I intolerate food

You know, I love food and as a foodie of sorts and food intolerances and even worse - food allergies, are definitely not an easy thing to grapple with.  But they must be acknowledged.

I have a sensitive stomach, and have experienced stomach issues of varying types and degrees for several years. After over 20 years of being the kid who would always clean her plate and ask for seconds of pretty much anything under the sun - things changed for me literally overnight in my early 20's and it hasn't been the same since.

I don't have allergies or intolerances diagnosed by a physician (YET), just the experience in my gut, on my skin, and in my throat to thank for alerting me that something just ain't right.

I've done much research on the subject of food sensitivity and food allergy, and the former is actually extremely common, infact, most people have at least a mild intolerance to SOMETHING. 

Why this post is coming out now is because I am pretty sure I need to put more foods on my hit list.  I'm in an exploritory phase and trying to figure out in a dietary sense what is causing my various stomach troubles, and omitting suspect foods.

So I'm avoiding some things including MILK.  (and refined grains, wheat, peanuts, concentrated sugars, artificial sweeteners although I still chew some gum sometimes...) WOAH!!  Holy crap.  I love cottage cheese, I LOVE LOVE LOVE ice cream and yogurt was practically a twice daily occurence.

I have been doing this for about a week now, and you know what?  It was tough the first few days, I LOVE ice cream and i LOVE yogurt (and hell i LOVE sugar!!!!!!!!!!).  I tried goat yogurt and tolerate it better but I stopped eating that because I want to be free of all dairy for quite some time.  Then challenge it in about another 7-10 days to see if it's one of the major things that's 'eating me'.   Dairy is in alot of things, and it's major alternative (soy) is in alot of things and I have never been able to tolerate soy (in volumes, so like...tofu stir fry is bad - but a dash of tamari won't kill me).

Over a week in I don't have sugar cravings like I did, and I'm experiencing far fewer stomach issues (although heartburn, my dearest friend, still likes me too much).

SO WHAT THE HECK DO I EAT?

Well, I can eat things like the black bean mole with chickpea pancakes I made short while ago (and a zillion other things too)   It's forcing me to look into my food even more and try things I haven't tried before and love (ALMOND MILK IS VERY YUMMY!!  Nuts to You Sunflower seed butter is so tasty)   I've actually cooked several successful recipes but I hadn't blogged them because they were more on the fly and the batteries in my camera were dead :)

I don't know what I'm going to accomplish with this, but I do know I will probably have to try it a few times to get to the bottom of what's eating me, the results of this are going with me to my next drs appointment and maybe next time I can do something like this properly with a dietician.  It might also be a good idea to see an allergist (since I got major mouth itchies when I accidentally ate something with peanuts the other day, woah! but nothing like a brazilian nut incident a few years ago that had me panicking for my life)

I'm going to experiment with some alternative ways of cooking, hopefully some of the stuff will totally rule and will make it on the blog.   I'm working on an idea for an avocado coconut ice cream :)

I intolerate food, but it's opening me up to a more varied diet and fewer stomach issues.   That can't be a bad thing, can it?

Over N Out!