Sunday, June 30, 2013

Elimination Diet for dealing with and discovering allergies

My allergist has placed me on an elimination diet in which we have eliminated all known allergens, and actually since I seem to be reacting to so many different things, even things I'm not allergic to, we have eliminated all but the things I react to. At first that left me with rice and pork. Currently I'm eating Rice, Pork, Beef, (once or twice a month max and only from places the cows were treated humanely up till becoming steaks)  salt, sugar, olive oil, and water. We're trying a new food in there every once in a while. This week I'm trying peaches. I'm not so sure how that's going. My body isn't very happy in general right now, even if I don't eat peaches. There was a fire nearby and the smoke brought allergens with it, plus it's a time of year where there are a lot of plants which I'm allergic to drying out and blowing around in the heat. It's not a good time to be in this body.

My allergist called it Oral Allergy Syndrome if memory serves. I'm on 3 types of antihystamine drugs. I've jokingly called it foodie hell because basically anything in the air cross reacts to a bunch of different foods. We have eliminated all those foods from my diet.

On the up note, I have been getting creative with those few ingredients left to me. And the rare occasions when we add other flavors are even more delicious and notable than they would have seemed previously. A peach is a wonderful thing even if I have to cook the heck out of it to safely try it. This week I am trying peaches but haven't been sure if they're causing my allergies to get worse or not. So there will be some days when I'll just do rice and pork, and other days where I'll include peaches this week, and I'll compare the reactions and decide if it's worth it. The allergist is also doing blood tests. You can follow  my health progress on baresimplicity.blogspot.com where I occasionally post a health update. BACK to the food!

Here are some recipes we have concocted that I have really enjoyed. Hopefully you will too:

Sweetened Louisiana Pork Ribs:
SO YUMMY

Ingrediants:
1 rack Louisiana Style Pork Ribs
2 teaspoons Salt (separated)
1/4 cup Water
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

Remove membrane from back of ribs if it hasn't already been done at the store
Rub 1 teaspoon salt over ribs
Place pork ribs and 1/4 cup water in the crock pot on low for 8-10 hours (while you're at work perhaps)
Remove ribs and rub with 1 teaspoon salt and 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
Place in broiler for 10-20 minutes allowing brown sugar and salt to create a nice coating

Allow to rest so sugar can cool and because meat is always best after it rests a bit.

I enjoyed this with a nice long grain rice medley (various types of rice cooked together, nice light nutty flavor)

And for desert see the recipe I posted over on Bare Simplicity
Brown Sugar and Olive Oil Cookies.
I wanted a slightly chewy cookie, and this is what I came up with
http://baresimplicity.blogspot.com/2013/06/brown-sugar-and-olive-oil-cookies.html



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