I love red wine. Maybe not all of it — shiraz has always seemed a little sweet for me and I think I’ve generally not been excited about grenache — but a good pinot noir is one of life’s best things, IMO.
I’m at about 100% certainty that red wine triggers my joint pain.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
I went out to lunch yesterday with someone who has been on a restricted diet for years and she confirmed something that I’ve been noticing: having eliminated these foods from my diet, my body’s reactions when I encounter a trigger again are much fiercer than they were before. The dull ache that I was used to living with is now a prohibitive misery when it comes back. My joints — when unhappy — feel like they have hot coals living in them, burning me from the inside out. When happy, they are unnoticeable, for the first time in years. Happy joints are silent. I like having silent joints.
I also like red wine. But it’s just not worth it. Walking, typing, bending my elbows — moving — those are all good things, too. Moving is nice! I approve of it. Enough to — oh, so reluctantly — add red wine to the potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and wheat flour pile of foods that I will miss. I can’t believe that I’m really going to spend the rest of my life without pizza. But the last time I had pizza, I woke up four hours later feeling like I was on fire, my fingers throbbing with pain. It’s not an experience that I want to repeat.
I think my next reintroduction will be rice. But I’m going to wait at least a week, because I really want to have rice back and I don’t want my rice reaction to overlap with anything else. I’ve kept hoping with the red wine that maybe it was a reaction to something else — I ate accidental canola oil yesterday, can’t I blame it on that? — but alas, it’s time to face the truth.
Damn it.
wow that’s quite the list of things you can’t have. I’m sorry. I have to get my pizza in different forms other than traditional after my surgery. Fortunately my favorite part is the sauce and I can tolerate it.
So far with the reintroductions I’ve learned that my joint pain comes from nightshades and red wine; dairy makes me congested and allergic; and avoiding gluten gives me a lot more energy and enthusiasm. That list makes pretty much every ingredient in pizza bad for me. Alas. But feeling healthy is worth it!
My sympathy. 13+ years ago, I gave up all grains, all potatoes, all starch, all sugar, all gums, all natural or artificial flavors, all artificial sweeteners. I eat really well, actually, better than I did before I began following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. If you can handle cashews and coconut, you can have pizza. I made a delicious beef strogonoff last week which had a creamy sauce, meat and mushrooms, and good spicing, and was served over cauliflower rice. Non-dairy. I’ve done seafood bisque which meets my parameters above. I do all sorts of top mark cooking. Coconut flour or almond flour or pecan flour makes great breads. You can make a “Nomato” sauce which works great in place of tomato sauce. I’ll have to go find the mock cheese. I think I’d fall over if I couldn’t do dairy — I maintain that I am immune to vampire attack because I use liquid cheese for carrying oxygen to my cells, not blood.
Oh, I’m eating incredibly well. This morning I had a salad with arugula, smoked salmon, avocado and lemon. It was delicious. Most of what I eat is delicious, really. There’s a veggie hash that I’ve been doing for breakfast — bacon, sweet potato, carrot, and greens, sprinkled with garlic salt. I would never choose cereal over it. Well, except if I was in a hurry, since it takes a while to cook. Lots of fish, lots of soup, lots of vegetables. I’ve seen zucchini cheese, but so far most of the things that I’ve tried that are substitutions are less satisfying than just eating something else. I made a barbecue sauce for chicken, for example, that met my restrictions and it was fine, but I’d rather have chicken baked with artichokes, capers, and lemons.
Who wouldn’t want chicken fixed that way? Agreed that most of the substitutions really aren’t that good — like, I’d rather have a small amount of honey-sweetened non-dairy cheesecake (the ingredients are wild — I would never have thought it could yield a cheesecake taste!) than a larger piece of something done with artificial sweetener, even if I didn’t react to the sweetener. I do a chicken with garlic, mustard, and ginger, in a creamy cashew sauce, with bok choy — though one could use almost any tolerated mix of Chinese vegetables.