There’s a permanence in pages, as opposed to posts, that feels terrifying. On that cheery note: Welcome to the page of what I can’t, won’t and shan’t eat. Now, I wish, dear reader, that it were an easy case of listing a diet, telling you in general terms what that diet entails, and letting you connect the dots. But seeing as someone, in their infinite wisdom, or malice, decided to make me the eternal awkward kid, it takes a little more detail than the norm. Still, I’ve meant to do this for a long time, I believe it’ll help make things clearer. I will preface this with a warning: These are my dietary requirements, I avoid this to be healthy and happy. If you follow it you do so at your own risk and folly. Don’t be a lunkhead and assume you can emulate what I’ve accomplished by copying this list. We all need to figure out our own dietary requirements, these are mine. They’re just here to help you understand me, nothing more and nothing less. It’s worth nothing that I do cover many other diets as well as my own.
One the surface I follow a Gluten Free, Nightshade Free, Low Histamine Diet. As I say it’s more complicated than that, but I’ll try to be brief. Let’s hope I don’t have to add to this too often.
Gluten Free
I not only avoid gluten in food, but also gluten contamination due to cross-contamination. If you don’t know what that is then Google it, there are thousands of articles about it. I see no good in parroting it here. I am self-diagnosed, but I follow the diet rigidly, with very few slip ups at this stage. Doctors didn’t want to help me, so I helped myself. It’s as simple as that. So, I avoid the follow foods, and again: anything that might contain gluten.
Wheat
Gluten
Graham
Couscous
Barley
Rye
Spelt
Malt
Semolina
Aspartame (I’ve found artificial sweeteners make me ill so I avoid them)
Isomalt (Ditto)
Sorbitol (Again)
Millet (Some people don’t react to this, but I do)
Kamut
Farro
Peach, Apricot, Pears contain Sorbitol so I avoid them too.
Now, that’s not a comprehensive list. There are probably other foods I avoid, or would avoid if I’d heard of them. It boils down to this: If there’s gluten in it, if it might contain gluten, whether or not it’s marked as such, I avoid it like the plague.
Nightshade Intolerance
One of the hardest food intolerances to explain, it’s not very well known and my symptoms seem to be be different from others. Taking this in conjunction with coeliac disease means I’m extremely limited than if I just had one of the other. I’ve had this since I was born, but again it wasn’t treated until I took it upon myself.
Cape Gooseberry Tobacco Tomatillo Tomato Goji Berry Potato Bell Pepper Chilli Paprika Cayenne Chilli Pepper Eggplant Carrageenan (E407)
Now, I know that Carrageenan is an oddity on that list, but I’ve had major issues with it and have seen it mentioned alongside nightshade intolerance. Again, I say this is just my list, don’t take it as absolute truth. I have problems with it, similar to others nightshades, so it goes here. As you can see this does kneecap me a bit, not that that stopped me for long. Have no fear there.
Histamine Intolerance
Chestnuts Artificial Colouring Artificial Flavouring Kale Walnuts Margarine Yeast Spinach Mulberry Chocolate Beans Rhubarb Soy Oats Canned Food Peas Pumpkin Seeds Dried Fruit Marinaded Meats Aged/Cured Meats Ripened Cheeses Citrus Fruits Buttermilk
Avoid Excessive Consumption:
Caffeine
Strawberry
Raspberry
Pineapple
Cherries
Cilantro (Fresh)
This changes from person to person, some foods can be tolerated, others can’t. You have to slowly go through everything and see what you can’t tolerate. It’s one of the reasons I don’t list anything as low histamine here, it’s too variable and complex. You can imagine that this coupled with the other issues makes it difficult to eat. It does, but I still eat. You can make it work, trust me.
Thickeners/Starches
Gum Arabic
Locust Bean Gum/Carob Gum (E410)
Guar Gum (E412)
Corn Flour
Tapioca Starch/Flour
And the oddest of all, I don’t know why they affect me, I can’t find any information about it, but I had to cut out these to feel well. These are the reasons my recipes differ so much from the norm. Remove these and gluten free baking becomes much more difficult. Again I do rather well.
Odd
Gelatin
Pork Products
Odd, that’s me, dear reader. I don’t know why these affect me. They always have. Now I sensibly avoid them. So that’s me, has anything here matched your food no-nos? Or am I alone in this? Hopefully it helps make sense of what you’ll find here and perhaps it’ll help someone struggling to wrap their head around their own food issues. Just be safe, be careful and for everything you remove add something better.
A Note On Other Diets
You can see that I cover a lot of other diets alongside my own. In a lot of my recipes there are a lot of variations to help others enjoy a greater choice in their diets, no matter how restricted. One rule I follow is that I never suggest what I haven’t tried, so if you think a recipe could be made to suit you with a few tweaks, but are unsure of success then ask me. I’m not omniscient, but I know my way around these recipes and even if I haven’t tried it I can guess with fair accuracy if something will work, keeping in mind hat I will tell you the truth and if I don’t think it’ll work I’m not going to tell you otherwise. I hate to see recipes fail due to misinformation. Everything here is tried and tested, though there can be no 100% guarantees of success, I feel you won’t have much trouble with my recipes.
Pep's Free From Kitchen 