A few days ago, I was talking to a waitress at a local restaurant. We got to chatting as often happens when I have to run down my list of allergies for the first time. Anyway, it turned out that her day job involves dietary research. Still, when she heard my list – dairy, gluten, etc. – she couldn’t help herself and like many others have done before her, she shook her head with pity. “You poor thing,” she said as she headed towards the kitchen.
Here’s the thing: if you felt as bad as I do when I eat bread or pasta or butter or cheese, you wouldn’t miss it either.
And I do. Feel bad. Bad doesn’t come close to describing how I feel when I eat diary or gluten. But people don’t seem to realize that. In fact, one thing I have noticed is how absolutely terrible many people need to feel before they will even consider making lifestyle changes.
One woman I know pops antacids like breath mints, but refuses to give up the foods her holistic MD has told her to avoid. Another friend has a migraine pill with every meal and swears it’s the only thing that helps. This person laughed when I offered up the theory that maybe their junkfood-heavy diet may carry some of the blame.
You Are What You Eat is a phrase that, in my opinion has come to mean as little as the word peace in the Middle East: while everybody’s using it, few people really mean it. And yet, nothing could be more true.
This morning’s breakfast was digested and separated into useable bits and refuse. The useable bits went to feed our blood, our organs, our brains – we really and truly are built up of whatever we put into our bodies.
So why is it so difficult to start thinking of our food choices in terms of how they will and do affect our quality of life, our focus, our mental clarity, our moods, our stomach function, the lustre of our hair, the strength of our nails, teeth, willpower and lungs?
Pills can help, science is an amazing gift, doctors are imperative. But what if I told you that more than half of the cure lies in prevention, in taking care of the building blocks, the cement you are built of, the fire in your belly, the thoughts in your head?
There’s no need to take my word for it, however. There are simple ways to test this theory, the simplest of which is the food diary: if you want to know how a food is making you feel, make note of it.
When I started feeling ill, I went for hundreds of medical tests. Each test came up with a different answer, every doctor with a new solution. One said I had celiac, another said I didn’t, while a third couldn’t quite commit and told me I have “patches” of it.
In the end, I can tell you more conclusively than any lab. Because I’m the one who feels the burning itch of the rashes, I’m the one who gets stuck in bed with the debilitating cramps and it is my insides that feel like someone is scraping my intestinal wall with a white-hot rake. Does it really matter which one of the MDs is technically right in the end?
In terms of celiac, the answer is no. While many people take medications for many ailments, an allergy to gluten can only be treated in one way: total avoidance.
Besides, if you knew how much better I feel since cutting out gluten...
One of the first things many of my clients and I do together is work through their food diary. Food diaries offer many insights into a person’s habits, routines and preferences and are a great indicator of how best to start our work together. If you’d like to find out more about how certain foods can make you feel, email me at: Gabriela@thepickyfoodie.com.
It’s difficult to stress how good it feels when you finally start feeling good again!
P.S. check out the newly updated Friday Night Dinner Blog. Laydeez, Jents, Goats and Cabbage -- it’s time to start cooking!
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