Them: Get rid of that half-and-half! Put coconut milk in your coffee! Delicious!
Another Paleo Fail
Category: Gluten Freek
Wherein I whine about being NCGS (non-Celiac gluten sensitive).
Paleo Schmaleo
A lot of people at CrossFit are into eating “paleo”—that is, no processed stuff, low-carb, etc. Indeed, a bunch of them periodically do this 30-day program called Whole30, which is super strict:
- meat
- vegetables
- nuts & seeds
- a little fruit
- no dairy
- no grains
- no sugar
- no alcohol
- no legumes
- no potatoes or other “nightshades”
Now, I get it. I mean, hunter-gatherers didn’t pluck their daily rations from the Cinnabon tree; they didn’t follow roaming herds of Auntie Anne’s Jumbo Pretzel Dogs. I also understand that humans are the only mammals that drink milk after infancy and the only mammals that drink the milk of another animal (rare exceptions excluded). And I’m clear that refined sugar is bad for you for many, many reasons.
But legumes? Really? I guess I just have a hard time believing that something that grows out of the ground could be that terrible for you.
Before you’re all, “Cocaine grows out of the ground!”, just stop. I’m not eating dehydrated garbanzo beans that are then re-hydrated and smashed into paste. Oh wait. That would be hummus, right? OK, well, they’re not mixed with kerosene and sulfuric acid and acetone and I’m not snorting them and, yes, I looked up cocaine processing. By the way, did you know that the Eloria Noyesi moth larva feeds exclusively on coca plants? You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right? That’s probably one productive fucking larva.
I digress.
One of the CrossFit coaches said that what she had assumed was arthritis her whole life disappeared when she did Whole30, and my joints are redonk, so I’ve been considering trying it.
Of course, it would be difficult for me considering my food issues. On the Whole30 website, they say, “Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard.” Clearly that statement was written by somebody who’d never experienced an eating disorder. Food is my heroin. So imagine you’re addicted to heroin and you want to quit, but you can’t go cold turkey because you have to shoot up at least three times a day to live. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “trying to recover from a compulsive eating disorder”.
In addition, I might’ve mentioned that I can’t really cook. That would make the program difficult.
Plus there are some foods, which I consider healthy, that would be traumatic to give up.
Really just one food: peanut butter.
But the Whole30 people effuse, “You don’t need peanut butter! There’s an alternative. A delicious alternative. It’s called Sunbutter. It’s so delicious you’ll never want to go back to peanut butter.”
That shit is nasty.
So until I learn to cook and find a real alternative to peanut butter, Whole30 schmole30.
I’m Trying the Whole Following-a-Recipe Thing
Ohhhh, two tablespoons of tomato paste?
Hmm.
Small Victories
Guess what I made yesterday!
Guess what I had with it.
Nothing.
What the fuck do you want from me? I already told you I can’t cook.
Bottom Chef
My friend, Melinda, is awesome for many, many reasons. One of which is that she introduced me to CrossFit. Another is that she’s hilarious. And a third (this list is not exclusive) is that she will often take a picture of the dinner she has made and post it on Facebook. It’s always something like braised lamb shank with balsamic marinade and poached leeks.
Or something, I don’t know. I just made that up. I don’t know what you marinate lamb in, and I’m not sure what a leek is. Or if you poach them.
The point is, it always looks and sounds yummy. It makes me hungry and jealous.
Jealous because, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t really know how to cook. I tried with my CSA produce, and you know, I was going to the farmers’ market regularly there for a while. But I’m sort of willful; I don’t like to follow recipes. I just want to be able to throw things together, deliciously.
That keeps not working out for me.
I bought a ham at the farmers’ market. It was like a frickin’ salt-lick. So I mixed it with some frozen lima beans. That tasted like crap, so I chopped up some fresh Chapel Hill mozzarella.
At my school, before Thanksgiving, we had a Stone Soup assembly. A day before, each grade level brought an ingredient (carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, celery, broth, and seasonings), and students and parents chopped and prepared and threw everything into crock pots. It was delightful! I thought, I can do that, so I went to the grocery store and bought all the stuff and
On the rare day that I do manage to make something remotely edible, like my London broil with roasted vegetables, it’s never visually appealing.
I can saute a shrimp in butter. So I do that occasionally, but when I shred some zucchini and toss it in, it comes out all mushy.
One time, I made delicious home fries with onions and red peppers!
And then I thought, “I can’t eat that many potatoes by myself. I’ll make a tortilla de patata!”
So I tossed in four or five scrambled eggs and cooked it until it was leather. Completely inedible. I didn’t even feed it to the dogs. That’s how bad it was.
Alas, I’m not sure I’m meant for this “cooking” thing.
It’s So Bright in Here
In bed this morning, I stirred. Mistake. The dogs think that it’s time to get up when I stir. It’s not. Especially not today. My head was so cloudy. My eyelids seemed weighted. I raised my eyebrows to see if the momentum might make it a little easier to open my eyes. Nope.
Feeling the thunk of Redford’s chin on the bed, I flopped an arm over and scratched his whiskers before tucking my hand back under the warm covers. Violet came in and did her morning shake. I could’ve stayed in bed all day.
Because yes, I indulged this weekend. I threw caution to the wind and decided, I’m a grown-up, I can consume whatever I please.
And now I’m hung over.
Not from beer. No hard liquor for me. No champagne toasts.
GLUTEN. That’s right: pita bread, lasagna soup, olive rolls. Mmmmmmm.
(Worth it.)
(Not worth it.)
(Fighting with myself over whether it was worth it.)
For All My Gs Out There
“Gs” being gluten-freaks, of course.
Most Larabars are just nuts and dates mushed up together. All food, no unpronounceable ingredients.
For your records:
YES! Coconut (fave), lemon (second fave), tropical tart (third fave), PB&J, Cherry Pie, Cashew Cookie, PB Cookie, Cinnamon Roll, Carrot Cake
NO! Apple Pie, Banana Bread, Ginger Snap, and any that try to be a candy bar: Jocalat Chocolate Hazelnut, Chocolate Coconut Chew, Chocolate Chip Brownie, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough…blech!
Gluten-free bread leaves something to be desired, mostly. I mean, I’ve never met a gluten-free baguette (and if I do, I’ma make sweet love to it). I miss it. The other day, my sister and I were at Costco, and I was enjoying what we call trailer-park tapas. That is, delightedly taking one of every sample they were passing out. One of those sample-handing-out angels had French bread—certainly not gluten-free—with butter, and I took it, oh yes I did. It was like magic in my mouth.
So Food for Life’s Brown Rice Bread is no baguette, but toast it. Slap some butter on there. Slather in with peanut butter. Get my sister’s mother-in-law, Grandma Barbara, to give you some homemade blueberry jelly. Top it all with that, and oh my gah! Delish.
Cause & Effect
As I said a few days ago, after a two-year experiment with SSRIs, I gave up on them and began seeking alternate remedies for my long-lived depression. On top of that, I was getting really sick of being tired all the time and wanted to treat that problem too. I didn’t think I had Chronic Fatigue, but I definitely had chronic fatigue, and it really had my knickers in a twist. Every afternoon, from about 3:00 to 6:00, I could barely pick my head up.
My mom had wondered aloud a while back if I might have Celiac disease. Her evidence was compelling: First, I’m a lactard, and lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance often go together. Second, last year, my iron was deficient, and there was no real reason it should be. I eat a lot of iron-rich foods, and (boys, close your eyes and ears and go “lalalalalala!”) I don’t have particularly heavy periods (OK, guys, it’s over). And last, ethnically-speaking, I come from a long line of potato-eaters, and my mom wasn’t sure if our ilk had the guts to process wheat.
A little on-line research revealed to me that Celiac-sufferers frequently have digestive issues, but occasionally, the only symptoms are fatigue and/or depression. Hmmmmm. I sat and I thunk.
That’s when I went to see an osteopath. I wanted to get his take on things. He had his nurse draw eleventy billion vials of blood from my minute veins, asked me to pee in a cup, and told me I should try a gluten-free diet to see if I felt better. I told him I’d just as soon jab my eyes out. I mean, everything that’s delicious in the world has wheat in it. I would wait to see what the blood work said.
Alas, I was positive he was going to tell me I had Celiac, and the next day, I resigned myself to my baguette-less fate. I started transitioning into my horrible new life by avoiding wheat.
And guess what. Remember that crushing fatigue? Gone. I mean, like that (snaps fingers).
The next day, meh, probably a fluke, I’d just have a little wheat…3:00 rolled around and clunk, couldn’t move. Since then, every day I’ve eaten wheat, I’ve crashed; every day I haven’t, I haven’t.
On my next visit, my doc pronounced the following:
- I was low on B12 and would need to get a shot every week for six weeks. Boo.
- My D was also in need of topping up, so I should take 5,000 IUs of that a day.
- Thyroid function was borderline low. He prescribed a thyroid med and told me to start with a daily half-tablet.
- I didn’t have Celiac disease.
Wha?!
More research! Ah, there’s such a thing as NCGS. That’s non-Celiac gluten sensitive.
There you have it, folks. I’m a lactard and a glutard. Could I be more ‘tarded?
P.S. I haven’t been able to be consistent enough to see if it’s the Magic Bullet that’s going to knock out my depression. Keep yer fingers crossed!