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Having such a positive experience with the food has made me realize that perhaps I’m at a point in the healing process (6 months on the diet) where I can try testing some foods that I previously couldn’t handle. For example, I’m soy intolerant, and have been avoiding all legumes. However, at one of the breakfasts at the B & B, the special breakfast burrito for me made with a corn tortilla with mango salsa had some beans in it besides all the veggies and spicy sausage. I ate a couple of bites before discovering this.
The owners felt really bad, because the legume connection hadn’t been caught even though I had told them. So they made me some eggs and sausage instead. I was a bit worried about consequences, but absolutely nothing happened. So that tells me that either I’m healed enough that a tiny amount is OK, or maybe the beans don’t cross-react with soy for me and are something I can test with slowly adding back.The other thing I discovered is that yeast doesn’t seem to be much of a problem anymore. I was able to drink wine in moderation, and marinated foods with vinegar didn’t cause any problems.
Tex has mentioned a number of times that the yeast problem often clears up some time after removing offending foods, and that seems to be the case with me. I had actually tested these items before the trip, so that I felt comfortable about having them in small amounts.Corn is another food that seems to be OK now in moderation. I had some problems with it early on after my diagnosis, but again tested it out before going on the trip. The testing started with Tylenol for a nasty headache several weeks ago. Tylenol has cornstarch, but I was at the point of figuring that a bit of D was less painful than the headache. Much to my relief, I didn’t have a problem, and then tested myself on a few other items that had small amounts of cornstarch. However, I didn’t have the courage to try drinks with umbrellas in Hawaii because many of the juices they use contain high fructose corn syrup.
The experiment with making my own jerky for the trip turned out to be something of a disaster.
This was caused by my just having gotten the food dehydrator and not being familiar with all details. I made both turkey and beef jerky. The turkey was disgusting! The test piece I had before we left was straight from the dehydrator, and was OK. However, evidently after it sat for a few days the texture got disgustingly gummy, and stuck to my teeth. DH had a piece on the plane ride over and couldn't finish it. The beef jerky was good at first, but then I noticed that all the changes in temperature caused a lot of moisture to come out of the jerky and condense on the inside of the bag. Well, moisture and heat certainly isn't the way to keep meat from decaying, and even after being refrigerated at the B & B, it started to smell a bit "off". So all that jerky just went into the trash. What I should have done is vacuum pack it in individual amounts, as my son informed me after the fact!Thank goodness fruit has mostly been OK for me, because I had wonderful fruit in Hawaii. The mangos, papayas, bananas and pineapples were fantastic. I had the best smoothie ever……a concoction of frozen bananas, mangos and pineapple, with the fruit being tree-ripened on the farm that had the smoothie stand. Nothing but fruit!
I was really impressed by the restaurant food. With catering to tourists from all over the world, they know how to deal with food issues. The big difference from what I’ve encountered around here is that they make an effort to have food with some frills for folks like us. Here, what usually happens is that they make an item that is just plain and boring……grilled meat with no spices and steamed veggies. I’ll just give one example in Hawaii. The restaurant actually had an item on the menu that was gluten, soy and dairy free, and it was incredibly delicious and so beautifully presented that I wanted to take a picture! It was fresh mahi mahi grilled with asparagus and peppers. The rice had spices and coconut, absolutely delicious. And then there was a relish of sliced peppers, radish, bok choy and other stuff marinated in rice wine vinegar/sesame oil. Then a bit of wasabi sauce was drizzled around the edges. There wasn’t a molecule of food left on my plate!
As you can tell, I had a wonderful time and best of all, was able to enjoy the food. Apparently I’ve healed enough that my system isn’t nearly as sensitive to irritants and I can expand my diet. It’s actually kind of funny that I can get so excited about being able to add back things like bok choy, pickles and olives. But it’s part of the cycle, and it’s great to be on the upswing, instead of the depressing downward cycle of adjusting to giving up so many foods.
Rosie
home--
But when we got to the top at 13,700 ft, we were rewarded with an incredible night sky absolutely crowded with more stars than I've ever seen. After watching sunset at the top, the tour went down to 9000 ft at the Visitor's Center to stargaze. The guide had a laser beam for pointing out the various constellations and a telescope for looking at Mars and Jupiter, the only planets visible at the time. The moon was new and set early, so there was no noon glow to dim the stars. It was a somewhat spiritual experience. Since the altitude is so high, there was a warning to people with respiratory problems like asthma. My asthma has been much improved since going gluten free, but I did take a puff of my inhaler before going up to make sure I was getting as much oxygen as possible and never had a problem with altitude sickness. The guide said that kids usually were the ones to have problems, because instead of walking slowly and taking it easy, they would run around until they passed out! On the way back down, I leaned from the guide that digestive problems, especially gas, can be very painful at those altitudes.