Well, I’ve caught something again.
My immune system, which has been doing so well for so long, has now let slip a lung-centric sort of cold. Thankfully, it’s not accompanied by a sore throat, which is the kind of sick I usually get. Instead, I’m hacking up hairballs (okay, not really), coughing, and sleeping the day away, glad to be at home.
At this moment, I’m curled up in my blue mostly-comfy chair, searching my mostly-awake brain for topics I haven’t covered yet, and trying to discard anything trite.
Looking for inspiration out the window, I see trees and gray skies, along with a distinct lack of snow and the rare sight of little birds twittering about (in February of all months!). Unfortunately, none of those subject inspire any profound thoughts, though I’m sure that there are some to be had.
Moving on, my pantry is in my line of sight, and I give food prep a spare thought or two. I have some food intolerances (not allergies, these food just don’t make me feel good) which make me extra careful of what I consume, and a friend of mine recently asked something along the lines of, “Well, what do you eat?” which made me laugh a little.
To answer that, I suppose I'd say: Well… it's a little complicated. I don’t eat much that I can’t read an ingredients list on. To put it fairly simply, I eat home-cooked meats with seasonings (but not many pre-made seasoning mixes), vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains – minus wheat, as I’m fairly certain that wheat spikes my anxiety levels. All of which sounds fairly normal. Where it gets less normal is the fact that I don’t eat dairy. Or sugar. Or sesame and canola oil. Or regular grapes and bell peppers.
I may have lost some of you on that last one, but the reasoning is this: there are certain fruits/vegetables that hold onto the pesticides used on them more than others (there is a list, which calls them the “Dirty Dozen”). It took me awhile to learn about that, but when I did hear something about it, it explained why I usually felt worse after eating grapes. Regular (inorganic) peppers, I’ll sometimes make an exception for, but I tend to avoid them.
Now, if it were a couple of hundred years ago, somebody would be laughing their hat off at that list. I would look pretty silly walking into a dining establishment in 1826, or even 1926 with a list of all the things I’m not eating. But, the truth is, a lot has changed in how food is grown and harvested or raised and butchered in our country in the last century or two – and not all of it for the better. So, I don’t feel too bad about writing off about seventy percent of edibles in grocery stores as something I can’t have.
But even with all that, the variety of alternative ingredients populating store shelves have grown greatly in the last few decades, and I can usually substitute something or other into a recipe and make things work.
So, I can still make pancakes, orange chicken, enchiladas, cakes, and even honey marshmallows, among many other things. I recently tried my hand at homemade salad dressing, but it didn’t combine correctly, so I’ll have to take another shot at that at a future date.
Or, to put it another way: I save a bunch of money on convenience foods and candy bars – but then go and spend that money on bulk buys at Costco or Winco, stocking up on brands of maple syrup, honey, arrowroot starch, and almond flour that I can have.
Because of the various problems that each of the foods I avoid give me, it’s a luxury for me to have a meal out and about that doesn’t tank my energy reserves for the day, or give me a headache. And I’m sure a person or two has thought me rude at a ‘everybody-bring-something’ meal when I eat what I brought, and not what they did. But my friends have been pretty great at accommodating me on those accounts, so thank you guys. And it does help that other members in my family have their own ‘can’t-eat’ foods, though it means that holiday meals are an exercise in very creative deliciousness (One of the reasons Thanksgiving is my favorite)
And for today, as the headache from this cold fades, I’m probably going to stuff some beans and meat in a crock-pot or pan and figure out whether I’m making tacos, taco salad, or chili this week.
I think that for a lot of people reading this, the food-avoiding and recipe-substitutions probably don’t sound worth the trouble. But, as I told my co-worker the other day, on a related subject, “I like my sanity where it’s at.” It’s been a slow process to get here, but I like the stability of food that don’t stomp on my body’s ability to function, lower my immune system’s defenses, or throw me for mental/emotional/physical loop. (Though I will admit that I’d rather not be told about any more foods I shouldn’t eat... just yet, at least)
But not everyone has the same build, or make-up. What works for me may not work for you, so it may genuinely not be worth it for any number of people.
For me it is worth it.
And this is what today is like, for me.
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I think I know that friend! Ha!