Fruit & Nuts

Okay, so things are changing again. Not only have I removed all animal proteins from my diet (with the exception of sushi) and tried to eliminate high acid foods, I am now discovering that I may need to eliminate wheat. I Googled some symptoms I was experiencing; the main one being bloating. I found a common thread - wheat.

One source stated that after the age of 40, our digestive systems aren't strong enough to fully digest wheat. I'm not sure I agree with that. Unfortunately, I am experiencing symptoms that cause me to be suspicious of foods containing wheat. Lately, if something can go wrong it will go wrong!

Now, I'm conducting an experiment. I am temporarily removing food that contains wheat from my diet. Do you have any idea how many foods contain wheat?? LOTS! There's pasta, bread, pretzels, cereals, salad dressings, soups, pancakes, waffles, couscous, gravy, miso, muesli, pita bread, semolina, etc... The number of excluded foods in my diet is now higher than the national deficit.

It's been a couple of days and I can already feel the improvement. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news. The good news is I feel better. The bad news is that I don't have too much left that I can eat.

I thought I'd make the best of it and go to the healthy grocery store (as opposed to the regular grocery store) to buy some gluten free bread. Hah! The store that proclaims organic and healthy has nothing but wheat bread. How disappointing. I bought a pound of unsalted walnuts and left.

For lunch today I had a quarter cup of walnuts and an apple. Oh joy. On the bright side, a quarter cup of walnuts gives me 90% of the omega-3's I need for the day. Walnuts are supposed to be helpful in lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, and they contain a very high concentration of antioxidants. There are so many health benefits associated with walnuts that I can't even list them all. If you are interested, take a look at this article: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99. The way it sounds, walnuts are the next best thing to sliced bread...which is a good thing. I can use walnuts as a bread replacement since bread isn't in the list of foods that I can eat!

I'm down to fruit and nuts. Sounds more like my mental state than a food plan . I thought only forest creatures survived on fruit and nuts! There is a site called the Fruit & Nut Research and Information Center for UCDavis http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/. There's no restaurant guide. Very disappointing.

We are dining out tonight. Have you ever tried to order from a menu while avoiding, meat, cheese, dairy, wheat, and some other hostile foods? It ain't easy!