It's hard to even talk about how bad my symptoms have been lately - there have been really good days and really bad days. I think overall what has been happening is that I am under a tremendous amount of stress. So I'm taking a break from tracking what I've been eating at every single meal (which has sort of happened because I've been too busy to do it, but also because I don't really think the food is at fault right now), just sticking to the foods on my list right now and trying to eat them in a cycle like I outlined here.
Tips and Recipes
There are some important things I have found out through this process that I want to share for anyone else struggling to find foods to eat on an elimination diet.
Quick Breads
If you can have baking soda, oil/ghee/butter, and any kind of flour, any kind of starch, any kind of sweetener, and any kind of milk, you can probably make a quickbread (I list example ingredients below).
Tasty types of quickbreads you can make (and these are just a few):
fruit bread (apple, avocado, banana, cranberry, date, fig, grapefruit, lemon, mango, orange, pear, pineapple, plum, raspberry, rhubarb)
grain quickbread (corn, oat)
nut and seed bread (almond, hazelnut, peanut, pecan, poppyseed, sunflower, walnut)
vegetable (carrot, onion, sweet potato, pumpkin, winter squash, zucchini)
soda bread
Any of those types can also be combined (and so you have the common banana nut bread, or cranberry orange bread).
"Risotto" or Pilaf
Another great food that can be made with almost any kind of grain or vegetable is "risotto". You can make a "risotto" like dish with an oil/butter/ghee, a broth, a grain and some kind of addition. (I'm vegetarian so I make a stock to fit the vegetables and spices I have for each day of my rotation).
I'm finding the basic start of a risotto is typically garlic, onions, arborio rice, and white wine. But those ingredients can easily modified. The most important parts for me are having a good vegetable or aromatic (to take the place of the onion) and a a good acid to improve the flavor palette. For instance, I made a broccoli risotto with just vegetable stock, arborio rice, broccoli, and chevre goat cheese yesterday. The stem of the broccoli was peeled and diced, so that sort of took the place of the onion and the acid in the goat cheese made for a really nice flavor. Risotto-like dishes can also be made with grains such as amaranth or steel-cut oats. Tonight I'm making an amaranth "risotto" with a stock of carrots and ginger, and then finishing with carrots and lemon juice.
What I'm describing here can probably be accurately described as a pilaf instead of a risotto, but those bring back memories of awful pilaf I had in school as a child.
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Examples of flours:
brown rice flour
buckwheat flour
corn flour/meal
mesquite flour
millet flour
oat flour
quinoa flour
sorghum flour
sweet potato flour
teff flour
wheat flour
Examples of starches:
arrowroot flour
cornstarch
potato flour
potato starch
sweet rice flour
tapioca flour
white rice flour
Examples of sweeteners:
agave nectar
beet sugar
rice syrup
cane sugar
coconut nectar
corn syrup
fruit juice concentrate
honey
maple syrup
molasses
sorghum syrup
Examples of milks:
almond milk
coconut milk beverage (NOT coconut milk itself, more like this)
coconut milk (sometimes this works too)
diary milk (cow, goat, etc.)
oat milk
rice milk
soy milk
(I noticed that most of the commercial non-dairy milks don't work for my diet because of the additional ingredients)
(Follow this link for the source of the list of flours and starches, and how to combine them into an all-purpose flour.)
Tips and Recipes
There are some important things I have found out through this process that I want to share for anyone else struggling to find foods to eat on an elimination diet.
Quick Breads
If you can have baking soda, oil/ghee/butter, and any kind of flour, any kind of starch, any kind of sweetener, and any kind of milk, you can probably make a quickbread (I list example ingredients below).
Tasty types of quickbreads you can make (and these are just a few):
fruit bread (apple, avocado, banana, cranberry, date, fig, grapefruit, lemon, mango, orange, pear, pineapple, plum, raspberry, rhubarb)
grain quickbread (corn, oat)
nut and seed bread (almond, hazelnut, peanut, pecan, poppyseed, sunflower, walnut)
vegetable (carrot, onion, sweet potato, pumpkin, winter squash, zucchini)
soda bread
Any of those types can also be combined (and so you have the common banana nut bread, or cranberry orange bread).
"Risotto" or Pilaf
Another great food that can be made with almost any kind of grain or vegetable is "risotto". You can make a "risotto" like dish with an oil/butter/ghee, a broth, a grain and some kind of addition. (I'm vegetarian so I make a stock to fit the vegetables and spices I have for each day of my rotation).
I'm finding the basic start of a risotto is typically garlic, onions, arborio rice, and white wine. But those ingredients can easily modified. The most important parts for me are having a good vegetable or aromatic (to take the place of the onion) and a a good acid to improve the flavor palette. For instance, I made a broccoli risotto with just vegetable stock, arborio rice, broccoli, and chevre goat cheese yesterday. The stem of the broccoli was peeled and diced, so that sort of took the place of the onion and the acid in the goat cheese made for a really nice flavor. Risotto-like dishes can also be made with grains such as amaranth or steel-cut oats. Tonight I'm making an amaranth "risotto" with a stock of carrots and ginger, and then finishing with carrots and lemon juice.
What I'm describing here can probably be accurately described as a pilaf instead of a risotto, but those bring back memories of awful pilaf I had in school as a child.
--------------------------------- --------------------------------- --------------------------------
Examples of flours:
brown rice flour
buckwheat flour
corn flour/meal
mesquite flour
millet flour
oat flour
quinoa flour
sorghum flour
sweet potato flour
teff flour
wheat flour
Examples of starches:
arrowroot flour
cornstarch
potato flour
potato starch
sweet rice flour
tapioca flour
white rice flour
Examples of sweeteners:
agave nectar
beet sugar
rice syrup
cane sugar
coconut nectar
corn syrup
fruit juice concentrate
honey
maple syrup
molasses
sorghum syrup
Examples of milks:
almond milk
coconut milk beverage (NOT coconut milk itself, more like this)
coconut milk (sometimes this works too)
diary milk (cow, goat, etc.)
oat milk
rice milk
soy milk
(I noticed that most of the commercial non-dairy milks don't work for my diet because of the additional ingredients)
(Follow this link for the source of the list of flours and starches, and how to combine them into an all-purpose flour.)
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