I love to cook, good food is really important to me. If you are anything like me you may spend a large amount of your life in the kitchen preparing good nourishing food to eat, this is what has been going on in my kitchen this month. If you would like to join in you would be most welcome, leave a link in the comments section.
It has been over three years since I have shared with you what has been going on in my kitchen, in that time there has been some fairly radical changes to what we eat. In the mid 90s I was diagnosed with Crohns disease whilst this can be a very debilitating disease for some, I am so thankful that I have not been seriously ill with this chronic condition. In the early days, the medication that I was taking to keep this check gave me further problems due to side effects I made the decision to stop taking them and started my long slow journey into alternatives, that was in the days before the internet was there at a click of a button. Around that time I had a food intolerance test which transformed my life, within a week of excluding my list of foods my symptoms had all disappeared. Life ticked on and I continued to exclude my list of 'no' foods until a few years ago, when it occurred to me that it was great that my symptoms had not come back but after so long excluding these foods I was still unable to reintroduce them without side effects, was I really 'better' then or just managing a different status quo? I hadn't stopped reading and researching in that period but I knew that I needed to try something different. I eventually decided that I would try giving up wheat and sugar for a whole year and see what happened, if that didn't work I would try something else. Both of these ingredients formed a integral part of our diet, although sugar less so, I gave up all sugars including refined sugar, sweeteners such as honey and maple syrup and all fruit. Yes you did read that right all fruit too. I spent at least a month before I started planning and finding new recipes. It made a huge difference to me, I felt much less sluggish, less bloated and I slept so much better, but even more amazing was that during that year I started to reintroduce some of those foods that I had not eaten for nearly twenty years and I suffered no side effects.
That was back in 2017, now we eat a wheat in maybe one meal a week or less, sweeteners are used sparingly and fruit is very much back on the menu. When I look back through my old In My Kitchen posts there was a lot of baking going on then, that has all been much reduced. It has been a big change. I didn't think, before I gave it up, that I was eating a lot of wheat until I started to look at a week of meals rather than each meal individually, I am a huge believer in every thing in moderation but that was not an ingredient we were eating in moderation. It has been surprisingly easy to bring about this change, rather than look for alternatives, using gluten free flour to make pastry or bread for example, we ate differently. We now eat a lot more vegetables than we used to and with a teenage boy in the house our veg bill is large! Now I can eat out, share food with friends and family and not worry about the ingredients for the first time in so, so long. It has made a huge difference to my life and I am so glad I gave it a try even though at the time it felt like a really extreme thing to do!
When you make a fairly radical change to your diet it can mean that many of your cookbooks are full of recipes which are no longer used. I have given away many of the books on my shelves, particularly the bread baking ones of which I had quite a large collection. This has been a good excuse to buy some new ones and last year I was given two amazing cookbooks for my birthday, one (fourth book on this link) of which I use a lot and has become a firm favourite for us. We have yet to try anything from this book that has not been loved and made again, it is a book that really suits what we love to eat, a particular favourite is a Mediterrean Tray bake a dish based on roast veggies.
I am going to leave you now with a recipe for a meal that you could make for dinner* or tea, we usually eat this for dinner. It is my favourite kind of recipe as it is a collection of possibilities all thrown together to make a really tasty meal which means that it tastes different each week and each season depending on what you have in the house. If the flavourings don't appeal to you then add your own. These quantities serve two so increase/decrease accordingly.
Shakshouka (Serves 2)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 onion or a leek or 3 spring onions
3 cups of whatever green vegetables you have
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes or a few drops of Tabasco
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 handfuls of leafy greens and herbs
salt and pepper
eggs
4 tablespoons of any cheese you have and like crumbled or grated
Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium high heat, add the onion/leek/spring onion, green vegetables and cumin. Cook for 5-7 minutes.
Add the chilli/tabasco, lemon juice, leafy greens and herbs and cook until wilted.
Season with salt and pepper if desired.
Create divots in your mixture and break in the eggs one by one (as many as you want), sprinkle with cheese, turn heat to low and cover. Cook for about 5 - 7 minutes until the eggs are set.
Printable Recipe
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Do you think Candida could have played a part? Since being dreadfully ill last year as a result of an infection and four rounds of antibiotics I have been on an anti candida diet: no dairy, no sugar, nothing fermented as well as targeted anti fungals. Our immune system is linked to gut health it's interesting what we can find once we start looking :-)
ReplyDeleteIt could have been, although if you were not eating anything fermented on an anti candida diet then I would say not as I did really well with fermented foods during my year off wheat and sugar.
DeleteI too have believed that our immune system is linked to our gut health for a very long time, I am so glad that this is now being taken seriously by the medical establishment and there is lots of research and reliable evidence proving this to be so.
I am so sorry to hear that you have been so ill, I do hope that you are feeling better now and the anti candida diet is working for you still.
Forgot to mention no yeast as well! I suffered a reaction to the antibiotics as well as a horrific herxheimer reaction. The diet has made a huge difference, I will be on it for another year at least. So pleased you have been able to add old foods back into your diet thus making eating out easier x
DeleteOh boy, it sounds like you have had a terrible time. I am so glad to hear that the diet has made a huge difference x
DeleteI'm so happy you have found an eating plan which works for you. It must make such a difference to how you feel in your day to day life. Shakshuka is one of my absolute favourites. I love it's versatility. X
ReplyDeleteThank you, yes it does make a huge difference. I know that part of the reason it has taken so long is that I could not give this the attention and time I needed to when the children were small. I didn't want to be ill then. Sometimes when we take the time and give something the attention it really needs we can find the solutions that work best for us and that we can stick to for the rest of lives rather than a short period, they need to be sustainable.
DeleteI think it must take an effort to actually cut certain things out of your diet and follow any sort of food plan, but I suppose it's only for a while and then you can start reintroducing things and seeing what works and what doesn't. Definitely worth it once you know what's what, especially now you don't have to worry about ingredients and can eat out with friends without worrying. Crohns can be terrible, I know quite a few people who have it, so I'm really glad that you've found a way to manage it successfully.
ReplyDeleteIt does take a lot of effort, but it is amazing how quickly you adapt when you know that the alternative is that you will be ill. As a mother this is a no brainer.
DeleteCrohns can indeed be terrible. I have only been really seriously ill with it twice, once requiring hospital treatment. I was told, not long after my health started to suffer due to the medication that I was taking, that Crohns was nothing to do with what I ate. Given that it is disease of the gastric tract I found this so hard to believe, that was actually a turning point for me and made me realise that I had to find my own path to restoring my health. I was so young then and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in and out of hospital, which I had been told would be my future. It makes me so sad when I read about people my age, who have Crohns as long as I have, who have no quality of life, they are vitually bedridden and have large parts of their intestines removed. It doesn't have to be that way but it takes a big leap of faith to go against the medical advice, I just know that I am so glad I did.
I'm lactose intolerant and I suspect I'm gluten sensitive (definitely not celiac, I was tested). I keep trying again and again to clean up my diet. I've been tracking added sugar and cutting that back.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing what sugar is added to, when I stopped eating it completely I became really sensitive to it, I remember making a salad with mayonnaise and wondering why it tasted so odd, the mayo had sugar in it! I was really shocked.
DeleteThe thing with wheat these days it is very different from the wheat we were eating as children even. The varieties that they grow now are very different gluten wise, I remember reading a whole load of studies on this when I was doing some research, it was mind blowing.
If I eat a lot of sugar now it gives me a terrible headache that can last all day, it is one of those all consuming headaches like a migraine but not quite.
Small steps are the best way I think, you will get there just take your time and then it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming.
Hi there, really interesting to read about your journey with cutting out different foods. As I mentioned before, I too have Crohn's and I have slept terribly for many years. I tried cutting out gluten and sugar for 3 months which didn't make a difference, but reading that you did a whole year, I'm wondering if I should have tried longer...food for thought! Thanks for the yummy recipe :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Bex, cutting out gluten and sugar was just a part of what I did during that year. I also did a lot to improve my general gut heath as well, including taking a really good (and therefore expensive) probiotic and eating lots of fermented food. The medication that I took way back in the 90s did damage to my liver which I knew from other symptoms that I had in the meantime was still suffering with some damage. So another thing I did during that year was to take/make various supplements/treatments that would support my liver too. As I said I did a lot of research before embarking on my year of changing my diet and I feel sure that all that preparation helped me to transition onto a new diet more easily.
DeleteReally interesting, and yes all the research and tailored changes you made definitely key. So pleased it has made a lasting difference - brilliant.
DeleteNot knowing what you can/can't eat, this may not be useful for you, but we have a similar dish which we call "Kamchatka" (I can never remember the proper name) - basically onion, garlic, tomato and peppers cooked together until soft. Then add your eggs in a similar way. I usually divide into 2 dishes (there's two of us) & then bake until the eggs are set - but the yolks are still runny.
ReplyDeleteOooh that sounds delicious, thank you for sharing - and yes I can eat all those foods.
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