April 30th 2015After eating a meal which was high in gluten I began to feel pains in my chest which were much more painful than usual (indigestion had been a common occurrence for months. Actually, come to think of it, I had been suffering with it for well over a year). The pain was not easing and was getting tough to handle, at one point I fell to my knees it was so bad. I decided I didn't want to feel like that anymore, so set up a plan to strip my diet back to the basics. May 1st-7th (Week 1)The first week was extremely basic. My plan was to: Drink - Water Eat - Lean meats, vegetables Snack - Fruit And that was it. I had gone from a sugar and carb loving being to one who could get their 5 a day in one meal, it was a complete lifestyle change. (By day 3 all I wanted to do was stop and eat some chocolate, but then I remembered what I was doing this crazy venture for, and told myself to get a grip!) By the end of the first week I had lost a few pounds (unintentionally, please don't think I exercised, I had already given up chocolate and that was enough for me!) and was very much looking forward to re-introducing some tasty foods into my diet. Little did I know, gluten wasn't my only problem.
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The good...I am lucky to have some experience in the catering industry. After studying for 3 years I worked in a restaurant to improve my skills. I believed it would be very easy switching to a gluten free diet. The bad...The ugly.I have more recently began struggling with my digestion. Wheat (obviously), potato, rice, tomato and citrus are the main culprits (this reduces the amount of standard gluten free food I can eat by a huge percentage, as the usual substitutes for wheat are potato starch & rice flour.) The list of food I can eat is becoming shorter. Oh, I forgot to mention, I also suffer with anaphilaxis (an acute allergic reaction to an antigen (e.g. a bee sting) to which the body has become hypersensitive. -according to Google)
In plain man's English: My throat begins to close There is usually a great deal of swelling around my face (especially my lips and eyes) Angina is a pain in the... Chest & Itchy is not the word! These reactions happen if I am exposed to an item of food i'm allergic to. These foods include: Pulses (Soya, lentils, chickpeas, barley, peas, beans, peanuts, and any product containing a trace of any of these items such as pea fibre or pea starch which can often be found in breaded items such as chicken kievs or goujons or fish fingers and in some ice creams and ice lollies.) Nuts (hazelnuts, pine nuts, walnuts, almonds... the whole shabang) Other grains (buckwheat, quinoa, rye, spelt, millet) Soya flour, ground almonds and other grains are used a great deal as the ingredients in gluten free meals and snacks This seems to leave a small amount of substitutions... Coconut (flour, sugar etc) Oats (flour, jumbo oats etc) Maize (flour, corn etc) Lets see what I can do in the kitchen, using only these substitutions #GlutenlessFood |
Documented ByAn English Twenty-something who suffers with more than her fair share of food allergies. Archives
January 2016
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