A little inspiration in the midst of culinary madness

 According to the Allergy-Free Cookbook I used to have, all intolerance exhibited by your body toward any food, drink, fragrance, etc. is allergic reaction and the allergies that affect you less in the moment are the most dangerous because you are more likely to enjoy them in the short term than to fear them and, so, avoid the food, drink, fragrance, etc. 

Here is a link to different information on allergy rotation dieting. I haven't read it all, but I see that they talk about 4 days instead of 3. That is not a problem. More separation is probably better.

If you keep having what you are intolerant of, but in lesser doses or less often, it will still be affecting your health and mindset, but in lesser doses or less often. However, there is a possibility that if you clear away all that you are reacting to, adopt a diet style that both makes it less likely to be reacting and more likely you will catch reactions early, then there is a chance you will heal and perhaps, later in life, be able to reintroduce foods back into your life that you had to remove, by testing them to see if you still react or not. 

The process cannot be rushed. It can, however, be made faster and easier through incorporating fasting along with a simplified diet; because, one of the key moves to make is to never eat the same exact ingredient, on any given day, as you did the day before. If you cannot help but do that, then, take a break from it for the same amount of time as you had to eat it and preferably do not eat it more than 1 -3 days in a row. The exceptions being water and salt. 

For instance: 

Monday: Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1 slice whole grain toast; Lunch: tuna and rice, with onions, black pepper, iodized sea salt with kale on the side; Dinner: tuna sandwich with mayo on whole grain bread with onions, black pepper and salt plus a kale and romaine salad with tomato. 

Tuesday: Breakfast: oatmeal with almond milk and plum jam; Lunch: buckwheat noodles with gingered pork and a half can of pineapple bits; Dinner: gingered pork chop, cold buckwheat noodles mixed into cabbage and carrot slaw with a little horseradish in the dressing. 

This is not a suggested menu plan. It is to show how to try to switch it up while also exposing the potential dangers of eating complicated meals. What if the whole grain toast has buckwheat as one of the grains? What if the gingered pork also has black pepper and someone drizzled it with mayo at the place you ordered it from? Or, you selected a mayo based salad dressing or bought horseradish that was mixed with mayonnaise to begin with? 

To properly do an elimination diet and also a rotation diet to prevent allergies, you must keep it very simple: 

Monday: Breakfast: green tea, watermelon followed by two bananas; Lunch: steamed white fish with millet and quinoa, steamed along with broccoli; Dinner: same as lunch. 

Tuesday: Breakfast: coffee with almond milk, three plums; Lunch: chicken breast baked with fingerling potatoes, a side salad of iceberg lettuce and tomato with lemon juice for dressing. Dinner: same as lunch: 

Repeat Monday on Wednesday and Friday, repeat Tuesday Thursday and Saturday. I don't know why I didn't write down Sunday. So, if you want to eat on Sunday, drop everything down by a day and repeat Sunday on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and Monday on Wednesday and Friday. 

“I can't eat like that all the time. There's no joy!” 

Well, for one thing, if you choose to eat like that to feel better and you do feel better, there is joy. For another, the next week you choose other ingredients, altogether. For another, it isn't necessary to eat like that all the time, but the more you have that mix of not repeating meals too often in a row yet repeating them fairly often not in a row, the more your body is used to it and has an easier time digesting it, especially if there are not too many ingredients. For the last thing, that's where intermittent or longer term fasting comes in. 

Let us define intermittent fasting as anything from containing oneself to eating in daylight hours or a certain schedule and only eating with a certain amount of hours or only eating at certain designated times, to meal skipping for added benefit, all the way up to taking a week off of food and everything but water (or, even water). Intermittent fasting is easy for anyone to learn and follow a plan based on to gain a little thoughtful control of one's food intake and it can be fun to explore the different ways to do it that fall within its generous parameters. 

One thing I like to do is work up to eating one meal a day, then after 48 hours, then after 72 hours. After 72 hours, the majority of what you last ate should have cleared your system. However, if you are someone with a lot of food addictions, taking in much processed food and that sort of thing, this is not a good place to start. 

“Where is a good place to start?” 

Eating more vegetables and fruit, while eating in a more mindful manner, at set meal times. A mindful manner means really taking time to enjoy preparing the meal. The sounds of slicing, the feel of produce in your hand, the aromas of each ingredient and how they blend together, the way they change if you cook them. Then, really taking time to be thankful for the meal and, again, experience the aroma, the sight, the feel and now the taste. Choose an ingredient, place a small amount on your tongue and hold it there. Roll it around and fully taste it. Chew it and roll it around some more until it is quite liquid. 

No, you don't have to eat every bite that way. The more you eat in a mindful manner, however, the sooner you will be satisfied with less food. Also, the more you will be able to taste the trickery, the chemicals in what you had thought was good-tasting when you ate it faster. Often, many toxins are removed from one's diet through this simple art of eating more slowly and paying more attention, which helps one better realize what is not actually food at all and what foods one is currently reacting to. It also helps in wanting to start to make simpler meals, because, as nice as it is to smell ingredients and taste them in small increments, it also can be quite time consuming if one has a significant amount of ingredients in every meal. 

Never give up the thing that makes you feel better because it is too different, too hard or too tedious. Seek out ways to keep the love while making it more familiar, easier and more interesting. 

For instance, if you thought the meal suggestions above where boring- which they were- then start looking outside of the usual things typically eaten in your home and find recipes that you can control to make sure you are not repeating ingredients too often. Typically, use 1-5 ingredients per meal altogether. If you occasionally go over, that's fine, but each ingredient does make digestion harder and rotation and elimination of allergens harder, too. 

An alternative that can be tried is to eat an incredibly simple meal or set of meals every other day, or fasting every other day. Or, even eating an incredibly simple meal or set of meals on day 1, eating whatever you want on day 2, fasting on day 3 and repeat. Intermittent fasting and eating in a less complicated fashion can be played with this way. Try out different things and see what works for you, is my suggestion.