Literally Out of Ideas of What I CAN Eat! :(

tiddles_yeah wrote: »

So, in a nutshell i have a tonne of allergies and food intolerances that ive been plagued with my entire life, feeling sick or in constant pain most of the time, and now found out theres a bunch more foods i cannot eat. I had gotten pretty used to my limited diet but now with the extra restrictions i am literally at a loss of what i can eat and feel like the majority of my food is just protein shakes at the moment

Does anyone have any food suggestions that do not include the following as they are foods i cannot eat - due to allergies, intolerances that are medically diagnosed (just want to emphasise that since its not a choice here, i literally cannot or risk getting violently ill or dying)

- Gluten
- Dairy
- Meat
- Eggs
- Yeast
- Rice
- Potatoes
- Goji berries
- Cherries
- Pomegranates
- Mushrooms
- FODMAP foods (even a slight bit as my GIT is very sensitive) - this is a big list so you may need to google them if you dont know what it includes (here a good link http://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/ )
- Honey
- Lettuce
- Cucumber
- Tomatoes
- Cocoa
- Corn
- Most nuts
- Gelatine

Thats all i can remember off the top of my head, but as you can see its quite a big list (especially considering the FODMAPS is a big list on its own)
Also note that most "gluten free" things contain rice, potato, or corn - hence my problem

Any ideas are welcome as this is a 'for life' thing for me, so its seeming quite daunting at the moment

1. Have you had your zinc and copper levels checked recently?
2. Do you happen to know if you were intolerant to meat, eggs, and gelatin before you went vegan?

shaumom wrote: »

Okay, first - hugs. I'm in a similar boat. Not quite the same list, but an insanely restrictive set of dietary restrictions anyway, including the grains like rice, so seriously, sympathy hug, hon! (and actually, the disorder I having causing it might be worth exploring, as it's something that can trigger - often from other serious health issues - and involves making the body react to more and more foods, among other things. And it's rare, so most doctors have never even heard of it, let alone know how to test for it - a mast cell activation disorder. Most recent diagnostic criteria can be found here:http://www.wjgnet.com/2218-6204/pdf/v3/i1/1.pdf)

RE: the dietician. First...bahahahaha. Oh man, yeah, that would pretty much be utterly useless. Dieticians are NOT trained for diets as restrictive as this. They get very little training in specialized diets in the first place, and most of what they do have is limited. Often something for diabetes, maybe helping deal with one or two food restrictions at a time, and sometimes even gluten - but not always. I kid you not, the head Dietician at our local hospital was substituting whole wheat foods for potato dishes in the hospital meal plans for gluten free folks, because she thought gluten was something in potatoes. Dieticians know far, far less about specialized diets than most people think they do, sadly.

When a diet gets this complicated, they are rarely of use in helping you know what TO eat, although they CAN be helpful in telling you what nutrients you need to get more of, and then you get to figure your actual diet plan out on your own, in my experience.



But, for food ideas:
Chickpeas - can you eat these? I know only some legumes are off the FODMAP diet, but wasn't sure how sensitive you were to them. Would be a nice protein source. And you can actually make a flatbread out of it! Socca, a traditional French flatbread, just has chickpea flour, water, salt, and olive oil. That's it. I've made some instead by soaking chickpeas and then blending them up with a little water, salt, and olive oil and making a batter that way, instead. It takes a bit longer to cook, and the pan can't be too big in the oven, but it's actually quite nice. I put veggies on top and use it as a pizza base. If you can have basil, I sometimes just mix basil with a little oil, blend it up, and drizzle that on top, too.

I also make a homemade falafel with them, using soaked chickpeas, parsley, salt, and yellow squash or zucchini. I just blend it up in a food processor until it's a paste and then fry them in olive oil that's maybe 1/2-1 inch deep. You have to kind of adjust the chickpea to squash ratio to get the right consistency, but it works pretty well, as long as you can tolerate something oily/greasy. I can't always, but it's awesome when I can. I tend to dip them in homemade hummus, or roast veggies and put those on top.

jicama - good with salad type things.

Cantaloupe and honeydew melon AND their seeds - you can roast the seeds for both of these and eat them, just like pumpkin seeds, although you need to crack them open, and they're obviously tinier. Tastes good, though, and could give you a little added protein.

Quinoa and amaranth - these are both actually full proteins, rather than partial, so may be very useful to add to the diet. Amaranth can also be eaten raw, so I've seen it added to, say, dried coconut as a snack before, for a little extra crunch.

Sorghum - if you can have this, you can not only make a savory porridge out of it, you can pop it like popcorn - quite good! Millet is also a good one for a porridge-like food to use like you would rice, as something to serve with a savory food.

Mesquite flour - I'm not sure if this would be okay or not, as it's actually based on a legume. However, the flour is actually from the pod, not the bean, so it might be okay on the FODMAP diet. It tastes sweet, too, so might do nicely with a binding agent like crushed chia seed or flaxseed.

Prickly pear and nopalitos - just nice, a bit exotic, but might be doable. The nopalitos are a bit mucellagenous, so go well in gumbo kinds of things.

Squash? - I just saw this neat idea using butternut squash. Take the top part of the butternut squash, the neck. Peel it, and then slice it into rounds. Then you bake the rounds in the oven for a bit, and then top them with something and make mini pizzas out of them, essentially. :-)

Bell peppers - the inner pith and seeds are actually both edible, too, so again, a tiny bit more protein in the diet, along with vitamin e for most of the seeds, at least a little. That's really hard to get without eating seeds/nuts.

For any of the nuts that you CAN have - you can make your own nut milk, if you are not doing that already, so can make a nice drink, or add it to something, or even make a popsicle out of it if you mix it with something sweet. I think maple syrup is okay on the FODMAP, yeah?

Also, if you can have cashews, you are probably already making cashew cream, yeah? You can do it with any other nuts, too. Taste is different, but still useful to mess about with (I've got cashews and pecans that I can have, myself).

Sweet potatoes any good, or are they starchy enough to also be a problem? If you can have them, here's what has turned out well for me. Bake 1-2 sweet potatoes, cool, and peel. Then juice a few lemons or oranges and boil the juice until it's concentrated, maybe half the volume. I usually end up with 1/4 cup or a little less, after boiling, for two large sweet potatoes. Then mix the juice into the sweet potato - it adds a really nice zing, tones down the earthy overtones from the sweet potato. You can't do this with purchased juice - the chemicals and other things added to these make any homemade concentrate from them very bitter and nasty, I've found.

Fresh herbs - seriously, the BEST thing I ever did was start an herb garden. That has been such a help in adding flavor to the limited diet, and I can use huge bunches of them. Also, they are a good source of many vitamins, and anti-inflammatory besides, so a great thing to add to your foods.

Oh, sweet potato leaves - if you want to just plant a sweet potato half immersed in water (kind of like an avocado seed), it'll start to sprout leaves and you can eat the leaves in stir fries and such. Nice way to get some greens in the winter.

broccoli- you've seen that cauliflower rice, yeah? I've done this to broccoli too and it turned out all right.

That's all that comes to mind off the top of my head, really. Wish I had more for you - it's such a struggle when there's so few foods you can eat. For myself, I literally started looking at local wild foods I could forage for, or grow myself, I was so desperate. But that's turned out quite nice, honestly, so I would kind of recommend it! ^_^