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What To Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything: Allergy Friendly Foodies

by Candice  •  August 23rd, 2010  •  3 Comments »  •  Candice's Corner

What do you get when you combine organic ground pork, pears, and a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds?

Absolutely nothing.

No, that wasn’t an incredibly lame joke. That was the question that I asked myself as I sat in front of my computer after arriving home from a trip to my lyme literate physician, my new list of “safe and unsafe foods” in hand. I scratched my head as I tried to map out a 4 day rotation diet that excluded all unsafe allergens but only used each of my safe foods once. I desperately wanted to rip the list to shreds and go back to my large book of crossword puzzles, because those puzzles were surely less complicated than the one sitting at my fingertips. As if having Late Stage Lyme Disease alone wasn’t perplexing enough.

Yet, I shook it off and started googling. I googled my little fingers off. I searched a countless number of terms, some of which included “dairy free smoothies”, “eggless breakfast ideas”, and “tomato free soups”. All of which had to also exclude gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, nightshades (tomato, potato, bell peppers, eggplant), most grains, eggs, corn, onion, garlic, chocolate, nuts, fish, and citrus. If one of those ingredients happened to slip into the recipe, I know my taste buds wouldn’t mind but my body would be quite an unhappy camper.

Needless to say, I didn’t come up with much.

So, I started experimenting myself with recipes and ideas, coming up with a few tasty successes here and there that soon became my staples, but also conjured up some pretty awful concoctions. I don’t think my taste buds will ever forget the heaping mass of slime that I called “Coconutty Okra”, or the disaster that I dubbed “Jicama and Parsnip Mashed Fotatoes”, a dish that has left me with absolutely no desire to ever toucha parsnip again.

Then one afternoon, after I was nearly googled out, I struck gold. I had set out to search for some recipes for turnips, since after my parsnip experience I was determined to never mash a root vegetable again. This time, I decided to type nearly all of my food allergies into the search along with the word “turnip”. I didn’t think I’d come up with anything, but to my surprise, “Affairs of Living” popped up onto my screen.

After leafing through Kim’s delectable gluten free, corn free, soy free, egg free, yeast free, citrus free, tomato free, potato free, peanut free sugar free recipes, I then explored her blog roll and came across a few other chefs that catered to folks like me. I explored their blog rolls, and before I knew it I had a collection of recipes that could not only be tweaked to work for my needs, but sparked the creative chef that resided somewhere inside of me (way, way deep inside, most likely). As I showcase some these newly discovered allergy friendly foodies, I’ll share a few of the treasures that I discovered on their blogs, in hope to help someone else who may have the “What to Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything” blues too.

Affairs of Living

Kim is a kickass cook. She also happens to be a lyme patient too, who I find to be incredibly inspiring in her journey to heal naturally and eat for wellness. Aside from her recipes being nutrient dense and free of gluten, corn, soy, egg, yeast, citrus, tomato, potato, peanuts and sugar, she’s recently gone grain-free for health, and it’s been pretty fascinating to see both her physical results and the resulting recipes that pop out of her kitchen.

Turnip and Carrot Fries Recipe

Now turnips don’t usually thrill me, but I was excited to come across this recipe. My previous root vegetable trial and error had me sort of scarred, but Kim has officially turned my “augh, turnips” turned into “yay, turnips!”. Being nightshade free (that means no white potatoes) left me relying heavily on sweet potatoes, but after roasting turnips I’ve officially been cured of my sweet potato monotony. Funny thing is, I haven’t even roasted them with the crust yet! I plan to coat them in pumpkin seeds tomorrow night and have myself some potato free fries.

Diets Dessert n Dogs

Ricki rocks. This woman wears a lot of hats, but wears an apron along with them. Her recipes are primarily geared toward the anti-candida diet, but she’s also vegan and caters to those who are gluten free. Pretty perfect for a good majority of lyme patients, right? It also doesn’t hurt that Ricki is exceptionally kind and will answer yourquestions about how to solve your seemingly impossible ingredient issues when trying to recreate one of her recipes. When I contacted her wondering how I could make this recipe work for me, since I can’t do most of the grains on the lists, she let me in on a little secret…coconut flour can be used as a “List C” ingredient!

Pick Your Own Pancakes Recipes

THE ultimate pancake recipe for someone who is allergic to more foods than they can count on all ten fingers. With this recipe you can pick yourown flours and ingredients off of her carefully categorized lists to create a tailored pancake recipe that suits you and your needs. Pretty brilliant, if you ask me.

Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

Amy has quite an inspiring story. She struggled with weight issues for nearly her entire life before making the connection between allergies and sensitivities and her difficulties with food. By admirably dedicating herself to eating both gluten and sugar free, she not only achieved and maintained a 60 pound weight loss, but discovered a newfound passion and sense of peace and balance.

Gluten Free Socca

After coming across Ricki’s recipe, I was really in the mood for pancakes. I hadn’t figured out the logistics of her recipe yet though, since figuring out what to use for baking powder and such is a tad complicated in my case. In the meantime, while I sorted things out, I needed something to satisfy my pancake desire. This is when I discovered Amy’s recipe for ratatouille and Socca. I nearly scrolled by the recipe because I knew the ratatouille probably wouldn’t work for me since I’m nightshade free (but it’s a beautiful recipe for someone who is gluten, dairy, sugar free, and vegan!), but I was curious as to what on earth “Socca” could be. It sounded like it could be the singular form of “socks”, but to my surprise, Socca is a big chickpea pancake! I was delighted to discover this, because not only was the recipe simple and the ingredient list concise, it was free of all of my many allergens.

Elana’s Pantry

Elana’s history is an eclectic one, one that I find myself a tinge envious of! It ranges from studying ayurvedic cooking to running an environmental consulting firm. It wasn’t until she and her son were diagnosed with Celiac disease though that she ventured into the world of gluten free cooking. Her recipes have been such a success that she continued on to write a well known cookbook, “The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook”. Since she therefore primarily cooks with almond flour, you will find that most of her recipes are grain free as well as gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, and soy free.

Apricot Butter

So at this point, I felt like I was definitely set in the pancake realm, but I soon realized that I had nothing to put on my potential pancake-type creations. I definitely couldn’t use maple syrup, at a whopping 50 grams of sugar per tablespoon, and I couldn’t quite use store bought jellies and jams due to both their sugar content and tendency to sneak in ingredients derived from corn. Upon a little searching, I discovered a delectable solution: Elana’s apricot butter. I’m going to use lactose/casein free Ghee to make it, and see if it works with fresh apricots rather than dried. I have an inkling that I’m going to be tempted to just dig into it with a spoon.

Hope For Healing

Though Stephanie is not a lyme patient, her story is a bit similar to my own. At 22 years old, just one year older than myself, she found herself in such bad condition digestively that doctors spoke of invasive tests and drastic surgeries. She decided instead to take matters into her own hands and eliminated gluten, dairy, sugar and soy from her diet. Her health improved leaps and bounds. She is now a Holistic Health Counselor and guides people who find themselves in situations like the one she once knew. I hope that someday my story ends as similar to hers as it began! It’s a dream of mine to be able to heal, then turn around help others follow in my footsteps.

Leftover Brown Rice Porridge

Stephanie’s leftover brown rice recipe is the recipe behind what I eat for breakfast every day. I can’t exactly use almond milk and agave syrup like her enticing recipe calls for, but her recipe is what ignited the lightbulb in my bewildered brain. After walking away from my doctor’s office and realizing that I could no longer rely on my packaged brown rice hot cereal every day, I was grasping for ideas on what else on earth I could possibly eat. Thanks to Stephanie and her brilliant yet delightfully easy Leftover Brown Rice Porridge, I now keep a tupperware of brown rice and a tupperware of wild rice in the fridge so I can create all sorts of delicious leftover rice hot cereals. I even created a recipe of my own. Thanks Stephanie!

I want to thank all of these food allergy friendly bloggers for their hard work and willingness to share their kitchen creations. I know that it takes a whole lot of time and effort to come up with these recipes, experiment with the dishes, and then turn around and write about the results. The efforts definitely don’t go unappreciated though, especially by people like myself. When you have a complicated, disabling chronic disease that is affected so dramatically by the food that you choose to consume, things can become quite overwhelming. It’s hard to find both the physical capacity and the brain power to resist just laying on the couch and munching on popcorn and potato chips. I know though that doing so will just make me feel a whole world worse and feed the very disease that has taken hold of my ever-so allergic body. In fact, it’d probably even send me straight to the emergency room. It’s bloggers like you though that inspire patients like us to accept that fact and forge ahead, spatula in one hand and pill bottle in the other.

I hope this post also inspires some patients who have been told to go gluten free or allergen free to go ahead and take the plunge. I know it may feel as though your legs are as jelly-like as your apricot jam, and that you may collapse into a heap as flat as a pancake, but if I can do it in all of my dysfunctional glory, I bet you can too. These food allergy friend foodies and I will be here to cheer you on.

Recent Warning on LymeBites Site

by Eric Rutulante  •  August 23rd, 2010  •  No Comments »  •  Uncategorized

Hey everyone…many of you have contacted me about a warning message that was up on the site on Friday saying there could be a problem with the site. Bob the Magnificent quickly took care of the problem, but it took a while for Google to re-evaluate and remove the warning message. Have no fear, the site is fine and all warning messages have been removed. Thanks for the many emails to let me know about it, and thanks to Bob for getting it taken care of so quickly!

Empire State Lyme Disease Capital Region Chapter August Meeting

by Eric Rutulante  •  August 20th, 2010  •  2 Comments »  •  Support Groups

The Capital Region Chapter of the Empire State Lyme Disease Association is pleased to sponsor a unique informational meeting to provide basic education regarding the proper maintenance and care of PICC lines and other types of intravenous (IV) therapies used in home-based treatments.

The meeting will be held on 

Cracking At The Seams

by Eric Rutulante  •  August 18th, 2010  •  10 Comments »  •  Eric's Blog

My Twitter hashtag this morning is #NoEndInSight.  That sums up my feelings today.  I try to approach this disease with as much finesse and charm as I can.  I believe somehow maybe I can charm the little suckers out of my body with a good smile.  Please note:  This not an acceptable form of Lyme disease treatment, but it was at least worth a shot.

I can’t begin to tell you how sick I am of this shitty disease.  Every day for almost 16 months now my entire life has revolved around Lyme disease.  I have been treating Lyme disease now for over 15 months.  Anytime I start to feel like this I immediately feel guilty because I’m still “new” to this.  How sad and disappointing is that?  To have put so much time and effort into it to know you’re probably not even halfway there yet?

I know people who have fought this disease 20 or more years.  Yes, I’ve had it that long, but without knowing it.  I guess ignorance really is bliss.  While my body was suffering and I was going from one unexplained health problem to another, I at least wasn’t this sick.  I had no idea what I would have ahead of me.  Do I want to go back in time and undo all the work I’ve put into this?  No.  But do I want to go forward in time and do this anymore?  Abso-freaking-lutely not.

My patience has worn thin.  With everything.  What my life has turned in to, my daily schedule, the diarrhea for the first few hours every day because of so many antibiotics I’ve taken, the cost of this disease, the toll it’s all taking on my family and friends, the loss of the enjoyment of life.  I don’t know when, but at some point Lyme took all the enjoyment out of life and turned it all into one big chore.  I hate chores.  You can “rename” my favorite thing in the world and call it a chore and I will no longer want anything to do with it.  That’s just me.

My life has now become a chore.  I’m going through the motions, and I no longer have the energy to pretend.  The tone of this post is negative, I will gladly admit this.  But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s how I feel, and it’s how many of you feel day after day.

If I had had any idea 16 months ago what I was in for, I don’t know I would have accepted it.  It has been a horrifying experience.  Yeah, there’s always good along with the bad, but if you want to read about that then you’ll have to go read a different post.  This post is about honesty.

Lyme bites.  It’s not just a cute name for a website, it’s the truth.  It all sucks.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get better, and that is an awful realization.  There are people who beat it, or who gain a good portion of their life back and then learn to manage the disease.  There are also others who treat and treat and treat but just never get better.  I will have no idea where in that spectrum I will fall until it happens.  That means every day is a giant question mark.  It’s disconcerting to live with such uncertainty day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

I’ll pull myself together again with time and get back on the train.  (The getting back on the horse analogy is getting old after 16 months, today I’ve decided to get back on the train…don’t question me, just go along with me…it’s much easier and will hurt your brain less.)  But I’m exhausted from the fight, and can’t seem to get any rest or relief.

Today I go back on one of the medicines to attack the antibiotic cysts throughout my body.  So I feel awful, mentally and physically, and am about to start another round of treatment that is going to make me feel…yup, you guessed it…awfuller.  I didn’t think that was a real word, but it cleared spell check…who knew!?

So forgive me for letting my guard down, for dropping my armor and exposing myself to the realities of this disease.  But there are days that just seem too much to bear, and today is one of them.

I am one of thousands, possibly millions (if you figure all the misdiagnosed cases) that go through this on a daily basis.  Keep in mind I’m one of the ones who for the most part keeps a sunny disposition (as long as you don’t ask my Mom) and a positive outlook.  Doesn’t matter how strong you are, this disease can get the best of you.

I still have about 14 pills to take, and then I have to jump back into the disability process with the next round of phone calls and questions to answer and have answered.  I can’t even begin to fathom having to keep this up another year, let alone 2 more years, or 3 more years…or the rest of my life.  But I don’t have much of a choice, do I?

So back onto that train I go…heading into the direction of the unknown, hoping it doesn’t derail along the way.  Don’t feel sorry for me, that’s not what I want.  Do something to educate yourself about Lyme disease.  Do something to educate someone else about Lyme disease.  Since my diagnosis I have had 4 friends and 1 family member get diagnosed with Lyme, with 2 more family members that have tested positive for it.  That’s 7 people in my inner circle who found out because of how sick I became.  Don’t let yourself be a statistic.  This is real, it’s everywhere (every state, every country), and it’s being grossly ignored and mistreated by the medical system.

This is the reality of Lyme disease.  Take the extra 5 minutes to check yourself when you come in for ticks.  My friend says she now knows where every single mole is on each of her children’s bodies, because of what she’s seen me go through.  That’s all I ask, take care of yourself and each other.  There is no cure for Lyme disease, there is only treatment.  The risk is too great to not take action to protect yourself.  I’ll get on fine, and continue my journey as best I can alongside the thousands and thousands of others who feel like this on a daily basis.  But perhaps you don’t have to, let’s keep it that way.

For more information about Lyme disease please visit Learn About Lyme.

Ulster County Lyme Disease Support Group August Meeting

by Eric Rutulante  •  August 17th, 2010  •  2 Comments »  •  Support Groups

Hey everyone, just so you know the Ulster County Lyme Disease support group meets every 4th Wednesday at 6:30 at 84 Zena Rd in Kingston (Hudson Valley Sudbury School).  This is the monthly schedule, though I will try to keep the info up to date each month on LymeBites.  For more info please contact March Gallagher, the leader of this support group at march@hvc.rr.com.

AUGUST MEETING OF ULSTER COUNTY LYME DISEASE SUPPORT GROUP

Wednesday August 25th, 6:30 pm at the Hudson Valley Sudbury School

84 Zena Road

Kingston, NY 12401

I will be there, come and join the rest of us Ulster County Lymies!!