Last day of complete food boredom

Tomorrow I can test out avocado and chicken. I'm really, really, really excited. The next day is grapes! And green beans!! And then Saturday is beef, and tomatoes!

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

Snow Day!!

Snow day!! At 4:45 this morning I was a little confused to see the voicemail icon on my cell phone, but that robo-call voice has never sounded sweeter. I went back to bed until 8:30. It was glorious. That may not sound very late, but compared to 4:45 (when my alarm went off) it is a spectacular time to wake up. I had some sweet potato chips for breakfast and decided to finally find this Little Sugar Creek Greenway that I keep hearing about. I cut through neighborhoods to King and Morehead, where the Greenway picks up with that clock tower thingy in the middle of the intersection. Then you go under a bridge.

There was a large, chattering bird flying in front of me down the creek for a little ways. He'd swoop low over the water, making a lot of noise, then swing up to a branch for a few seconds. Then fly down again, fuss at me, then find another perch. I wish I had a better lens. He looked like a kingfisher, but I thought they were more blue. Thirty seconds of Google Images when I got home revealed that he was, in fact, a belted kingfisher. Who knew.


I followed the Greenway until I got to Freedom Park, and then cut back up Queens Road West and walked home. (It occurred to me, as I neared the end of my walk, that I probably should get in shape if I intend to hike any part of the Appalachian Trail this summer.)




It was a beautiful way to spend an hour of my morning. Walking through the neighborhoods all the sounds seemed muffled. Kids were shouting to each other in their backyards but they all sounded far away. There were a few cars slushing through the streets, but only very few. And when you go out for a walk in a snow storm ("storm" is used loosely here, but I'll call it whatever the locals want to call it), everyone you run into seems to be extra friendly, because they've all decided to go out and walk in the snow too. I said hello to two men on bikes and a couple dog walkers. And as I walked past a woman standing at the end of her driveway, she said to me, "Amazing out here, isn't it? I'm surprised more people aren't out!" I agreed with her. I also saw a man on cross-country skis, which looked more than than a little ridiculous given that this is Charlotte, not Chicago, but he gets some points for dogged determination.

We have a "work at home" day tomorrow, which means I'll do a little planning, and then enjoy snow day number two. This diet thing sucks. These are the kinds of days I should be going out to eat, or reading a book and drinking coffee someplace. Thursday can't come soon enough.

Day Three: Oil!!!! (and Sweet Potato Chips)

After a trip to one Harris Teeter and a phone call to another, plus a call to Trader Joe's, I finally found sunflower oil at Berrybrook Farm on East Boulevard. She even had the bottle of oil waiting for me behind the counter. I poked around the store a little bit, and good lord, granola has never looked so good. And the frozen foods! Burritos!! Argh!!

No wonder there are so few published large-scale studies of diets like this one - getting people to stay compliant would be a nightmare.

But the oil really has made everything better. I had no idea how much I was craving fat until I found myself running my finger along the inside of a bowl to lick up sunflower oil as if it were chocolate frosting. It doesn't even really taste like anything; it's just a plain sort of salad oil. But it has made my food infinitely more tasty.

Look! I can roast vegetables! Turnips aren't even so bad when they've got crispy edges and lots of sea salt! (They kind of taste like a big, bland radish.)
And sweet potatoes! I can make chips!!

Sweet Potato Chips

Sweet potatoes
Sunflower oil
Cast iron skillet

Peel sweet potatoes, and slice thinly. I like them a little thick (like in the photo) so they get chewy in the middle.

Heat up the oil in a cast iron skillet or pan. It doesn't need to be very deep - about a quarter inch.
Cook the sliced sweet potatoes in batches, turning them over until they're browned and crispy on both sides. Put a bunch of paper towels on a baking sheet and put the chips on that as they're done. This will let you drain them and keep them warm in the oven while each new batch cooks.

If you do more than one or two medium-sized sweet potatoes, you'll need to add more oil as you go along. Let it get hot again before adding more potatoes.

If you aren't on a wacko diet, you can put salt on them, or cinnamon and sugar.

I marked on my new 2011 calendar which days I reintroduce which foods. First up are avocado and chicken. That's on Thursday. Next day is green beans, grapes and broccoli. But Saturday is what I'm most looking forward to... tomatoes and beef!!

Of course, really I'd rather have one of those things cause some reaction than the more likely culprits: wheat and dairy. But in any event, it'll be good to eat foods that aren't root vegetables again. The grocery store was torture today. There were Ding Dongs by the check out at Harris Teeter. I don't think I've ever even had a Ding Dong, but holy hell did they look good.

Diet...Day Two

I think I'm finally done with caffeine withdrawal. I've been drinking mugs of hot water, pretending they're tea. It's all very sad.

I've also discovered that cooking without any fat or oil is incredibly difficult.

Exhibit A: Miserable, leathery little spears of sweet potato.

I tried to eat the insides of a few of them but ultimately tossed them. Dr. John Mansfield's elimination diet does not give recipes. All it says are things like "boiled" or "raw or boiled." Reason being, there ARE no recipes when you only have ONE ingredient.

I did some more research today, and found another doctor's version of Mansfield's diet. It's a little more lenient (allows kiwi, lamb, and sunflower oil). I'm going to pass on the kiwi and lamb, just to be safe, but I might go buy some sunflower oil. If I can fry things in oil, this will be much, much easier to do for a week (plus I need the calories). I could saute things again. And pan fry my fish. Besides, I can't remember the last time I ate a sunflower-anything, so somehow I'm doubtful that sunflower products are causing my (rheumatoid? mysterious?) arthritis.

The Atherton Mills farmer's market provided me with some more food this morning, although it was very hard to walk past all the little sample trays of bread and olive oil and granola. Arghh. I'm allowed turnips, according to Mansfield, so I got three small ones. I have no idea what in the hell to do with them - I guess you can boil them like potatoes and mash them up? Once I get some sunflower oil, maybe I can fry them? Roast them in little chunks?

Also, trout is freaking 10 bucks a pound. I got two pounds, so I can eat one ziploc bag today and one tomorrow. I baked some for breakfast when I got back from the market - it was the first thing I've eaten in almost 48 hours that actually tasted GOOD. Baked a Bosc pear too, which was equally delightful (although would have been better slathered in butter and brown sugar!!!).
I have no symptoms today except a vague and lingering headache/foggy feeling. I kind of wish something felt terrible, so it could then go away dramatically by week's end, and then reappear dramatically when I introduce some malicious food item. Ah well...I guess we'll see how this turns out soon enough.
john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet

Elimination Begins...!

Dum dum dummmm. The elimination diet started today. I went to Harris Teeter on my way home from UNCC last night for a meeting that apparently I didn't have to go to since I'm dropping my classes this semester and taking them next year (hassle of the century). That was irrelevant. What's relevant is that, in my quest to fix my unidentified rheumatological issues, this is what I'll be eating for the next week:

Yep. Like, literally. That's it. No oil, no tea (!!!), no grains, dairy, red meat, eggs, nuts, booze, sugar or anything other than what's in the picture. Except trout. The fish in the photo is salmon, which I can also eat. Salmon, trout, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, and sea salt. Tasty treats. If anyone's interested, it's a diet developed by some British doctor named Mansfield. A slightly less severe version of it is here: What I'm kind of concerned about is eating enough calories to like, live. In looking back through what I've eaten the last month (yes, in Excel form) I probably eat between 1000 and 1200 calories on an average day. It seems my only real option to keep that up is to eat a pound of fish every day. I'm not trying to be skeletor in a week, so it's a good thing I like fish, I guess. Bad thing I can't do anything WITH it except bake it, or poach it, plain, with sea salt. I'm going to desperately miss oil and flour.

While I can't say I'm looking forward to this, I also know that if I let Dr. Nami the rheumatologist put me on some daily pharmaceutical product, I'm going to constantly be wondering if it's really necessary or if I could have fixed my problem in a more natural and permanent way. I don't want to treat symptoms if I could fix the problem. I also know it could totally do nothing. I could just feel like shit for a week, not notice any of the promised symptoms of "withdrawal," or the eventual "clearing," and not notice any reactions to any of the foods I test. It could just be a sad, sad month of food deprivation and misery. I'm hoping, of course, that won't be the case. I guess only time will tell. Time, and my magical, wonderful Excel charts.

So today I've had a pear and a bag of baby carrots for lunch. I drank hot water in my travel mug this morning instead of tea. I have two salmon fillets in the broiler and cut up sweet potatoes in the oven. I have a headache and feel vaguely dizzy. Let's get started!!!
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A month's worth of movies

I've watched an unhealthy number of movies since getting my Netflix account. I thought I'd save you all the wasted (in some cases) hours I've spent and give a collection of brief reviews for your own Netflix-ing interest.

In the order I watched them, here's the last month in movies:

Julie and Julia - As everyone predicted, I liked it a lot. Meryl Streep was amazing, Amy Adams was adorable and not annoying, and that guy who plays her boyfriend was adorable. And I love food. Plus, two unexpectedly precious love stories...very cute and very worth seeing.

The Constant Gardener - Evil pharma exploiting desperate African villagers with sinister drug trials. Man that looks like Liam Neeson but isn't (Ralph Fiennes) investigates after his young, independent-minded wife is killed suspiciously. Nothing wildly unpredictable, the usual villains, lots of Hollywood-style moral outrage, but pleasantly entertaining enough.

Food Inc. - I've been buying organic co-op milk and farmer's market meat since watching it. It didn't make me a self-righteous food Nazi, but it made me go "Yuck," and was fun to watch.

About a Boy - Hugh Grant + small awkward British boy with a mentally unstable hippie mom + "jerk-is-changed-into-nice-guy-through-charms-of-a-child" plot = happy ending, very cute, but not really worth watching again.

Moon - A movie with essentially one visible actor, living alone on the moon. Kevin Spacey is the voice of a HAL-like robot. Creepy things ensue ... ooo, what's real and what isn't? A little bleak, but actually pretty good.

The Machinist - Talk about bleak. Christian Bale's holocaust-victim body (I think he weighs less than I do in the movie) makes you want to take a shower or puke or something. Eerie, twist ending, loads of creep factor, and all the shots are dark, gray and dirty looking. Did not love it.

Punch-Drunk Love - Weird-ass movie, allegedly a romantic comedy, with Adam Sandler and the girl who plays Chloe on 24, and some British girl. There's something involving a lot of cups of pudding, and something involving a small piano, and none of it really made sense. I loved Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, but did not love this. It was quirky and had promise...but was just kind of odd.

Wonder Boys - I'd seen it before, but forgot how good it was!!! Michael Douglas is great, Tobey Maguire is great, and Katie Holmes doesn't suck. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. is sexy and hysterical. Aging college professor, writers and academics, weird kid with a talent, dead dog in a car trunk...lots of good stuff.

Notting Hill - This was lame. Everyone loves it, but it was lame. I did not like Julia Roberts' character, and there were the corniest songs interspersed throughout the whole things, and some really gag-inducing scenes that made me ask "Seriously?" out loud. Lame-o.

Wilby Wonderful - Ellen Page and Paul Gross and a bunch of other Canadians in a small town with something secret going on and lots of unique small-town-ish characters and sweet little relationships and stories. Not perfect, but I liked it.

Sweet Land - LOVE IT. Second time watching it, and it's still one of the sweetest, funniest love stories I've seen in a movie. It's also one of the most beautiful movies I've seen - just visually, with open fields and big skies and farmland. Really just a beautiful story. It's about a Norwegian farmer and the mail-order bride who shows up and turns out to be German (set some time after WWI). You begin the movie knowing they grow old together, and then get to watch their story from when they first meet. Love it, love it, love it.

Boys Don't Cry - Hillary Swank acts the hell out of a pre-op transexual teenager who is biologically female but passes as a boy. Mix of oddly sweet love story, brutal, unpleasant violence, and some damn good acting. And based on a true story, which I did not know. Definitely worth seeing, although not a particularly happy movie.

9 Songs - Uh, yeahhh. Watched part of this and stopped. It consists of the following: 1. Concert footage of a full-length song by some underground rock band. 2. Non-simulated sex scene between two people who don't say much and who you don't really like (read: porn). 3. A few minutes of uninspired dialogue about something banal that doesn't tell a story. Repeat nine times (see: movie title). Only I didn't watch all nine repeats because the music sucked and I'm not a fan of porn.

Ondine - Colin Farrell is gorgeous. He is gorgeous as an Irish fisherman. The mysterious girl he pulls out of the water in his big fisherman net is also gorgeous. His small, precocious child is gorgeous. The story is a little bit magical, a little bit romantic, and very satisfyingly happy. And Colin Farrell is gorgeous. You will be happier for having seen it.

Fog Area

You know those signs on the highway you come across sometimes, especially on like, hilly or mountainy stretches of road, that say "Fog Area"?

I'd never given them much attention before. Maybe once or twice I've noticed that there was a little hovering mist or something and thought "Ah, how lovely, a picturesque fog, just like the sign says!"

Until I was driving back to NC last night down 77. I'd just gotten off of 81 when I started seeing these signs. These permanent signs were coupled with those overhead light-up signs that sometimes tell you about detours or accidents or heavy traffic. Last night they said "Fog Ahead Use Caution."

No shit. It was like I was in some horror movie environment that could only be made by Hollywood special effects. Here is an artistic rendering of what my visibility was like.
My friend with the darkish-color car and the double-circle tail lights was the only thing keeping me on the road at times. I have never been more thankful for the little yellow reflector thingies they put on the guard rails. And like, okay, a dense fog for a couple minutes is one thing. A dense fog for about 20 minutes is another thing. It might have been longer because for the first several minutes I wasn't looking at my clock because I was trying to squint through the clouds of death to find the lines on the road, and because I was at this point saying outloud to myself things like "Seriously? Is this real? Whatt? Are you serious?!" Here's a map showing the terror-death-zone. Note the dangerous red color and the frantic lines signaling extreme peril.

In short, I am a relatively nervous driver as is. Lord only knows how I made it 800 miles in a U-Haul this summer. By the time I got out of the fog last night and onto a piece of highway that actually resembled a ROAD at nightime (i.e. you can see black asphalt and lights and other cars) instead of the inside of a tub of Kool-Whip, my eyes were sore from squinting and my arms were tense from gripping the steering wheel at the most desperate ten-and-two position you've ever seen. Whew.

Back to work tomorrow. Kind of dreading it, to be honest. I'm just not up for loud, unruly teenagers. Christmas break could go on for another month. It'd be lovely. I'd do Appalachian Trail research, do my elimination diet, run on a regular basis, read all the novels I've started but haven't finished, get through Romans, do a painting or two, visit friends, have dinner parties, drink tea, watch Netflix .... sigh. Five months until summer.