Like the song, I’ve had a pretty big change in my life recently. I started having symptoms of what I thought was another food allergy. For the record, I was diagnosed with quite a few nut allergies — including a deadly peanut allergy which did not manifest in childhood, oddly enough — and fruit allergies, as well as a few other random ones (latex and wintergreen, I’m looking at you). Fun fact: If you are allergic to either latex or bananas, chances are, you will be allergic to the other one, too. I didn’t know that. I’d known about my latex allergy for years, having worked in foodservice and was forced to wear latex gloves and basically suffer with hives going up my arms every night until they allowed me to start using non-latex gloves later. But the banana allergy took some time to figure out. Anyway, this all happened in my twenties, and I am forty-six now, so it’s been awhile. My symptoms were similar to hay fever: runny nose and tearing eyes, and also some fun digestive issues. (We won’t get into that). So after making a list of the culprit foods (a very varied list, I might add), I went to my allergist and got a scratch test. Which, by the way, is no longer a scratch test but more like a poke test. Anyway, nothing came up as an allergy. She told me that it was possible that these symptoms were due to an intolerance, which wouldn’t show up on testing. I’d been tested for Celiac disease twice and it came back negative, so we were fairly certain I didn’t have that, even though we do have autoimmune stuff in my family. There is also a slight chance of a false negative, but after two times, it didn’t seem likely.
My allergist said that I needed to go on an elimination diet. But how, I wondered. With so many different foods, how would we possibly narrow it down to any one thing? And did I have multiple intolerances going on? Or were there cross-contamination issues going on, as there can be with food allergies? It was mind-boggling. But the sooner I got to work on this, the better I would feel. There were some days I’d literally be crying while eating a pizza, or spend most of my day in the bathroom. It just wasn’t going to work. Something needed to be done.
My mom and I decided to start with the most logical intolerance: gluten. Even if I wasn’t Celiac, I could still have an intolerance. Going gluten-free was scary for me. I’d never gone on a special diet before. Hell, I could barely even diet for weight loss! I lived in fear of being diabetic or something and needing to cut out all sugar or something. It seemed so daunting, so complicated…and what about my husband, who didn’t have these issues? I certainly couldn’t make two meals every day. I hoped he’d be okay with it. (Spoiler alert: He has been very supportive.)
As it turned out, it was challenging, but not horribly so. My mom was really helpful here, because she found me recipes and substitutes for ingredients that I’d need and information on gluten-free products and basically everything I needed to accomplish this task. I work long hours and a lot, so my biggest worry was the time. I was going to wait for things to calm down. But it seemed more urgent than that. So when she started sending me recipes, I quickly got on board. So apparently you can make your own cream soup instead of buying it. We’ve made our own cream of chicken soup and cheese soup. We use Rice Chex mix or gluten-free rolled oats instead of breadcrumbs. Gluten-free pasta, of course. Today we ran into the question of condiments for my gluten-free meatloaf (which was delicious, by the way!) – the ketchup I was about to use was gluten-free, I learned later, BUT I also learned that if they use vinegar, there could be cross-contamination from wheat grains. And while by law it’s supposed to be declared on the label, for condiments it’s not always done. So if it’s tested to a certain level, it’s considered gluten free. But you have to know that. And finding out requires a bit of detective work. Luckily, there’s a list I have of some of the popular brands so I do know which is which. We ended up using a gluten-free BBQ sauce instead. It was still yummy.
The other thing is using up my food that’s not necessarily gluten free. I do not waste food. I don’t make a lot of money, so food waste is no bueno. 🙁 I gave some of my cereal to my sister and hubby, but I can’t possibly give away everything. So I have to eat some of it. But I want to eventually be 100% gluten free at some point. We’re working on getting ingredients for food that is — the rolled oats, corn starch (that’s a popular choice), the Rice Chex cereal, etc.) and figuring out where to get the gluten-free food I eventually want to substitute for my usual stuff. It’ll take some time. And I’ll have to deal with some of these symptoms in the meantime. But it’s still okay overall. Even if I eat a bit of gluten and mostly gluten free one day, my symptoms do seem a bit less, so that’s good.
It seems to be working for the most part. We’ve been mostly gluten-free for about a week now. I’ve had some gluten, because like I said, I got non-gluten foods that need to be eaten, but it’s been very little. Trying to go about this as scientifically as I can. My symptoms are down overall, although I still have some occasionally. We are trying to figure out the cause of them. And my digestive issues seem to be getting better, which is also very encouraging as well.
Today I actually got nauseous after eating all gluten free and then a dessert that might have had gluten in it, and I had to wonder if that was the cause, as I’ve heard that you can get sick from that. Especially since all day I didn’t have gluten at all.
I also read about cross-contamination in your kitchen and by extension your food, and I guess that depends on your sensitivity. I don’t know if that accounts for the symptoms I am still having, or if there’s another intolerance lurking about. So that needs to be investigated. And there’s always hidden gluten, which I’ve heard about too, and that’s where things get complex. So I definitely need to keep researching and keep testing and keep trying. But the fact that I am feeling better is definitely a step in the right direction.
I had to laugh because I am not into cooking at all. And when I decided to do this, I was like, “Looks like I better start to enjoy cooking, huh?” I think the universe has a sense of humor. Force the one person who hates cooking to spend quality time in the kitchen figuring out what she can and can’t eat — not only for her health, but for science, right? Because science is everything. 😉
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