Fibre food diary - Reintroduction

I am half way through reintroducing a second fruit and vegetable to my fibre diet. How is it going? Again, up and down. I have had the runs a couple of times this week but not because of the fibre I have started eating again. The first time was after having warm coconut milk with cornflakes. It didn't affect me the first time, so I tried it again but added a bit of sugar. Within half an hour of eating it, I got stomach pains and had to fly somewhere. The second time was after eating cold rice milk with cornflakes. I've had cold rice milk before and it's not affected me. It's either the milk and too much of it, or the cornflakes. I don't know. I am going to look for other milks to see what I can eat. I want another one when I try porridges again in a couple of weeks time.

This week I have reintroduced spring onions and pickled onions. I seemed to be fine after those this time. I have also had Brussel sprouts again, but not as many as I used to have. I was OK after that, too.

But yesterday I had a bad episode of IBS, and don't know what caused it. It could have been soya in the seed bar I had which was high in fibre, and in the choc sauce I had later. Or it could have been the chips in sunflower oil that caused it, or both. My mum reckons it was more likely to be the sunflower oil as I have had problems with oily and fried foods before. We shall see.

Next week of the diet, which starts next Thursday, I shall be reintroducing GF oatcakes and crackers. I want to have oats back in my diet again because they are good for lowering cholesterol, and my recent blood test came back stating that mine had gone up again. I have to have a second test in a few weeks time. Ugh.

Be back next week with how I got on with GF oats.

My fibre diet

So, I have just completed the 2 weeks low-fibre diet and started reintroducing high fibre foods. How have I been? Up and down. Over the last week I have had diarrhoea three times, but that had nothing to do with food and all to do with either medications I have had to take for other things and nerves and anxiety. So those two weeks were fine with me.

I started reintroducing high fibre on Friday with a conference pear. Could only find a big one in store, but it was nice. I had no problems after that. Might have another one in a couple of weeks to vary the fruits I eat.

On Saturday I had Dr Schar's Free From apple crumble with my coconut frozen yoghurt. That was delicious. But I had slight stomach niggles afterwards which eased off when I went for a nap.

My next reintroduction will be a pickled onion tomorrow. Onions are one of my bugbears, as I can be OK eating them one time but not the next. We shall see. I have been charting my progress to give to my dietician when I see him again next month.

In the meantime, I have had my hospital appointment and saw a gastroenterologist, who I didn't like. She was rude and abrupt and spoke too fast, not explaining things to me enough. I had to do a stool sample (yes, I know, yuk) and have a blood test. And she prescribed me laxatives to have each day. I decided not to have them, but did try one, and that was one of the medications that gave me stomach pains and diarrhoea, so I will tell her next time, if I see her, that I am not going to have any more.

Shall post again next week after I have reintroduced more foods into my diet.

Foody goals for 2016

As well as business and writing goals for this new year, I have made a few goals about food. They are

1. Go completely gluten free from now on. Already started this. On New Year's Eve, once I had a bit more branston, which has gluten in, I chucked the rest away. There wasn't a lot left anyway. We did have a spare jar, but I gave that to my brother on Boxing Day. I will be checking all food labels now.

2. Try to go completely soya free. I have been avoiding anything made with soya flour, protein, bean etc, but eating things with soya lecithin in, which is the oil from soya. I keep feeling stuffy, which I know soya makes me, and am wondering if this is why. Soya lecithin is in a lot of foods, ranging from chocolate sauce to biscuits to crisps (who needs soya oil in crisps!). We shall see how that goes. I will be doing this from tomorrow as we have soya custard still to eat, and that will be eaten up in a while with a mince pie.

3. I will also be starting a low fibre diet again from tomorrow. Saw the dietician on Thursday. Told him that I was v happy going with low fibre again as it did help me. So I will be doing it for a couple of weeks, then reintroducing one high fibre food a week after that. He is going to email me sheets to complete when I do that.  I can't wait to start this one as it really helped calmed my digestion down.

So, those are the food goals I aim to do this year. I shall post here now and then to let you know how I am faring with them.

I can say, that since I gave up eating gluten and wheat, my weight has gone down and stayed down.

Rice milk - An experiment

Yesterday I did an experiment with eating rice milk. In the recent past I have been having rice milk warm with either cornflakes and as porridge, and both times I got stomach upset afterwards. My mum suggested that maybe it is the heating of the milk was the problem and not the cereals, so try it cold. So, yesterday I had cornflakes with cold rice milk. The result - no problems. There was a few seconds whilst making my bed that I thought I felt a slight stomach quibble but it settled. I was fine for the rest of the day. No pains, no anything. So, maybe my mum is right in saying that heating up the rice milk does something to it that disagrees with me and my v sensitive stomach. If that is the case, then I won't be able to eat porridge with rice milk again or I shall have to find another milk to try. I have tried most other milks so far. I shall try it again on Tuesday when I'm not going out to see what happens then.

RNA Xmas dinner - food intolerances

The Saturday just gone, I went to the Sir John Balcombe pub in Marylebone for the RNA Xmas dinner. I had preordered what I wanted, telling them what I can't eat. Here are my impressions of the pub and the food.

First of all, I was not impressed by the lateness of the food. We didn't get to eat to going on 2pm, when the email said 12.30pm. I, and others, were getting hungry by then. As I didn't order a starter (I never do) I asked for crisps, which I got in a small bowl. Then came the mains which for me was turkey breast, a jacket potato, and carrots. The turkey was the best bit of it. The potato was too dry for me, I had a few peas but as they were fresh and I don't like fresh ones, I only had a few and some carrot sticks.

The red bits on the side is red cabbage. I tried a couple of bits to see what it was for a friend.

The dessert I asked for berries, which I got. Red berries, raspberries with a strawberry on the top. This was really nice.

Overall, the staff were very nice and accommodating. The room was nice, but you can't move the furniture around like you can at the Lamb in Holborn, and you can't move about and mingle as much either. Personally, I prefer the Lamb as they aren't that late with delivering their food to you. If the meetings are held at this pub again, I shall have to hold judgement on their food from their daily menu. So far, I am not that impressed.

Another oaty tale

So, following on from my first GF oaty tale when I discovered I couldn't eat 100% GF oats. I thought I might try something that was 80% GF wholegrain oats. I had got a coupon for Nairn's biscuit breaks, (the ginger ones) and thought I'd try those.

I bought these and tried them. Both my mum and I really liked them. But again as they were wholegrain, after a couple of them, they had a similar effect. I knew they had other flavours, so bought the choc chip ones.

I tried these and liked these better than the ginger ones. But, yes, they had a similar effect on me. I won't be buying these again, shame to say.

So, I came to the conclusion that I can't eat too much wholegrain foods as they upset my digestive system. This includes other stuff such as dates, walnuts and houmous. I have seen a dietician. My next post will be about this and how I am getting on with my low fibre diet.

A food intolerance pub review

Last Saturday week (14th) I was due to go to a workshop at a pub called The Theodore Bullfrog in Charing Cross. I have been there before, but not when I have had so many food intolerances, and when I have eaten gluten and wheat before. When I ordered the food, I was told by the workshop organiser that I would have to phone the pub myself to check out about food intolerances as that was what others in the same situation had done. So I did. I wanted chicken wings and fries. I was told that there wasn't a guarantee that the chips would come in contact with flour because they use their fryer for other foods, and the chicken wings had flour in, too. I said, fine, OK, I shall take my own lunch then. I didn't go in the end because I had had a bad night and was too tired to travel and concentrate.

So, I shall now give my marks out of 5 for travel accessibility and for catering for food intolerances.

Travel = 2. I could have got a bus to Catford then a train to Charing Cross.
Catering for food intolerances = 0. There wasn't anything else on the menu that I could eat, so I had to take my own lunch if I had. But I shall give them 2 for telling me over the phone what allergens there were in the foods. Something that all food eateries have to do now.

There you have it. One pub I won't be eating in again, and if I do, it will be my own food that I know I can eat without fuss and harm.