While I write my first post I think back on my history of confusion and guilt with food. Realizing that I have finally found a way to live with food (and even enjoy it!) is overwhelming. Discovering my food allergies and intolerances took years, with doctors, tests, diets, trials, and my own intuition.
A lot has changed in our food industry in the last twenty years. In all my research the most compelling information I have come across is how we consume unhealthy food without question. I have the opportunity here to be grateful that I can't have a double bacon cheeseburger and a large Coke or a gas station bag of jalapeno Cheeto's. And I am grateful, but it has taken a while for me to get past the self-pity that I gladly sought out when my doctor read back my results of my last food allergy test. Mourning my loss of entire food groups I said what can I eat? Little did I know how ignorant I was about real food.
The last year has been a challenging year of trial and error as I not only find new recipes that are free of gluten, dairy, egg, peanut and beef, but I have to make sure I have the right mix of fiber, fats, complex carbs and the oh-so-important protein since I am hypoglycemic. I have discovered I can still be a foodie. I have discovered there is more for me in the grocery store than iceberg lettuce and corn tortillas.
Tonight I had rhubarb for the first time. I mashed it with sweet potato and fresh ginger in lentils with rice and had homemade allergen-free moroccan loaf to scoop it all up with. I tossed the leftover rhubarb in some unsweetened apple sauce and baked it with an allergen-free crumble topping (oats, buckwheat flour, raw sugar, agave syrup, oil, cinnamon) over it for a fantastic low-sugar dessert.
Yum.
