I fully own being a creature of habit….
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| Courtsey of Free Stock Images. |
I am adventurous, but I also like the tried and true (read rut).
Often these two parts of me can clash, especially when it comes to food. As of late, I am forcing myself to try foods
that I normally would have written off unless they came camouflaged say in the
form of a dip (yes artichokes, I am looking at you). Why am I breaking out of
my food rut? Well it is never too late to start investing in one’s health, add to
that I had to cut out a group of foods due
to an allergy and viola a food adventure of exploring new options of foods to
eat. Fortunately, the degree of my allergy does not force me to be overly
militant and take a strict stance, I just have to restrict the
foods that contain the allergen to a small part of my diet. Easier said than
done when the allergy is wheat.
When I was 18, I had to go through second round of allergy
testing when asthma came back with a vengeance. One of the items they tested
for was wheat. It turned out that I was allergic to it. Not brutally, but
enough for the doctor to mention it. I did not want to believe it. I was a
college kid who’s diet consisted of bagels for breakfast and either pizza
or pasta for dinner, if left to my own devices. I asked if the allergy shots
would help with the wheat allergy and the doctor said maybe, but the best way
was to take care of it was to restrict to a small portion of my diet. Years
past and I did not think much about it until recently when I could not shake
the last remnants of a cold. My current doctor said it could be allergies and
knowing my history, he made a passing suggestion that maybe I should test out
the previous doctor’s suggestion about removing almost all wheat from my diet.
Tired of being sick, I agreed. Once the wheat was scaled back to only a small,
and I mean really small, portion of my food intake, my symptoms disappeared. So
feeling much better I was left with a new quandary…. WHAT THE HECK WAS I GOING TO EAT???
Yes, I know there is a world of food options out there waiting
for me…. and this is where my food rut comes into play. Prior to seeing my
doctor, I had already decided to reduce my sugar intake. Being mindful of all
the hidden place that sugar hides, I started making changes. Reducing the sugar
in my coffee (I had already cured myself of the artificial sweetener habit),
making pasta sauce from scratch, swapping out my peanut butter (for the record breaking
my JIF peanut butter habit was very hard). But now I had to eliminate a whole
other area of comfort food: wheat products.
I love flour
tortilla, can’t stand the corn ones, I have found ones made from oats and
flax that are acceptable. I love pasta, fortunately I do like the pasta made
from quinoa. Bread…. well for wheat free options that is a vast wasteland of choices, but I had found some good brown rice
bread.
After fretting for a
bit… I accepted that I was going to have to get out of my food rut and explore
new options. I knew a lot of those new options would be found in the produce
aisle. So for the first time in my adult life, I found myself stopping and
considering vegetables I had never glanced at before . I tried artichoke
hearts, passable maybe I will grow to love them. Celery root, well it is kind
of looks like jicama (at least in my mind, shhhh don’t dissuade me of this
notion or I will put it back on the shelf) plus I have seen it used on the Food
Network. Then there was kale. oh kale, that now trendy vegetable that seemed to
be in everything from chips to green smoothies. I had a kale chip once and the
texture reminded me of dried seaweed, yeah I passed on anymore of those
chips. As for green smoothies, I am still working on getting used to smoothies,
let alone green ones. I had always thought of kale as the decoration to cover
the ice that some restaurants used on salad bars, but never thought to actually
eat it. Somehow I convinced myself to pick up a small bushel, the smallest one
I could find, and believe me I rummaged through the whole offering of kale in
the produce aisle. Yes, people stared, why the store had to put all the kale on
the highest produce shelf was beyond me. So armed with a recipe for sautéed
kale (how could one go wrong with olive oil and garlic?) I tackled a portion of
my small bushel really hoping for a positive outcome.
The kale rounded out a meal of polenta, chicken and chorizo sausage
(I love spicy sausage, I am still on a quest to find good hot Italian sausage
in the DC area… but that is for a post for another day). Why did I select those
items? Well I figured if the kale was going to have a fair chance it needed to
be paired with items I already liked. The outcome, I am thinking I am not a
kale fan. I may be open to trying it one more time, but I am not going out of
my way to do it.
I have been asked what I miss the most by extremely limiting
my wheat consumption? BAGELS, I really miss bagels. Yes, I have tried the wheat
free ones and if I ever need of a quick substitute for a hockey puck, I know exactly
what to use.