Allergies and sensitivities...

[fajrdrako]

This morning I went to the Farmer's Market which has been operating since spring at Lansdowne Park. I've been wanting to go since they opened, but the broken ankle made it difficult and I didn't get around to it until today. Even today, I was made aware that a short walk on a beautiful Sunday morning, which would have been simple a year ago, was problematic now. I was also a little surprised how shivery-cold it was: and there was frost on the ground.

But I enjoyed it immensely. I expected something like the Byward Market, only smaller. But it isn't. It's more interesting than that; there was a man playing a hurdy-gurdy for a charity, and people selling handmade wooden things, and people selling elegant pastries and baked goods, and people selling maple syrup, and a food court in a tent, where I had squash and pear soup for breakfast. There are lots of organic food and unusual meats like elk and bison and ostrich. I bought elk burgers and mushroom burgers and lamb (free range, local, organic) for stew. And piles of vegetables, including multicoloured carrots - why did that charm me so much? I'm making lamb stew for supper.

As I've probably said, I'm experimenting with a rotation diet to try to get more energy by keeping allergies (and candidiasis symptoms) at bay. So this sort of thing has been on my mind lately.

And New Zealand spinach, which is new to me.

I'm experimenting with a rotation diet in an attempt to fight allergies (and encroaching candidiasis) and to get more energy. I know allergies are everwhere, but I was somewhat saddened to see a booth at the Farmer's Market selling "epi-pals", a colourful pouch for kinds to wear to keep their epi-pen to hand. Used to be that you could only find that kind of thing a specialist stores.

About an hour after seeing this, I overhead a conversation on Bank street, between a little girl aged maybe six, and her mother.

Kid: He can't eat cheese.
Mother: He can't eat ice cream, either.
Kid: Why not?
Mother: Because he has allergies.

I guess it's the way of the world. I wonder what proportion of the world has to worry about reactions to what they eat.

Comments

[benbenberi.livejournal.com]

Multi-colored carrots: I was told some time back that the original carrot was actually purple, and that it was selective breeding that gave us the now-normal orange kind. So I guess the carrot genome contains a rainbow.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Ditto potatoes. There was an exhibit on the origin of the potato at the (Canadian) National Museum of Science and Technology on this a few years ago. The variety of potatoes and potato colours still available in Peru (or from specialty vendors) is very cool.

I'm curious how much of a taste difference there is between the multi-coloured carrots & regular carrots. There's definitely some difference between (say) Yukon Gold and red potatoes, but not a lot.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There was an exhibit on the origin of the potato at the (Canadian) National Museum of Science and Technology on this a few years ago.

Wasn't that fascinating? I've forgotten a lot of the facts now, but I remember that many of them were surprising.

I love different varieties of potatoes. Too bad the really exotic stuff is expensive.

I'll let you know if the different-coloured carrots taste different. I assume the food value is about the same? My first thought was that carotene is orange, and yellow (or purple) carrots must have a different carotene level, but that isn't necessarily true.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There was a purple carrot in the bunch I bought; it looked very strange.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

New Zealand spinach

So this is a type of spinach, I presume? (The market is supposed to be for local produce and the idea of importing spinach all the way from NZ when we have perfectly good stuff grown here seems ridiculous). How is it different from regular spinach? I'm deeply curious.

The market sounds wonderful -- I must go there next weekend (I've been telling myself this for months now.)

Ostrich? I wonder if my spouse would eat it?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

New Zealand spinach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragonia) can, it seems, be grown in the Ottawa area. Who knew? I'd never seen it before. Apparently, according to the vendor, you can cook it and eat the stems (like normal spinach) or pick off the leaves and eat it raw as a salad.

It looks quite different - it has long stems with leaves branching off, like a cross between spinach and ivy.

If you can come over on Tuesday, I can cook it for you. If not - well, someday.

I didn't buy the ostrich meat but I was tempted.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

This is a fair reply to the complaint, I suppose. Imported seed stock, though...

I do prefer my spinach in salad form. Raw. When you taste it in that condition, you understand where Popeye's taste buds were coming from.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like spinach in many forms, including spinach soup. The budgies like it, too.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I too had not heard of NZ spinach ... or "tetragonia."

I too would like to try it sometime ... though I will probably try it on my own first.

Like dewline, I too prefer my spinach in the raw ... whether in a salad or in a sandwich.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I have a degree of lactose and caffeine intolerance, and of raw lettuce.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Raw lettuce seems an odd one for the mix, but no one ever claimed these things made much sense. I used to be intolerant of caffeine - but now it seems all right. Not that I'm drinking it much anyway.

Lactose at the moment is all right, but it's in a danger zone for candida problems, so I'm keeping an eye on it.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

I once had problems with caffeine, though I suspect I had bigger problems with coffee (it triggered nausea in me, and can still do that sometimes). Nowadays, I can tolerate both much more than formerly (though I still detest the dreck they call "Starbucks coffee" at work).

What bothers me are the new allergies I have discovered in myself, such as reactions to creamed anything (including soups, mayonnaise, mozzarella cheese, ...).

The relationship between milk (lactose) and lettuce is a well-known issue for singers -- I remember being warned to avoid both before a performance due to the phlegm they cause.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Coffee does unsettle my stomach sometimes, especially when it's acidic - I don't think that's a caffeine problem. I don't remember much about Starbuck's coffee except for a fondness for their 'caramel macchiato' which is more of a fancy dessert than a drink; for a while I avoided Starbuck's because of the temptation. Now I go to Bridgehead instead, because I like their coffee and their style, and because I find Starbuck's expensive.

I should perhaps cut out milk entirely, but I'd rather not, so I'll see if this diet helps my congestion problem. Or maybe try a week with no milk of any sort - well, maybe soy milk - and no wheat and see if the combination does it.

I'm not fond of lettuce on the whole but I do rather like romaine.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Apparently there is a chemical in lettuce that can affect people with digestive sensitivities. A friend of mine who has IBS also has to avoid it.

I was drinking Soya milk, but now have gone on to Lacto-Free, which is real milk that has been treated to reduce the lactose. I only realised milk was the problem last year. I'd already cut out most caffeine, but was still having problems, and had to go to hospital for sigmoidoscopy (live-action guts! On camera!). I decided then to cut the milk, and improved.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm considering cutting milk, though it's nice to think I can still drink soy milk. On the other hand, everything I actually cut makes the four-day-rotation harder to follow, and it's nice to have milk occasionally. I'll see how it goes.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I have some food allergies. I have enough environmental ones, I would go insane trying to track everything.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

With this diet, luckily I don't need to exactly track everything - I'd be helpless at that. All I have to do basically is make sure I don't eat the same thing (vegetables and yogurt excepted) in a four-day period. So far it's been pretty easy.

I've cheated a time or two, but that's all part of the experiment. I'm actually surprised how well it's working, with little hardship or effort.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes, that could probably benefit me. After grad school, lol.

[allyra.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid to find out what I'm allergic to. I think I would die if I found out I couldn't have cheese, for example. Or tomatoes, though I'm fairly sure I am allergic to them. :( (This, however, does not keep me from eating them....)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It all depends on the severity of the reaction. If you can eat them and still live a more-or-less normal life, go for it. When I was on the strict candidiasis diet and couldn't eat any cheese, it was difficult, not so much becuase I love cheese, but because cheese is in so many things you wouldn't expect it to be. I survived, but live in the hope I won't ever have to entirely cut out cheese again.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I can't eat cheese. It makes me sick enough that I have no desire to eat most things that contain it though.

How does your rotation diet work?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes: there's that reaction to things that make you really sick. I can intellectually see that cat may be cute or even beautiful, but their presence makes me so sick I don't get the pleasure I should out of looking at pictures of them.

My rotation diet is fluid, but I'm working on the following principles:

- food is divided into four categories: protein, starch, vegetables, fruit.

- avoid chemicals, sugar and wheat

- fruit must always be eaten alone, which means, no other foods within an hour of eating fruit.

- Protein and starch may not be eaten together. Vegetables can be eaten with either protein or starch, or alone

- No food should be eaten more than once in a four-day period except for yogurt or vegetables.

It's ended up being simpler than it sounds; and even though I've slipped up a few times by accident and a few times on purpose, I have more energy and feel better, which means it's working.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Seconded on that. Aged cheddar does not cause problems for me, but many other cheeses do, and some of them (mozzarella, anyone?) are just too ubiquitous to ignore.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Or so ubiquitous it's necessary to find a way to ignore them? I was making home-made pizza with soyo cheese. Trust me: it's not the same.

But it's something.

I hear a lot of people say they couldn't live without some food or other, but it's amazing what you can live without if you need to.