This section contains a list of countries. Navigating to the country will give you a brief summary of the typical food in that country, which food allergies are easiest to avoid in that country, and which are hard to avoid.
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I slipped up a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure where it happened, the only logical place was at a Thai restaurant I ate at for my birthday (some birthday present). The main reason I think it might not have been the restaurant is because of the timing – I usually get symptoms about 24 hours after ingesting wheat. I got symptoms about 12 hours after the meal.
There was one suspicious dish. Instead of being ultra-cautious as I usually am, I bit in to it, and as I was chewing and swallowing, I was thinking “hmm, this could be made with wheat “. But by then it was too late. By the end of the thought, I had swallowed.
I asked the waiter what the dish was made of, he said it was made with flour. I felt like I’d just been sentenced to a month in jail. Well, a month of brain-arrest, any now. Further questioning revealed that it was tapioca flour they use. So in the end, I figured I would be OK after all.
I wasn’t. I am having the worst symptoms I’ve experienced in years.
So what is to be learned from this unfortunate experience?
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Food that is labeled “wheat-free” sometimes contains Kamut as the primary replacement for wheat flour.
If you are allergic to wheat, can you eat it? Probably not.
If you have celiac, can you eat it? NO!
The origin of Kamut is shrouded in mystery. It was developed by a private company. According to Wikipedia, they originally claimed that it was developed from grain found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. Since wheat does not remain viable for longer than 200 years (unless frozen), the story fell apart, and it is now claimed to originate from a contemporary form of Egyptian wheat.
This would make it a kind of wheat.
Personally, I have not risked trying it. If you have a low sensitivity to wheat, and/or your symptoms are not too severe, you may decide it is worth the risk to experiment and see if it agrees with you. You are more than welcome to share your experiences in the comments form below this post.
Kamut does have gluten in it so it is not suitable for celiacs.
So when food is labeled as “wheat-free” or “gluten-free”, always double check!
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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is something most people have heard of, so some people might assume they have it if they feel tired all the time.
There seems to be an accepted definition of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. According to Wikipedia, it is an incapacitating fatigue with the following characteristics:
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Yesterday I wrote about how you can theoretically reverse your allergies through proper diet and avoiding exposure to allergens.
Today I found the personal account of a woman who did just that – reversed her allergies. Here is how she did it:
It may surprise you that including oil in your diet is good for you. Don’t we have too much fat in our diet? It is a matter of quality. Even if you eat a pound of french-fried a day, you still need to include high-quality oil in your diet.
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A few years ago, I really got a taste for bacon and eggs. I’d not had bacon and eggs for a very long time, but once I had this for breakfast a few times, I was hooked.
I think I had bacon and eggs with polenta for breakfast every morning for about six months. But then the trouble started. I won’t describe the symptoms in detail, let’s just say I wasn’t digesting well.
So that was it, every time I had even one egg, I had to make sure I was fairly close to a bathroom. Not fun, but I find eggs easy to cut from my diet. Boring at times, but easy.
I studiously avoided eggs for several years. Then I had a bit of egg sometimes, with no adverse affects.
Now I eat a normal portion of one or two eggs, but I don’t do it often.
Was it an egg allergy? Probably. It fits one description of delayed-reaction food allergy. And the allergy symptoms disappeared by temporary eliminating the food from my diet.
Yes, there is hope after all!
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Polenta is perfect for food allergy relief, assuming you are not allergic to corn.
To some people, polenta is a dish made with corn, water, and salt. To others, it just means corn meal. Here, I refer to the former meaning. It is very simple and easy to prepare. It is also very quick to cook, depending on how you do it. It is best eaten right after cooking. Serve it on a plate with any sort of topping, for example:
There are many ways to cook polenta. I use the lazy, easy method:
Note that the length of time taken for the polenta to cook depends on how course the cornmeal is (fine corn meal cooks very quickly, course cornmeal takes longer). You can adjust the ratio of water to corn meal, according to the consistency you want.
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This section contains main-course recipes. They are just as good for lunch as for dinner.
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There are two major challenges to avoiding wheat:
There are bread substitutes, but I have not yet found any that are really satisfactory. That doesn’t mean to say there aren’t any good breads out there without wheat, so it is well worth trying alternative breads. You can find wheat-free and gluten-free breads in most health-food shops.
Rice cakes are not a bad substitute in some ways. They are at least a substrate to put things on, such as sliced meat, humas, nut butters, jam, butter … pretty much anything you can put on bread.
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