Okay, not really, but when it comes to eating it doesn’t feel like I’m exaggerating by that much. It simply feels like I’m using incorrect terminology. If I’m going to perfectly accurate, I’m only allergic to the following foods:
- Bananas
- Kiwi
- Avocado
- Peppermint
If I eat any of those my throat gets itchy and starts to swell. Thankfully I’ve never found out if it swells all the way closed because there has always been Benadryl around. It’s good fun.
The rest of my food issues fall under other categories and have different, yet equally unpleasant, consequences. The big Kahuna is that I have the auto-immune disorder Celiac disease. Which means if I consume, inhale, gaze lovingly at, or think too much about gluten, my body will start attacking the villi of my small intestine like they are the black-hatted villains of yesteryear that must be run out of town for the sake of every blushing ingenue in the vicinity. It’s not pretty, nor does it come with a fun soundtrack.
Next up, I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Meaning my large intestine is basically a moody teenage girl who either throws a raging fit – major cramps – or just straight-up decides to go on strike and stop working if I eat any of the following foods.
- Arugula
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Brussel Sprouts
- Asparagus
- Bell Peppers
- Cucumbers
- Onions
- Cabbage
- Spinach
- Kale
- Squash
- Zucchini
- Melons
To be fair, I was diagnosed with this one when I was nine, which made me the envy of every other nine-year-old around. I had a doctor’s note excusing me from eating all of the gross vegetables that none of us wanted to eat anyway. It was great! Except the melons, that sucked. Also in the suck category, was the fact that the prior year I was diagnosed as lactose intolerant. So I couldn’t eat broccoli, but I also couldn’t eat ice cream. And let me tell you, nut-milk ice creams were not prevalent in the early nineties.
I do have to admit though, that I am really bad at being lactose intolerant. Mainly because cheese is awesome. I eat cheese. I definitely eat more cheese than I should, and quite often my stomach reminds me of how poor that choice is. Regardless, I have no regrets on this account. Cheese is worth the consequences. Not necessarily to those around me though. Consider yourself warned.
Now those restrictions aren’t that bad. Especially since I wasn’t diagnosed with Celiac until I was 24, so birthday parties didn’t totally suck as a kid. With these limitations I lived into my thirties without every really learning to cook. I got by with my limited culinary skills just fine. Then the final blow hit. I’m allergic to sulfites. But here’s the catch, you can’t actually be allergic to sulfites as they are naturally occurring in your body. What? I know, it makes no sense. Unless of course, you have a genetic mutation that essentially makes you allergic to yourself. It’s like being the red-headed step-child of the X-Men, with a really crappy super-power.
Because of sulfites, I can’t eat half of the IBS list – no big deal – and the following foods:
- Grapes
- Eggplant
- Radish
- Turnip
- Cranberries
- Raspberries
- Blackberries
- Soy
- Fish – that was commercially caught and treated to prevent mold
- Canola oil
- Safflower oil
- Garlic
- Horseradish
- Mustard
- Parsley
- Vinegar
- Wine
- Any hard alcohol other than vodka
- Anything carbonated
Now here’s the catch with this one. It is impossible to avoid sulfites 100% as they are found in your body. Not to mention, unless you plan on preparing every morsel of food that will ever pass your lips, you will consume sulfites. Why? Because of garlic for one. Do you know what garlic is in? EVERYTHING! I am seriously surprised that someone hasn’t made garlic ice cream. What am I saying, they probably have and it probably tastes amazing, because garlic, like cheese, is awesome!
Sadly, I can’t treat garlic like cheese because I like to breathe. If I consume too many sulfites I start to have trouble breathing. Whee! So I have to keep a running tally of the quantity of sulfites I have consumed in the previous 3-4 days every time I decide what I’m going to eat next. If that tally is too high, I can’t go out to a restaurant, or have a frozen dinner, or really eat anything that wasn’t made from scratch in my kitchen until enough time has passed to reduce my sulfite level. With these limitations, I learned very quickly that I needed to learn how to cook, and I needed to figure it out immediately, or I would be stuck eating incredibly bland and boring food for the rest of my days.
Which means that I have spent the past several years both teaching myself how to cook in general, and more specifically how to cook now that I am allergic to everything. Again, not technically allergic, but you see how long this blog post is! Saying that I’m allergic is sooooo much easier. At any rate, I hope you will join me as I explore this process and share some recipes that are both safe for me to eat, yet still taste good. How is that possible you ask?
