Our Compliments, Your Food Allergies

A response to my letter to my food allergies.

I’ve heard it said that [things will] come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are [given what will] help us most to grow, if we let them… Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? Because I knew you, I have been changed for good. And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness for the things I’ve done you blame me for. Then I guess, we know there’s blame to share, and none of it seems to matter anymore!   -Wicked

Labels

Only soup cans need labels (well, actually, because of us all food needs labels. Very detailed and accurate labels).

You have fought to give us a name, but maybe our name is just Johanna. Not “Judge Johanna for her digestive disabilities,” either. As far as we can tell, you are the only one trying to name us that anyway. We are a part of your life and a God-given part of you.

Stop trying to label us nonexistent or temporary. We might be, but the only difference that makes to you is in your refusal to get used to us, and we feel like invaders or bullies every time you encounter us.

We are only allergies, intolerances and delusions to others. To you we are just a part of who you are. Your body reacts to food. Blood tests and skin pricks won’t change us. A doctor can tell you what they think of us, a therapist can help you deal with us and a dietician will either understand us, or won’t. None of these things is going to shift the way that your body is.

Finally, stop letting ED tell you that he can make us go away. Just because your reaction can be avoided by throwing up instead of letting trigger foods fully into your system doesn’t change how your body will react to the trigger. Janna tried to tell you. It’s time to believe it. You can’t have an Eating Disorder OR us. We are a part of you that isn’t going anywhere right now.

Blame Game

We know you want your life to be our fault. Know that it is not. You have pain, suffering and ugliness even in a future where you have us under strict regulation.

We are also not your fault. We know how you feel about blaming God. This time, though, it was him. The real ugliness? That is just a bit of you and a whole heap of Satan. There is a quote that we think is a good analogy.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

That’s us. We are just one of the contractors that Heavenly Father called in to make you into something better. We will get started as soon as you let go of the other contractors YOU hired. You keep trying to become what you were again, but unlike us, there is an outside agenda behind the contractors you brought in. They are not just cutting corners and overcharging blatantly, but beneath that they are doing damage to everything we have tried to build and crumbling the very foundations of everything you were before. Don’t call us thieves! We haven’t been the ones bullying you.

If you need to play the blame game, start with Satan. You might have thought you were doing the right thing when you invited him in, but you have to stop letting him take over this house. We aren’t here to tear you apart, those ‘besides-effects’ are just that, the necessary changes that come with heavy renovation. We are here to give you structure, teach you, and build you up. You have to start with a firm foundation, just like they tell you in church. We are of God, and we require a foundation that is of God, too.

Let There Be Light

You see that ‘light at tunnel’s end’ and we know you want it. We are here to help you get it. It is time to start accepting us, planning for us, and letting us do our jobs. You won’t be a bystander while we work, you are going to have to help us build you into a place where God can live. You have a long way to go to be ready for the extent of what we can bring to you, but there is something about doing things the right, slower way that leads to a better building. First, you have to stop calling in the other contractors. We cannot build where they have broken you while they are still here doing damage, but we can get you the contractors you will need to fix them. There’s even a DIY guide we call the scriptures, and when you don’t get it right (because you won’t at first) then you make the kind of call that works best on your knees. It won’t be tomorrow. But you are going to be magnificent when we are done. 

Fighting with Food.

Maybe it's time to fight USING food instead of fighting against food. Training commences tomorrow. :)

I'm a huge nerd. :D food fight starts at 6.10 and goes till about 10.40.

Here!! Go watch and LOVE.

(This photo is a product of roosterteeth inc.)

Yes. Those are turkeys on her fists, and he's got leeks. 

Seriously, though, I really enjoy RWBY. And this food fight.

Love and Allergy Friendly Kisses,

Jo Aich

GI- lookin' good?

Going in to let the drs. take a look at my entire GI system, just to see if there is anything bad going on in there, causing food allergies, caused by food allergies, caused by eating disorder... all the good stuff.

I'm scared. I'm also really excited. I hope there are some answers in there, and for once, no answer is an answer. It just means that the allergies are the only problem, I don't have to worry about something worse going on in my body and I can rest easy, and allergy free.




Update: the scope looked normal, so much relief to be sure that something horrible only FEELS like it's happening inside of me.

Love and Allergy Friendly Kisses,
Jo Aich

Thanks Colbie.

http://www.elle.com/news/beauty-makeup/colbie-caillat-try-video-makeup-transformation?click=hprc


Thanks to you, and to all the celebreties that have started making a real stand against the media beauty ideal.


I could rant forever, but I won't. I'll just say that there is something wrong when the girls and women who are truly confident in who they are and how they look are a small minority. Sometimes when a celebrity who IS media beautiful even without their stylists tells us to accept who we are it's easy to think, "nice sentiment for someone who is already perfect."
The worst part is, they probably don't think so. I know I don't. I have struggled with the woman in the mirror for a long time, but lately I have watched her change. Not because my body has gone through a change, but because my mind has. I like the body I see because it's mine, and it is the body that my husband, my children and my good friends love.

So it's time to find value in ourselves.
Please. Find it. You deserve it.

Love and kisses for all the things about you, big and small,
Jo Aich.

Never say Cheese!!

Look at this!!

http://us.daiyafoods.com/
They have so many neat products. Look here too!! http://us.daiyafoods.com/our-products

I was talking to a woman that I admire very much- and who has been a massive resource for me since I changed my diet. She was a key point of change for me. She talked to me for a while about what I could and couldn't have, then pulled out a notepad and started making a list of what ready-made products were available for sale in my area and which stores to look for them in.

I made some pretty significant discoveries. Veganase has a Soy Free. I don't really love mayonase, but it does help increase the number of recipes that I can try. This can only be found at the near-ish health food specialty store (Sprouts Farmers Market). She also told me about something that changed a lot of things for me. Cheese that isn't anything like cheese, but tastes pretty similar, and has a good texture. She told me that I needed to look at the Daiya brand cheeses that they had in the Health Food section of my local Harmons Grocer. As I have shopped there I have slowly gained an appreciation for their selection of allergy free foods, not only in that corner of the store, but also just next to their full-allergy counterparts. Yogurt made from Coconut or Almond Milks. Yum. Great fake ice cream that tastes awesome! Crackers and granola that I can have, despite everything. Believe it or not, all these things blew my mind.

I'm so in love with Daiya, just because I can't think of anything that makes quick meals more accessable than a little cheese. It feels like I am making a real meal! I am also more likely to look forward to eating, instead of turning to a binge for something I know will make me feel icky, and always followed by a fear-of-food-reactions-purge-session. I am also less likely to skip a meal when I know something as quick and easy as a microwave potato and beans with shredded carrots, perhaps something green and leafy that can take a little heat, and (yay!) Cheese! The whole thing takes about 10 minutes. I can hardly get enough.

plus, Harmons has all of the kinds, the wedges, the slices, and the grated selections. They also have all the flavors of cream cheese spread, which I don't really need. But I like the idea that I could still make cheesecake or cream cheese icing if occasion... you know...occurred.

There are always setbacks with foods like this. It is not made from milk, and thus does NOT substitute for the proteins gained there. Also, while the fat used is a organic, natural form... it's still fatty (I don't know if it would make very good cheese if it wasn't). It's not really more virtuous than full-fat cheese, it just avoids a lot of the common allergies.

And it's yummy.


Love love love love.
Try it.

Jo Aich.

the "Gluten Free Fad Diet"

I have a few friends with Celiac Disease. It can be a very serious problem. I know a woman who is probably going to die because her sensitivity to it is intense. Quitting Wheat so I'll stop having migraines... let's just say, I'm fully aware that I can certainly tolerate a little cross contamination.

But so many can't.

And this is why, today, I am writing a love letter for the new Gluten Free Fad Diet and all it's adearants. I have heard and read many complaints, and I get why it gets old for those in food service, and even some who feel that your diet belittles their necessary dietary changes, but don't let them get to you. You are making a change that matters! Especially for those of us with the necessary dietary changes- I thank you.



For so long this problem was something that mostly only the people who were suffering reactions were really aware of. Because so many people have now started to take a closer look at the diet in the first world and noticed the overabundance of some substances, and the corrilation with allergies, intolerances and general lesser health in our bodies- and you? You wonderful people went out and made sure that you took care of yourselves. You made your voices heard in Resturaunts, in Grocery Stores, all over Social Media. Because of you not just Gluten Free options, but many of the other major food allergies are gaining recognition at a faster pace every day. The Gluten Free options are getting more abundant, and better priced. Because you have upped the supply and demand factor. Just for that, I am so grateful to you. Lovely, gorgeous dieters you. I truly hope that you get all of the health benefits you are looking for from your diets, for, because of you- I can get what I need from mine.


So many effusions of joy, love and well-wishing,

Jo Aich.

SO many Flours- continued.

Look!!
Aren't they cute?

Annother huge shout-out to WinCo Foods for having super affordable plastic canisters in the food storage section, so I paid about 15 bucks for the lot, I couldnt find anything else that was cheeper than about 15 bucks per canister. I'm so happy!!

Here's what I've got there so far:
Front Row: Tapioca Flour, Brown Rice Flour, White Rice flour, Almond Flour, Coconut Flour, Quinoa, Guar Gum, Potato Starch.
Back Row: Gluten Free Oatmeal, Baking Mix (Almond, both rice and tapioca. It's a'ight) My favorite GF recipe book (I have to reformulate most of them, but starting from GF is the easiest I have found) Thai Rice Noodles, GF Macaroni Noodles, and Corn Starch.

I know you can tell. I'm proud of this as a start. I have found quite a lot of rather delicious recipies. It's time to start testing them for best-flavor and getting them up for y'all!

Love and allergy-free kisses,


Jo Aich.

Food Allergies- I’m talking to you.

This, of necessity, will have to be written in fits and starts. (Milena McGraw, After Dunkirk)

Labels

As a beginning, why don’t I bring up the impossibility of naming you? I have no idea what you really are. I have read and heard so many things. If you occur within a certain time frame after ingestion, you are most likely allergies. If you occur later, intolerances. Allergies show up on blood tests. Intolerances are just medically elusive reactions to food. Indeed, in order to be vague enough, is “reactions” a better term for you? Even then, what if I have some real medical issue and all of you are just various manifestations that I have attributed, rightly or incorrectly to certain foods. Last, but perhaps most feared… what if you are all a great big, crazy daydream I’m having. I just made you up with so much force that I made you real. Then what do I call you and my dramatic bouts of illness? Delusions. And this is a term that I’m doing battle with all the time.

I can’t settle the issue. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and Gentlemen. I am faced with the harsh reality of people who don’t care to get it. I can’t call you allergies, because the only socially acceptable allergies are those that have a visible reaction, like violent skin rashes or anaphylaxis. If an allergy can’t prove its existence, then it’s better not to place that label on it, just in case you offend someone with a “real” allergy. I can’t call you Intolerances, because those are all in your imagination. Another thing to work out with Janna instead of something really happening to my body. Also, if I say that, I’m probably just on that latest fad diet, right?

It makes me so mad I could spit. Or puke, I guess, in my case. If I am making this up (which I doubt) what difference could that possibly make? As a psychosis is it causing me less physical and psychological pain? Is it interfering less with my life? And, just in case I’m not nuts in this particular instance, what if you are just not looking hard enough to find a reason behind it all. What if there were something you COULD fix in me and you just gave up because it’s easier for you to label me and put my disease on your shelf. You told me what to do. Ignore it. That helps with all KINDS of problems, right?

Blame Game

I have the most terrible hope concerning you, food allergies (I really do have to settle, I guess). It is a hope that I know I should not cling to, but that I can’t help but wish for. I hope that my whole life is your fault. I hope that all of my health problems have a stem from you. That if I can avoid you truly that I can be free. All the sinus infections from my childhood, my horrible stomachaches, my migraines, my difficulty concentrating, my massive mood swings, my failing vision, my vocal inconsistencies,  my fainting spells Jr. college year, my tiredness, my inability to fall asleep, my anxiety and my depression- all you. What if you are only two of those things? What if you are only one? What if I avoid like a ninja and still feel ALL of these things? I want it to be you. I want to let you take the blame for everything bad in my life. Because that would make it all easier to take.

Yet, don’t I take it anyway? I feel as though you are my fault. If I was perfect at avoiding you, then I hope I would feel none of these things. So any time I feel them, it’s on me, right? either the problem cannot be blamed on you, and thus the blame falls to me; or I am to blame for eating the wrong foods anyway. It’s all my fault. My fault. My fault. Especially if you don’t really exist, right?

Besides-effects

Guess what. You suck. Let’s just get the rant over with, because I have to say it. You do so many ugly things to my body. When I eat wheat I retain water like only you would believe. Everything about me deflated when I stopped eating it regularly. I get MASSIVE migraines. The kind that make me want to give up on living just to get away from the pain. I get pain in my guts like they are exploding inside me and when I get nauseated I burp sulfur. For days on end.  I get diarrhea pouring painfully out of me for more than a week sometimes. I even throw up. but not the way I do when I decide to do it. Usually for about an hour, and involving a lot of dry heaving and bile. Sometimes the entire roof of my mouth gets a few layers of skin removed and I can’t tolerate solid food for a few days.

And what about the less specific, but seemingly correlated things? The rather intense dizziness that I have felt over the past month or two. The irritability that is probably more correlated to hangryness and pain, but both would be a problem associated with you, right? What about the depression that seems to get much worse in correlation with improper ingestion? Were you the reason I used to faint, despite the doctor’s decision that I was faking?

I just want to let you know right now, I do blame you for my eating disorder. ED had me after a bout or two of binging and purging and it IS an addiction, but you are what I was so afraid of. I definitely blame you. And every day that I have to go feeling nasty like this, the more I blame you. I can barely stand feeling this way. Maybe intolerances is a good name. The whole thing is pretty intolerable.

And if I am afraid of any one thing most, it is that I will never be strong enough to make it stop. I feel like I can’t fight you and ED at the same time. It’s exhausting. You might never go away, and right now ED is pushing harder than ever.

Stop Thief!

Sometimes I feel like a kid in the schoolyard yelling “give me back my toys” to a school bully who has ran off with them. The more I scream, the more likely the bully is to throw them over the fence before the grounds-lady can come stop you. Then I’ll be asked to be the bigger person and move on instead of making a scene. But playing with those toys? That was what I really wanted to be doing that day. I brought them from home special.

You are like that bully. You took away food. I really like food. I like the variety of tastes and the endless possibilities when combining flavors and textures to make something new. I’m even good at it. You robbed me of the enjoyment of tasting as I create for others. You made all of my favorite things actually inaccessible to me. And… let’s be honest. I’m mourning even the things you took from me that I didn’t care for much either way just because I don’t think you had any right to take that from me. I am starting to believe the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” thing. But I’m still holding my grudge. I can’t believe you would do that to me.

I am also angry because you don’t just cost me the foods I can’t partake of without my body throwing a tantrum. You cost me my time, which is very precious to me, both the time I spend being too miserably ill to do much and the time it takes to make ANYTHING I can eat. You also cost actual money. enough to make it necessary for me to demand that my sensitive and earnest husband provide more for me. You aren’t just hurting me! You are taking time and money away from my family, and I can’t stand it. You owe me big.

Light at Tunnel’s End

I do mean big. I can see it, though. There is this person in my mind that I can see so vividly when I think about what this could become. She’s got a long braid down her back, a bandanna on her head and a long jean dress covered in dirt from working in the garden. She has got food growing or stored to take care of her allergies in case of an emergency. Her kids help her weed and water her garden as everyday chores. She has a lot of specialty recipes and lots of specific appliances in her kitchen, the result of slow gathering. She has ceased hating you and begun to enjoy the fruits of a life lived without the bondage of the side effects you bring along for the ride. She has a system for cleaning and preparing in the kitchen that allows her to keep on top of the needs of herself, her family, and her neighbors. She smiles wide as she wipes her forehead, leaving a dirty smear that she doesn’t care about. Now that she’s done in the kitchen and garden, she has time to spend with her family, friends, or writing a blog about how she has slowly gathered herself into a functional place.

Some of this is just not probably going to happen. But some of it is absolutely within my reach, and I want it so badly, I salivate a little. I want this woman to be me. I want her peace. And I will grow into something like this because I think I must. It seems to be a choice between this and bitterness. I don’t want to choose bitterness anymore.

Even now, I can feel these words helping me to let go.

Dear food allergies. Welcome to my life. May I have the forbearance to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.

With growing acceptance,

Jo Aich