Challenge 8: Rye

Thursday was rye day. I was looking forward to this one because my doctor, Daphne Miller, has turned me on to some great recipes using rye flour in her book, The Jungle Effect (a good read). My favorite is the Icelandic rye pancakes with blueberries, and I’m looking forward to eating those next weekend.

In the meantime, I needed to eat something that was strictly rye, so I went the porridge route again since it’s made with water and salt. The Rainbow Grocery co-op here in San Francisco stocks cracked rye pumpernickel flour, which is stone-ground rather coarsely and makes a nice, hearty porridge. I cooked up a bunch in the morning and enjoyed my three portions throughout the day.

Given my northern European roots, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that my body agrees with rye. The only thing I noticed in the three days after ingesting it was a slightly itchy scalp, and since that’s not a symptom I normally have, I'm hoping it was unrelated. Passing the rye test is great news for a few reasons: 1) It’s a great healthy grain that has a lot of nutrients and doesn’t send your blood sugar levels through the roof, 2) It’s in Dr. Daphne’s tasty recipes, and 3) It appears that I’m not allergic to gluten, which is a very good thing.

Challenge 7: Corn

I’ve eaten some amazing food in San Francisco and around the globe, but I have to say that one of the best foods in the world is Minnesota corn. It is so good that it’s worth smuggling into the state of California (not that I’d ever do that, of course). I’ve likely eaten hundreds of ears of buttered corn in my life, and in recent years I’ve learned to spice it up with lime juice and chaat masala.

And then there are the tortillas. Living in San Francisco, that’s a staple part of my diet. There’s nothing like a freshly pressed corn tortilla. Corn bread and cornmeal pancakes are tasty too.

So I really don’t want to be allergic to corn.

On corn day, I made polenta for breakfast and brought an extra serving into the office to eat with my lunch. I was fine for about an hour, but as I was driving into work I noticed that my eyes felt heavy and that I suddenly felt very tired. My breathing became shallower and I started to clear my throat a lot. I think I even felt a bit depressed, though that could have been from the realization that corn was likely going to go on the back burner.

My symptoms lightened up after a couple of hours, just in time for my second dose of polenta. After lunch, my breathing was fine, but the fatigue was back and I found it difficult to concentrate. I can best describe it as feeling weighted down.

I ended the evening with an ear of boiled corn. It wasn’t from Minnesota but it was still delicious -- even without butter, lime or spices. I ate dinner rather late, so I’m not really sure how it affected me. The good news is I didn’t notice any symptoms before going to sleep and I felt fine the next day.

Again, I really don’t want to be allergic to corn. But apparently I am. I can say one thing for sure: Even if it makes me tired and spacey, I’m still going to indulge in corn periodically. It’s just too damn good to give up.

Challenge 6: Soy

Not a lot to say here other than it seems I am not allergic to soy. On Friday, I steamed an entire bag of frozen edamame in the shell and seasoned it with some coarse salt. I split the portions evenly between breakfast, lunch and dinner (supplementing my meals with other items, of course).

Simply put, I waited for three days and had no signs of an allergy. Looks like my mom was right on the mark with giving me soy formula instead of milk.

Hopefully I’ll be able to eat fermented soy as well, as I’m looking forward to enjoying miso soup and tofu again sometime soon.

Challenge 5: Eggs

Yesterday marked the first day of month three of this little eating adventure I’ve been on. Fortunately I finished month two off on a positive note.

I spent Sunday eating eggs. I bought half a dozen of the organic free-range variety, scrambled a couple and then hard-boiled the others. Two eggs for breakfast, two with lunch, and then one with my dinner (to be honest, I couldn’t eat that sixth egg at that point). I noted no changes that day. To be safe, I waited a couple more days and was pleased to remain symptom-free. I was also thrilled that I didn’t have to give up both dairy and eggs. There’s hope yet.

What's really interesting is that on Monday, I was in a ridiculously good mood for no apparent reason. I highly doubt it was the eggs, but I have to say that I can't remember the last time I felt so exuberant without any external factors at play.

The next challenge is soy. I intended to do that one Wednesday but a late night of working coupled with a tension headache was not conducive to a challenge day. Today was a bust as well due to too little sleep (it’s been an extremely busy week at work). So with that, I’m going to turn out the light and get a good night’s sleep so I can eat all that edamame tomorrow. Sleep well folks...

Challenge 4: Dairy

Unlike wheat, I never really liked milk -- at least not on its own. Yet my diet has always revolved around dairy products. My mother will tell you that all I would eat as a toddler was Franco-American MacaroniOs, which were essentially mac and cheese from a can. These days I love cheese and butter and creamy decaf lattes. Yogurt is a staple for me as well, especially in my morning smoothies. I was hoping that dairy wouldn’t be one of the offenders, but I knew it was a strong possibility due to its prominence in my diet.

The best way to test dairy is in its truest form, which is milk. I bought a quart of Strauss organic whole milk, which is sold in a glass bottle. I usually prefer lowfat, but whole milk is recommended for a challenge test. Starting with breakfast, I downed a glass of it while also adding it to my amaranth porridge. I had no symptoms other than some more throat clearing, which may have been left over from the hay fever. Visions of future lattes danced in my head.

I then had another 10 ounces with my lunch. I was pleased to find that the Strauss organic milk was much tastier than milk I'd had in the past. Within the first hour, I felt a trace of a headache but it wasn’t really notable.

At 3PM, I sat in a meeting where I was being educated about one of our technical initiatives. I realized that I was having a hard time grasping the concepts, so I attempted to concentrate more. As I focused on my coworker’s face, I realized that I could hear what he was saying but that I couldn’t logically follow his sentences no matter how hard I tried. At one point, I felt like I was actually elevated a bit and looking down at him (in other words, spaced out). The brain fog was back, and it was in full force.

I made it through the meeting, and at 5 PM it was time for my third glass of milk. I gulped down the final 10 ounces and headed out to meet my aunt for dinner. Over a beet salad and a very tasty salmon dish (all modified by the nice chef at Sauce), I found it difficult to follow the anecdotes she was telling me. I also struggled to find certain words and lost my train of thought more than once during dinner. Through the fog, my answer was perfectly clear:

Dairy makes me dumb.

This all happened on Thursday, and the last two days I have been thinking about what I might have to give up: saag paneer, mac and cheese, my beloved lattes, aged gouda cheese, Paxti’s pizza, pumpkin pie. Of course, many of these things can be modified, but they won’t be the same. The good news is that my clarity was back the very next day.

After discussing this with my mother, I learned that I was allergic to milk as a baby and had to be given soy formula instead. I seemed to have outgrown the allergy by toddler age (as demonstrated by my penchant for MacaroniOs), but perhaps it just lay dormant for several years or manifested itself differently.

People have asked, “What if you have just a little bit of dairy? Can you have cheese? How about goat’s or sheep’s milk?” Right now, I don’t know. Those answers will require further testing. As I’m rounding off week 7, I’m realizing this is going to take me a lot longer than I initially thought. But I’m certain it will be worth it.

Challenge 3: Wheat

I have always loved whole wheat. When it was time to do this test, I hit the bulk section of Whole Foods and bought some whole wheat farina with the intention of making porridge from it. As soon as it was on the stove, I realized I had essentially found my long-lost favorite breakfast cereal: Ralston Purina 100% Wheat Hot Cereal (http://www.purina.com/company/wholegrain.aspx). I thought they had discontinued it years ago, but it looks like it’s still out there if you look hard enough. In any case, I don’t need to buy the brand-name stuff because Whole Foods has the wheat in bulk. This stuff is like Cream of Wheat or Malt-o-Meal, but better. Sometimes, when I lived on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, the waft of the Anchor Steam Brewery would reach my street and it made me long for that cereal. Now I’ve found it, but the question is, can I eat it?

I made a whopping pan of porridge and divided it into 3 portions, one for each meal. Of course, I supplemented the wheat with sides of vegetables and the usual almond butter.

After my second serving of wheat, I was a bit more forgetful and felt some pressure in my head, but to be honest I’m not sure it was related to the wheat. I’d been out on an ocean beach where the wind was so cold that my ears hurt, so the pressure was likely related to that. However, the next day my legs were itching, and that was probably due to the wheat.

On the third day, I woke up with a nasty case of hay fever. I was fatigued all day even though I’d had 8 hours of sleep. My throat felt raw, I was sneezing a lot, and my eyes were heavy and dry. I was also clearing my throat a lot, which was a symptom of my prior asthma. Then to top it off, my legs continued to itch.

It turns out that everyone was having terrible bouts of hay fever that day, likely due to the high winds over the weekend. Therefore I’ve decided that the jury is still out on wheat. It seemed to make my legs itch, but I’m not sure it did anything else.

That said, my “hay fever” went away on the 4th day, as did the itching. So I’ll be having another go with my favorite porridge once I get through some other food challenges.

Challenge 2: Balsamic Vinegar

Knowing that I was allergic to brewer’s yeast made me very curious as to whether I could tolerate other yeasts. The fact that I can drink European wines and don’t get headaches from bread is promising. While a different strain, baker’s yeast is also saccharomyces cerevisiae, so it’s possible that the allergy is still there but is causing other symptoms. However, since I wasn’t about to eat a package of baker’s yeast, I realized I’d have to wait until I’d tested all the other ingredients in bread before I could take the baker’s yeast challenge. So I decided to test another yeast-based fermented food. I chose balsamic vinegar because I love it and therefore consume a lot of it.

Interestingly, my eyes weren’t as pleased about the vinegar as my taste buds were. 30 minutes after eating my salad, both eyes felt a little heavy. After an hour, the heaviness morphed into a tightness and dryness that reminded me of going to the eye doctor. It also felt like someone was pressing on the backs of my eyeballs. The discomfort didn’t last more than a couple of hours, but my eyes continued to feel heavy for the rest of the afternoon.

As you’ve probably figured out, Google has been at my side throughout this entire process. “Food allergy eye pressure” led me to learn that food allergies can cause intraocular pressure and that pressure can hamper vision (potentially leading to glaucoma). It didn’t take me long to realize that reversing these effects would literally result in an improved outlook, as demonstrated by my newfound life in 3D.

I honestly feel that my vision has improved since I changed my diet, and things seem more vivid and clear. I’ve made an appointment with my ophthalmologist to check on my theory, and I’ll let you know what I find out.

In the meantime, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t be eating balsamic vinegar, which is a real shame. That’s 2 for 2.