I'm starting to worry though about whether this is worth it or not, and whether I'll really get an obvious reaction to something or not. What's supposed to happen is that I keep track of how I feel after eating each new food, and supposedly something will eventually cause my symptoms to flare up, or me to feel like crap, or something. And then I eliminate that from my diet completely for six months, and then try it again. Theoretically, if I eliminate the foods that cause a reaction, I should be able to control my symptoms by just not eating those things. And then potentially reintroducing them later in moderation after my body's gotten its act together.
But, today one finger and one toe were the usual stiff-and-sore in the morning. Nothing I can't ignore, and they'll be fine in an hour, and it's certainly a WHOLE lot better than waking up with all my fingers stiff, or with weird swollen lumps on my wrists, or with my knees making me feel like I'm 80, but since my symptoms have always come in waves, and then subsided for a period (weeks or months), and then showed up again, and then gone away, I'm worried that November through December was just another bad phase, and now they're kind of on the ebb naturally, and I'll just go through the next four weeks of this, testing new food every day, and nothing will become any clearer.
Even with that possibility in mind though, I'm not about to give up after just spending five days (today will be number six) eating nothing but orange food and pears. I'm also realizing that I'm going to appreciate so much more the amazing VARIETY of food we actually have. I'm limiting my food choices because I want to, but so many people around the world have no choice, or wouldn't even know what to do with an American grocery store if they saw one. And even though I've been eating more sweet potatoes than I ever thought possible, I can eat as many of them as I want. For 89 cents a pound. Unlimited food! I guess it's made me grateful, is all.
I've also realized how much of my time at home I spend entertaining myself by cooking. Not that this is a bad thing at all - I love cooking and I love food and I love getting better at cooking food. But it's just been interesting to realize what an easy escape it is for me from doing anything else.
And as a final positive to this infinitely frustrating way of eating, limiting my choice of ingredients has forced me to get more creative. And now that I'll have more options, increasing every day, I think it's actually going to be a fun sort of creative challenge to see what I can make with relatively limited ingredients. For instance, I probably never would have bothered making sweet potato fries, or perfecting sweet potato chips (I can make them so perfectly crispy now!!) because it's a lot easier to throw a sweet potato in the oven and then cover it in sugar and butter as soon as it's done. I wouldn't have tried drying pears in my oven, but now I know it's super easy and I can probably do it with other fruit and I'll have something to snack on at school besides salted cashews.
I'm venturing out today, to poke around Plaza Midwood with my friend Sarah and hope that some shops are open. I'll be really glad in a week, when I can venture out with some possibility of buying food at a restaurant. I'll also be really glad when my breakfasts can be things like eggs or cereal or bacon, and not pears and sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes and pears. john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Will you please share your method of drying pears in the oven? That sounds awesome.
ReplyDeleteto dry pears... slice them up and put them on a baking sheet like cookies for about 2 hours at 200 degrees
ReplyDeletei've been doing them really thin, so they're like thin floppy strips of fruit leather, but you can do them thicker i think and have them be more chewy.
basically super-low oven, and check/flip over every hour until they're done to your liking.