I would get something to help stabilize and take care of myself when I got home.  I did, in fact, have a banana and some juice, but I also talked myself into a bag of brownie mix from The Cravings Place.  Poor choice.

When I arrived home I filled up on protein and a little more sugar and made brownies.  Unbelievable.  The brownie mix (which tastes more like cake to me but is still delicious) includes two ingredients on my NO List:  rice and corn.  I was cognitively compromised and couldn’t help myself, I suppose.  I licked the bowl and then had a medium-sized slab of sweetness when it came out of the oven.  Before I even put the brownies in the oven I had remaining symptoms from my crash, but eating the wrong food certainly didn’t help.  The brownies were sweetened with beet sugar.  While that’s compatible with my sugar “allergy,” it does nothing for my blood sugar.

I had hot flashes.  I bloated from the rice flour and corn starch.  I could not find a comfortable position.  Oh, and the nausea.  Gross.  My head was pounding and I was certain that I would vomit all over myself (I did not).

It’s easy for me to stay motivated to keep things like soy, gluten, and dairy out of my life.  I remember how horrible I feel when I have them.  Watching my blood sugar is a trickier beast for me.  For some reason I don’t monitor myself as well as I should and when I get into trouble, the cravings start a vicious cycle of completely inappropriate choices.  I suffered by my own hands, but I am glad of the experience.  I should now be properly motivated to monitor my blood sugar for at least another year.

Today I made five-ingredient pancakes with garfava flour.  It was my first time using garfava and after all of the wonderful things I’ve heard and read about it I was excited to use it.  I tasted the batter before it hit the skillet and it was horrible.  I felt like I had a mouth full of dried beans.  I like beans and the taste was too beany for me.  No matter.  I figured that the bean taste would disappear during cooking.  So many people raved about garfava online that I was convinced it was going to be fabulous.

It wasn’t.  The finished pancakes were less beany than the batter, but they were still icky.  I choked down two pancakes doused in maple syrup and fed the rest to the dogs (who really enjoyed them).  I’m really glad I made just a half-batch.

In the early days of my gluten-free eating, I remember eating several things that were awful at the time that I now eat fairly regularly.  Garfava flour will not be one of the foods I change my mind about later.  Blech.

One of the difficulties I’ve found in clean or allergy-friendly eating is the amount of time and effort it takes.  Without conventional dietary staples, like grain, recipes become more complicated.  There are so many incredibly talented and dedicated allergy wizards out there in the blogosphere who can make something that tastes like cornbread without corn, eggs, and gluten.  I don’t know how they do it, but I know that kind of work is not for me.

Simple is good.  I’ll be able to focus more on really tasting the foods I am eating rather than trying to figure out how to make something taste like something else (one of the reasons I’ve never been a fan of soy).  Maybe my digestion will improve.  The time I spend in the kitchen will certainly decrease, and that ought to bring a little stress relief.

Two weeks.  Five ingredients.

I dig mustard.  I also dig apple cider vinegar.  And who doesn’t like honey?  I figured this product was guaranteed to be completely awesome, and I needed a new jar of mustard, anyway.

Each time I have this mustard I try to decide if it tastes more like mustard or honey – the flavors are blended that well.  The honey taste is distinct but not overwhelming, and the mustard is just tangy enough to compliment it perfectly.  I’ve never had anything like it.  Yesterday I bought my second jar to replace the first one that didn’t last very long.

I’ve used this in vinaigrette, on buffalo, and with shrimp.  The more I use it the more I like it.  Because it is completely organic and gluten- and sugar-free, I have no worries eating it.

http://truenaturaltaste.com/organic-mustards/organic-pure-honey-mustard/

I continue to be fascinated by how unaware we are of what we eat.  Most people, for example do not remember what they eat from day-to-day and certainly do not know the amount of protein, fat, fiber, carbohydrates, and calories they consume.  Life becomes different when you are mindful of how you fuel your body.  Eating isn’t just something to do when you get bored or anxious.

My friends today told me about their experiences with the hope that I could offer a little advice, motivation, and understanding.  At the recommendations of their respective doctors, both have pursued changes in diet.  My lady friend is adopting the blood type diet and lifestyle (she is including the exercise recommendations as well).  My gentleman friend is going gluten-free to allow his leaky gut to heal.  They were alarmed at the amount of effort their dietary changes require and at times are so discouraged that they want to quit.

“How do you feel?”  I asked.

In each case the answer was a variation on fabulous, much improved, and no comparison.  Along with that also came comments about frustration and fatigue that comes with trying so hard.  It’s not just about removing certain things from your plate or kitchen.  It’s a different way of shopping for and storing food, planning meals, and cooking.  Do you have enough of the right kind of snacks to last all day or all week?  Are they things you’ll actually eat?  Are they packaged so they are easy to pack anywhere?

These days my meals are planned days in advance.  I now go to the grocery store with a list, and if I forget something I absolutely have to return for it.  I have given up many freedoms with my diet, but for all I have sacrificed I have received more than enough in return.  After years of feeling shades of blech, I feel pretty darn awesome.  I hope my friends continue to experience the same.

Several days ago I made a batch of mango salsa. The first day I had it with chili, and because I’m trying a rotation diet it sat in the fridge longing for purpose for a few days. While hurriedly packing lunch for work, I gathered baby romaine, a cucumber, mushrooms, and tuna. I tossed the salsa in my insulated bag thinking that it might work for the salad in place of the usual oil and vinegar.  It was completely delicious!  Now I know that salad and salsa are a winning combination I’ll make the match more often.

When taking it to go, I use a Tupperware container for my salad and add dressing (or salsa, in this case) just before eating.  I pop the lid back on the container after adding the dressing and shake the bowl for 10 seconds or so, which very evenly coats the salad.  Yummy!

Missy Chase Lapine is The Sneaky Chef.  She’s perfected the art of hiding conventionally undesirable ingredients in yummy dishes with 13 techniques that are nicely described in the book.  In most cases, one of 16 make-ahead recipes (a blend of healthy ingredients) is concealed in a breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, or beverage.  The orange puree (Make-Ahead Recipe #2) includes sweet potato or yam, carrots, and water.  It punches up the nutritional values in Top Banana Waffles, Mega Marinara Sauce, Fearless Fried Chicken, and Something’s Fishy Sticks, to name a few.  Yes, the recipe names are a little too cute.  Especially for a man-friendly cookbook.

The book is well-organized and the recipe layout is easy to read.  Recipes are grouped into breakfast, lunch, soup, appetizer and side dish, sauce and salad dressing, dinner, grill, snacks, drinks, and desserts.  There are a few color photographs and a neat classification system for each recipe that indicates how it rates for things like sugar, carbs, antioxidants, protein, and fat.  Almost all of the recipes are very simple, and the few that require more effort are still well within the grasp of most cooks.

This is a creative approach that I’ve ironically used with my dogs for years, but I’ve never tried it for myself.  I’m pretty good about trying new things, but there are some flavors that don’t do it for me.  Unfortunately, those flavors tend to go with useful foods.  I don’t care for avocados, for example.  I have got to find a way to get more calories, protein, and fat into my body and avocado can help with those things.  Why not have it in Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Ice Cream?  Yep, strawberries, avocado, milk (hemp for me), honey, and chocolate pureed and slightly frozen is not a bad little treat.  While I am not able to use every recipe in the book on my diet, I was surprised by the number of recipes that were already safe or could be made so with a few minor adjustments.

The drawback of this cookbook is the lengthy non-recipe section.  The first 146 pages detail personal experience, food information, methodology, and the make-ahead recipes.  I can’t help but think that could have been done in 30 pages or less – I think most people would prefer to get right to business rather than read page after page of narrative.  It is a cookbook, after all.

The Sneaky Chef also has a cookbook focused on kid-friendly recipes.  I don’t have any of those but figure it’s worth a look.  So far I’ve been pleased and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this one to others.

I recently checked out The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook: Two Hundred Gourmet & Homestyle Recipes for the Food Allergic Family by Cybele Pascal.  Overall it was not a good fit for my needs, but there are several good things about it that may be helpful for others.

Cybele organized the cookbook into breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, snacks, and general information and resources.  This made it very easy to browse recipes.  She also provided basic information about food allergies in the beginning of the book and loads of resources (e.g., food allergy organizations, product lines, books) in the back.  For someone just getting into cooking for a food allergic person the information is very useful.

I realize I am way out there when it comes to food allergies because of my extensive NO List, so I expect that most of the recipes in this cookbook would be appropriate for others.  Oats, barley, spelt, rice, potato, and corn are on the ingredient list throughout the book (although Cybele does offer substitution suggestion for spelt).  There were very few recipes in the book that I could use without modification.

On the other hand, all recipes are free of refined sweeteners and many of the dinner recipes are the kind you will not see in most cookbooks, like wild boar tenderloin with green mole.  Today I modified Dora’s cranberry sauce for my own version, which my husband declared was the best cranberry sauce he had ever had.

If you are celiac or allergic to wheat, barley, oats, rye, potato, rice, or corn, this cookbook won’t do much for you.  If you are looking for creative recipes that are cane sugar-free that do not use refined wheat flour, The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook may be a good bet.

It being my first day, I’m not completely up to speed on how everything works, but I will share as I go along.  So far I have entered my breakfast, lunch, and snacks for the day.  It is immediately apparent how I managed to become smaller than a size 0 – my caloric intake is puny.  I’ve never counted calories or carbs, so this will be a fun exercise.  I can also use it to help keep track of my rotation diet.

SparkPeople also includes an area for cataloging exercise, which is also a doctor’s order.  I have a paper to write for school that I simply must start this evening, so I’m going to pass (it’s my last week of class and a really big paper).  My goal is to get organized by this weekend and begin logging some exercise hours.

If you are on SparkPeople and would like to visit or connect, my user name is “zazzkitty.”  I’d love to hear about your experiences with the application.

Today I visited my doctor again.  Several weeks ago I donated a little blood for a food allergy test and this morning I received the results.  The results were both expected and unexpected.

I expected to hear that my wheat, egg, and sugar numbers were high (as they were when I first had the test in 2008).  My sugar number was indeed high.  The interesting thing about that is the test is designed to measure immune responses, which occur with proteins.  Sugar is well, sugar – theoretically, it doesn’t have proteins that would generate a reaction (which makes me wonder why it is included in the test).   That my reaction was so severe was both troubling and interesting to my doctor as he wasn’t able to explain it.  That means a few more tests, but those will be in the future.

Surprisingly, wheat and egg did not show as anything out of the ordinary.  There are two possible reasons for that.  The first is that because it’s been so long since I’ve had either that my blood didn’t react in the lab.  The second is that I may have outgrown the allergies.  With the experience of the food challenges fresh in my mind, I have absolutely no desire to subject myself to foods that were once unfriendly and may or may not have warmed up to me over time.  As frustrating as it can be at times, I would rather go without.

Also surprising were the new positives on the test.  Pecans and amaranth showed as potentially unfriendly foods.  I don’t have much in the way of amaranth because I find its bitter aftertaste quite disagreeable.  Pecans, on the other hand, I eat almost every day.  In other words, my lack of motivation in starting a rotation diet is about to transform into a whole lotta motivation.  I do not want to put any more foods on my NO List.

The good news about that is that I’ll have lots of new blog fodder.  The bad news is that it’s going to be loads of work.  Very much worth it, I expect.