snow, wheat and the seven days of the week

Sunday there was pasta and all its gluteny goodness.
Monday there were soba noodles with wheat in them and pasta at lunch.
Tuesday. Hmm. I thought I should retest wheat. So I did on Tuesday and Wednesday and without going into the details of my digestive system I can tell you that something was up. I suspected wheat sensitivity. All that time I though it was soy and I am completely fine eating soy now. I guess this proves that self-diagnosis is not a good thing.

Thursday I briefly saw my ND and she confirmed what I suspected. Wheat cannot be a close friend anymore. I'll keep it as an acquaintance, but we won't be hanging out on a daily basis.

Thursday night I went out with some friends to a pub where I could eat one thing on the menu. Guesses? Yes, the veggie burger. I flashbacked to my days living in Victoria when we'd go out after work to the pub and I'd order the veggie burger because it was all I could eat. That night though not only was I the only one sipping Perrier at the table, but I was faced with the veggie burger on an enriched wheat bun. Way to start my new non-wheaty days. Not a big deal really. I had a good time and the fries were really good and the pub is in a fantastic location. It's right where the Pitt River meets the Fraser and the view is incredible. I hope we go back there again in the warm weather just to sit out on the patio and watch the rivers. I'm told you can sometimes see seals come up river this far.

Friday I was in the process of reintroducing corn so db made burritos and I made more of the Mexican Millet from Veganomicon (honestly I'm not getting paid for mentioning this book as much as I am).

Saturday night db and I made pizza together. I made a rice flour based crust while he made his regular wheat crust. It was fun making our own pizzas together. We prepped everything just before 8 pm and then we powered everything down and lit a couple of candles to join in on Earth Hour. That cats were a little confused with the darkness and thought maybe they should start settling in for the night. Just after 9 pm we left the candles going and just put enough light on in the kitchen to assemble our pizzas and bake them. It was delicious.

This morning I made pancakes from what else? Veganomicon! I made the Blueberry Corn pancakes and substituted all-purpose flour with Buckwheat flour. Despite its name buckwheat is not wheat; there is no gluten in it. Buckwheat does seem to make pancakes quite fluffy so these puffed up very nicely and we had mixed berries in them.

I'm also reintroducing sugar into my diet today to see if I react to it. So it's the first time I've had maple syrup in a while. There was very little affect really.


db thought it'd be a good idea to show how he stacks his pancakes and how well these puppies actually stack.

Finally, here's a little footage of what I woke up to Friday morning when I was contemplating going out for run. It only lasted about an hour, but it was a shocker nonetheless. Incidentally, I did go out for my run.

The bottom video was trying to show the tulips close-up being beaten down by the snow, but the tulips are doing fine and the snow didn't last long.

rootin' for the gluten

New to the diet this week are soy and wheat. These are the "big" foods for me. These are the foods that are part of my everyday diet that were a big change for me when I started the elimination diet to find out if I have food allergies.

When I sought out another margarine other than Earth Balance since E.B. contains soy I couldn’t find one. Every other margarine I checked contained whey or gelatin or milk solids. Yuck. Oh and now I know why “I can’t believe it’s not butter” can call itself that, it’s because one of the first ingredients is buttermilk! Okay so big deal I give up margarine. It’s been a week and now I don’t even care if I eat it ever again and this is coming from the person who was an Earth Balance junkie. Score one for the diet (actually two since I’m now off the bean as well).

Friday I introduced soy back into the diet with some soymilk in my Vega smoothie. I don’t usually drink soymilk ever, but having shopped for the detox we were a little low on soy supplies and I needed to put it back in my diet somehow. db drinks soy every day so we had the milk on hand. For dinner I added a little cubed tofu and spinach together for a quick sauté on the side with my root veg soup (db was sick so we had to pass on the planned stir fry and I made some soup for us instead). So far there’s been zero reaction. Saturday was the same.

Sunday was wheat day.

Wheat didn’t worry me too much even with my lack of enthusiasm when I quickly tired of starting my day with rice cakes, almond butter and hemp seeds. Time for oatmeal goodness and…uh oh…no maple syrup. Okay plain oatmeal and fresh berries works with a little rice milk (by the way check the rice or almond milk ingredients for soy. I should probably make my own like my sis does but…I’m not there yet). That worked quite well actually.

With no bread in the house (db was too sick to bake and didn’t bother last week since I wasn’t eating bread anyhow) I made muffins for breakfast and ate several while watching the St. Louis Chicago game. They were fairly small muffins and St. Louis lost in overtime.

Sunday night pasta would be my next wheat meal. Rice pasta is yummy. I’m enjoying it, but db isn’t as keen and is “rootin’ for the gluten.” I made the good ol’ durum semolina in a simple tomato sauce. db had seconds. He felt much better today.

I feel fine. I did notice a little heavier feeling after my meal, but no adverse effects so far.

Next I think I will get to the corn. I still haven’t gone back to sugar and I think that one might be the key.

I’ve got 19 days to go.