Wait, I thought milk was suppose to do a body good?

I'm sorry I haven't seen posting much lately. My work life has truly eaten up time, space and energy for little else. I'm trying to get an online shop for Jean Therapy up and have another little pet side project in the works as well. Sometimes I consider blogging but my meals and life with food really haven't been anything too special these days.

I've been trying to make peace with my issues with wheat. It's been tough. Anytime E had anything with bread involved, I ask to take a sniff before she digs in. And I take a deep inhalation. Sometimes I have a little nibble. Even a hotdog bun causes me to go into rapture. I miss bread so damn much that it all seems so damn unfair. If only I had known how truly "unfair" it was about to get.

Recently I had a doctor's appointment. I remembered to mention my stomach issues to her and she instantly scheduled a lactose test for me. I was a little taken aback. I mean, I'm Korean and all but I'm also adopted so I've had a glass of milk with every meal since I could remember. Dairy in the form of cheese and ice cream are a daily requirement for me; my cheese bin in the fridge is always stocked so I can have a quick snack and don't even get me started on the gallons of ice cream I typically have on hand.

When I came home and told E, we both thought the same thing. Perhaps, not really meaning to, my doctor had kinda stererotyped me as being lactose intolerant because I'm Asian. No matter, I'd go ahead with the test. It would be one more thing to rule out for me to be allergic to.

The test is a breathorlizer dealie and one that takes three hours to administer. Also, you can't have anything to eat or drink for 10 hrs before and this includes water. Since I was having the test in the morning I was able to sleep for most of the 10 hrs. But the period from 9-12 was a little rough because this was my typical midnight snacking time. E will have a glass of wine or bourbon and I reach for ice cream. Actually it's probably not the healthiest evening routine and I think we both might want to reevaluate.

I arrived for the test early. I was parched, cranky, tired and my breath was a little funky because I couldn't use "a lot" of water to brush my teeth and absolutely no Listerine. "Why, did I decide this was a good idea? I already KNOW I'm not allergic to lactose". I fumed and chided myself for going along with the test.

Soon I and four other people were ushered into a room and given clear keg cups half full of what looked like water. These were the lactose/sucrose solutions and we were told to drink the entire portion. I took a small sip thru my straw and deemed it not so bad. It was tepid and slightly sweet.

"Well, it could be worse", I thought as I proceeded to try and down the rest of the solution.

Okay, a few more sips into the beverage and I changed my mind. It was disgusting. Drinking lukewarm sugar water is really not fun at all. It was a lot to stomach and I was having trouble downing it all. I kinda felt like a wuss until I looked around the room at the four other people. They didn't look too happy either. Infact, the woman next to me said, "blah, this is awful!".

So armed with the knowledge that I wasn't the only one suffering, I pulled thru and emptied the cup. Every 30 mins for 3 hours we had to come back to the room and blow into the plastic bag. So for 3 hours, I played with my phone (the day that Twitter went down! drats!), watch the Today show and marveled over how many times they recycled the same damn new stories and internally kicked myself for taking the test when I was so not lactose intolerant.

But the reason for kicking myself changed about 20 mins after I chugged whatever was in the cup. My tummy was a mess. I was in a bit of pain and had some GI distress. F-ck! And it didn't stop. My tummy was a mess all day and into the evening as well. Damn me for taking a test that made me so sick!

I haven't gotten the test results back but I'm fairly certain that my test will come back positive and I am indeed lactose intolerant. My GI distress was almost immediate.

While the possibility of being both lactose and wheat intolerant really bums me out, I'm also trying to figure out how to move forward. People have told me that there are plenty of substitutes for wheat and cheese. Plus I know my friend V uses the lactose pills so he can easily handle the cheese on a cheeseburger. And I know that this is true but I also wonder if the best course of action, for me, not for anyone else, is to clean those foods out of my diet completely and see how I feel. I'm tempted to do the latter but I'm also baffled by what to eat, especially as someone who is so wedded to cheese and ice cream. And yes, I've had rice milk and soy milk ice cream and I don't really enjoy either one very much. And sorbet?! I mean it's got a place but sometimes you just want a big ole ice cream sundae or a vanilla creme brulee.

Alright, so I'm being a little pouty about the entire situation and I recognize that. Besides, if all this had come up for me years ago, I'm sure that I wouldn't have the world of alternatives and subs I have at my disposal now. And you know what? Pecan crackers aren't really half bad so maybe I'll be ok afterall.

Quit Punching Me in the Stomach, Thank You Very Much!

I'm still here! I've been remembering to take pictures of food I've been eating but just not finding the time to post about what I've eaten. Such is life. I'm going to try and do a few posts over the next few days so I can bring you semi up to speed on my food life. Just to highlight: I (very badly) made cheese and discovered a new useful kitchen tool.

But the latest food news in my life is that I recently discovered that I have some weird reaction to wheat. Ok, so I'm not 100% ready to called it an allergy just yet. As someone who once dated somebody who had a wheat/gluten allergy where if he had some he'd do into anaphylactic shock, well I'm not ready to call what happens to me an allergy. It feels disrespectful to those who truly are allergic to such things.

What I have noticed is that if I eat too much wheat stuff I feel really bad; I get stomach gas that feels like someone is punching me over and over again. I also get a lovely rash on my arms and legs (I say this as I itchy my leg, reaction to wheat in the batter of some fish tacos I had on Tuesday, I think).

So being 34 years old and learning that you can no longer eat, with abandonment, the foods you love and grew up with is a big life change. At least, it has been for me. Let me tell you I love wheat so very much. I love pizza, pie, cake, bagels, donuts, bread and so many other lovely wheaty things and have been really bummed to have to let those foods go for the most part. Thru the recent loss of these carby loves I've noticed a few things:

The first thing is that wheat is a damn hard thing to avoid if you try. On Sunday I went to brunch with some friend to a place called the "Friendly Toast". I heard that they made good huevos rancheros and I knew that they also made a lot of vegetarian friendly dishes so I thought that the wheat issue wouldn't be an problem, despite the name of the place being "The Friendly Toast". No so. Everything came with bread and I mean everything! Including the huevos rancheros. They didn't come on top of corn tortillas as I would expect, no they came in top of a big slice of wheat bread. Ok, fine, I won't get the bread but when everyone else's brunch dishes came with thick fluffy slices of toasted cheese or wheat bread, I started to feel a bit like a second class citizen. Clearly toast was a big deal here and I feel like I really missed out not being able to partake.

The second thing is that wheat is super easy to forget about. On Tuesday I went to La Verdad for tacos with E and our friend R. It was a lot of fun and in the heat of the moment I decided I wanted fish for dinner thus ordered the fish tacos. R also has a gluten allergy and was going to say something to me but she figured I knew already that there was most likely wheat flour in the batter encasing the fish (duh!). E completely forgot about my allergy and for a few hours so did I. I ate the tacos without even thinking. Once I got home, I was greeted with stomach pains so bad that I had to get into bed in the fetal position or weakly walk over to the bathroom. Oy vey, it was really bad. In the past, this would occasionally happen to me and I would wonder if I needed to be taken to the hospital because the gas pain was so unbearably painful. And just as quickly as it hit me, it would go away as well. It's really great that I now understand what was happening to me but not great when I forget about it.

Slowly, I'm learning how to manage without as much wheat in my diet. I've become a big fan of corn tortillas in place of bread at home and have found that I can buy a big stack at Shaws for $2.50 and it lasts a long time. I've also discovered Lara bars too! I had to admit I was skeptical of yet another "power" bar but Lara bars are different. They're all natural and taste great. They remind me a lot of the date nut cookies from Archway that my Dad enjoys for dessert after dinner. Lara bars are very tasty but you have to know that they won't really actually taste like "pecan pie" or "cherry pie" or whatever but are tasty in their own way.

And E has promised to come up with a wheat free cake recipe and pizza crust recipe that will knock my socks off. So life after wheat might not be so bad after all.