Spango Dips

I’m slowly, tentatively, easing my way into a six-week diet engineered to purge my body of all the foods of which it might be intolerant. This is something I’m trying to feel empowered, optimistic and at the same time light about, and you’ll see in a minute why such an unimpeachably tranquil and positive attitude as mine is crucial to survival of this diet once I list all the forbidden foods.

Backstory: I’ve been afflicted by numerous embarrassing and confidence-bruising health problems for the past couple of years (including, but not limited to: severe G.I. distress and irregularity, recalcitrant seborrheic dermatitis, acne, cradle cap, geographic tongue, listlessness, depression/suicidal ideation, and psychosomatic aphasia—all in all it’s a real prize for the ladies I’ve become) and have now for a little over a year been working closely and aggressively with an N.D. to crack the case and pave the road to recovery. My mother (and benefactoress, given my status as health-care-have-not) and I chose the naturopathic route because I was convinced, on some deep level, that all these symptoms I was experiencing were somehow connected—mostly because they set on at roughly the same time and seemed to swell and break together—and I thought a holistic, “wellness” oriented approach would be more sensible. The doc and I played a miserable game of pin-the-tail-on-the-illness for a year, during which time I was taking various medications, both AMA-sanctioned and herbal, off-and-on, as prescribed by her intuition alone, given that my status as uninsured made the battery of tests that could give my maladies a positive I.D. laughably cost-prohibitive.

Without getting too deep into it, I took several courses of antibiotics in the spring, each of which made all of my symptoms vanish right up until the course ran out, at which time they’d re-emerge with newfound tenacity. Then, under suspicion that I had an underlying chronic yeast infection (not how it sounds) she put me on a kick-ass anti-fungal drug called Fluconazole, which really did wonders for me. But then, holistic healer that she is, she insisted that I get tested for food intolerances, surmising that years of eating foods that my body secretly hates could’ve caused the proliferation of yeast to begin with (I guessed principally sugars and alcohol, since we’re talking yeast, right?), and asserting that I ought to do something proactive to ensure my long-term health. She also intimated that six weeks or so of abstinence from these foul foods could do away with at least some of the intolerances altogether.

So in the spirit of investigation, and since my symptoms have returned (albeit with about 5-10% of their original fortitude) since going off the Fluconazole, I’m trying this diet. I’m supposed to give up certain foods for six weeks, and then, starting in week seven, choose one to reintroduce and see if I feel any worse, then another, etc. I have nothing to lose except six weeks of eating in the hedonistic, gourmandic, instant-gratification-centric way that I have always enjoyed, and could stand to gain actual recuperation of my complete health.

And so: based on my original bodily complaints, and my doctor’s knowledge of my usual diet, and the results of my totally not-rigorous, pseudoscientific, but affordable and quick food-intolerance test (which involves acupuncture points and bioelectric current impedance [and I must detour for a moment here to note that in spite of how utterly dodgy this test was, the results feel—in a purely intuitive way—completely spot-on]), here is the list of foods which must not pass ‘tween my lips for six weeks, in descending order of difficulty, starting no later than Monday although I’m already trying to be good:

WHEAT BRAN AND FLOUR (remember my days of suspected Celiac disease? I might have a problem with wheat after all, it appears, but not only with wheat, which is why a diet excluding only wheat did me little good)
REFINED SUGAR (here’s Exhibit A for the yeast-logic-argument)
DAIRY
ALCOHOL (here’s Exhibit B)
TOMATOES
SEA SALT (WTF?)
COFFEE
CHOCOLATE (not terribly surprising since it generally contains dairy & sugar; I tested fine with pure cocoa)
TUNA
SHRIMP
WHITE BEANS
PEANUTS, CASHEWS, WALNUTS, MACADAMIAS
GREEN PEAS
APRICOTS, PEACHES, PAPAYAS, PEARS, STARFRUIT

The test also claimed I might be allergic to cats, down, certain plastics, sundry grasses although not marijuana, acetaminophen, chlorine, acetone, petroleum, latex paint, sheep’s wool, and the majestic Ponderosa pine. I’m NOT giving up my down comforter, not in Portland in September and T-minus whatever till snow, I’m NOT going to install a shower-head filter to catch the chlorine in my escape-pod-sized shower where the 3-inch head already in place nearly touches my scalp, and I’ve always preferred ibuprofen as it is, so… whatever. It’s the food part that I’m focusing on. If for six weeks my diet has to consist completely of potatoes, rice, corn, Earth Balance, delicious roasts (thank the One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple Jesus Eater that I’m not forbidden Kosher salt and spices), oatmeal, salmon, honey, chicken tacos, ludicrously overpriced maple sugar, vegetables sauteed in olive oil and garlic, metric tons of raw fruit, and nothing to drink but water and tea, I can live with that. Just don’t invite me out to any restaurants.

Interestingly, I didn’t test as intolerant of tobacco smoke. But it would be kind of silly to embark on this detox quest, which I’m already buttressing with a renewed interest in regular exercise, and be banging down Winston Lights the whole time.