{"id":2730,"date":"2015-01-01T19:38:26","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T19:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pantryparatus.com\/wpmigration\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2015-01-01T19:38:26","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T19:38:26","slug":"the-reluctant-naturalist-i-cant-eat-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pantryparatus.com\/articles\/the-reluctant-naturalist-i-cant-eat-what\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reluctant Naturalist: I can’t eat WHAT?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Reluctant Naturalist<\/h1>\n

I can\u2019t eat WHAT?<\/em><\/h2>\n

\"The<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I love Frosted Flakes. There I said it. Give me some Lucky Charms too. Oh, and some frozen lasagna. I love the Stouffers all-veggie kind. That\u2019s healthy right?<\/em><\/p>\n

Ok, so I know it isn\u2019t good for me. I went through Weight Watchers and got my Lifetime Pin (meaning I lost the weight and know how to eat healthy when I want to). So what\u2019s the big deal? Eating bad occasionally can\u2019t be that bad can it?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Well, apparently my body thinks it can.<\/p>\n

\"Intestines\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have had an infection for over 2 years (yeast, if you must know<\/em>).<\/strong> I have been to four doctors that have put me on all sorts of drugs\/steroids to fix it. This ended causing other problems and side effects. They did a DNA test to find out what specific type of infection it was, but even then they couldn\u2019t cure the stupid thing. Finally, they wanted me to go on a drug that, according to Wikipedia is a \u201cdrug of last resort, causing among other side effects, chronic renal failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Um, no.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0That, my friends is where I drew my line in the sand. I forked out the cash to see a naturopath that was highly recommended to me by several friends. After several fascinating tests the doctor told me to cut out mint, potatoes in all forms, and not to eat fruit and sugar within six hours of each other (Disclaimer: this was a diagnosis specific to my body and my situation and is not meant to be a cure-all for anyone).<\/p>\n

Normally I am very skeptical of these types of things.<\/strong> I have not been so kind to all those gluten free people that I know. A little bread wont hurt you will it?<\/em> But, after trying everything else and being told that if I do this diet, and used the natural supplements that they recommended, my naturopath believes my infection will clear up in one week.<\/p>\n

One week? Seriously??!??<\/em><\/p>\n

This I had to see. I could do anything for a week. Right?<\/p>\n

I jumped in. But I had no idea what I was getting into.<\/p>\n

The doctor gave me a list of what types of things have my food intolerances in it. The list was three pages long. For potato I had to avoid most canned foods, any enriched pasta (B vitamins are generally grown on potato starch), MSG, dextrose, iodized salt (potato starch makes the iodine stick to the salt), and most yeast. Just to name a few things. For mint I have to avoid peppermint (good bye peppermint mocha<\/em>), most toothpastes and many chap sticks. For the sugar and fruit problem it was just simpler to avoid non-natural sugar because fruit is in almost everything. So, no sugar – powdered, brown, whatever. No candies, unless naturally sweetened (good bye my Dark Chocolate Dove friends)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Then they told me that I couldn\u2019t just trust the ingredient list on my food labels. The companies don\u2019t have to list the bottom 2% of what they put into the food.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Lots of food has my intolerances in it and they don\u2019t even list the potato on the label!<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, many eggs are washed in a potato or fruit solution and that absorbs into the egg. Then they gave me a list of foods that they personally tested. It was 27 pages.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All the food in the world and I only get 27 pages to choose from?<\/em><\/p>\n

Overwhelmed doesn\u2019t come close to how I was feeling at the moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All I knew was that I had to switch to more natural food. Pre-packaged food was a thing of the past. Eating out? A laughable thought until I knew what I was dealing with, and baking was about to become a scientific endeavor.<\/p>\n

I had to push on over the mountain of information set before me and figure out my new natural eating habits. Without meaning to I became a naturalist \u2013 with food anyway. The day I start recycling my veggie oil to fuel my car is not in my near future. I\u2019ll think about herbal medicines and cleaning supplies another day.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Reading<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll skip over the six hours of shopping I did over the next few days. I\u2019ll block out the only time I have ever let my five year old play his Kindle in the shopping cart so I could compare food ingredients on almost all items to my 27 page list (I\u2019m still recovering from this insanity).<\/em><\/p>\n

Lets go to my first meal. It is a family staple at our house that I had to revamp for the purposes of my new diet. We call it the Throw Together. It is an old recipe I got from my grandmother (she called it an Oven Put-Together, but I find the name not to be violent enough since I usually make it when I am in a super-big hurry).<\/p>\n

Recipe for Throw Together (adjusted for my diet in italics)<\/em>:<\/strong><\/h2>\n