This Is My Blood
And why do I have a photo of my own blood, you might ask?
After several years of suspecting that some undiagnosed food sensitivities could be behind some of my less feel-good days, I booked an appointment at Ubiquity Wellness Centre to get my food sensitivities (and a lot of other things) checked out.
Aside from getting to look at my own blood (which was probably the entertainment highlight of the whole process), the main news was, yeah, I have some food sensitivities. And not just a few.
Where to start? Um, well, shellfish, which I already knew about, but not just clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops — apparently I'm only slightly less sensitive to crab, lobster, and shrimp. And octopus and squid. Bummer. No more calamari for me, at least for now.
I wouldn't have had any tzaziki sauce to dip the calamari in anyway, because, wouldn't you know it, I'm allergic to dairy, too.
But even if the squid and the dip weren't a problem, calamari is still out because of the . . . breading. Because, like, yeah, did I tell you I'm also allergic to wheat? So I can pretty much kiss anything battered or baked or thickened goodbye.
Can't you get wheat-free cakes and stuff, you ask? Sure, if I wasn't also highly allergic to sugar. I'm not joking. And honey. And before you go all sugar-free on me, aspartame is out too. And saccharine. And sorbitol and maltitol and stevia and all of those, too. In fact, at the clinic, they said I was the first person in their history who had ever turned out to be allergic to every known sweetener they could test for. I'm pretty much just allergic to the flavour "sweet" in general. Even fructose when it's not actually inside a fruit. I have no idea how that works.
Okay, so no wheat, no sugar — there's always kind of an Atkins style thing right? Sure, that would be true if red meat weren't right out, too. It's not even funny, right? (Actually I'd suspected both this one and the sugar for a long time, hence the fact that I gave up meat for over a year, and still eat very little of it, but it was still depressing to find out for sure.)
So let's tally up: shellfish are bad, but regular fish is still okay. And even though wheat is out, rice is okay. And no dairy. So you'd think I'd be the perfect candidate for the all-sushi diet. Hooray! Which wouldn't be too far off, but it's still tricky.
You see, when they make the sushi rice, they do two things to it. They add mirin, a sugary rice wine. And they add vinegar, which, in addition to the sugar in the mirin, I'm also allergic to. And even if not, I couldn't dip the sushi in anything, because I'm also allergic to soy. Sounds like no biggie, but do you have any idea how much soy you ingest in a day? (Hint: think vegetable oil — what kind of vegetable do you think it comes from?)
And then there's the problem with wine. And beer, too, for that matter (which I'd also kind of suspected in the past, but that makes it no less depressing). And caffeine, too, while we're at it.
At any rate, this is going on too long, so just to cut to the chase: for the next three months, if it's not a chicken, a fish, or a vegetable or fruit (or rice or oats), I'm not supposed to go near it. I can't even supplement my rabbity diet with salad dressing because of the dairy/vinegar/soy issues.
So each day at breakfast it's a bowl of fruit, and each day at lunch it's a bowl of fresh vegetables (tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, etc) and tuna fish, sometimes with some salt and olive oil on it at least (thank God olives were still okay, or that would have pushed me right over the edge).
It's definitely a healthy way to eat, but doesn't make me much fun at parties — that's for sure.
And is it worth it? Well, I haven't quite finished up a week yet, and it's still a little early to tell, but one thing's for sure: starting this afternoon I can certainly breathe better. I didn't even realize I was stuffed up, but suddenly my sinuses are a lot roomier than I thought they could be. And the little perennially rashy places on my arms have nearly completely faded.
Oh, and I've lost 4 pounds in less than a week. No surprise. And I have a lot more energy at the end of the day.
So yeah, my body's definitely happier in some little ways so far. It'll be interesting to see what the next couple of months hold in store. And the current plan is that I go back in three months or so, to get retested, and if my pattern is like most people's, most of the allergies will go away as long as I stay clear of a few big ones. Here's hoping.