The Reluctant Raw Foodist
"I used to be a' foodie' and now I am a "foodist'"
Welcome to my health and wellbeing blog.
I’m not a raw foodist by choice. I was recently diagnosed as having a complicated autoimmune condition including severe Histamine Intolerance and a form of reactive arthritis. I have become hypersensitive to high histamine foods, pollen, dust and some everyday chemicals. My condition affects every area of my life.
I have Mast Cell Activation Disease (MCAD).
I was prescribed a low histamine diet and then a raw food diet to ease my symptoms and over the past 2 years I have overcome my reluctance to a new way of eating and living. I have been experimenting to combine the two diets and I have been learning how to eat a diet comprising mainly of low histamine raw fruit and vegetables and how to change the habits of a life time.
I am starting to feel healthier than I have ever been before. I have also lost 35 lbs in weight.
I will be sharing with you how I got here and I'll be exploring low histamine raw recipes, natural beauty products, how to cope with being "allergic to everything" and generally how to regain health and fitness and live life to the full despite my unusual condition!
Please feel free to message me with any suggestions, questions, or comments. I'd love to hear from you!
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These are some ads for where I buy my coconut water and stuff like that :
Meals out are easy!
I was taken out for supper after the theatre and there was literally nothing on the menu I could eat. So I had a green salad with lemon. There are a couple of spinach leaves there but I ate it all.
I suppose I should have realised.. After all they do say that the flutter of butterfly’s wing can make a hurricane the other side of the world.. I am not sure whether I subscribe to this theory but, looking back, I suppose change was inevitable.
I used to socialise and network a lot around eating out. Breakfast meetings, coffee “catch ups”, business over lunch , afternoon tea get-to-gethers and evening events. As a busy lawyer/ part time social policy adviser to business and on occasion to Government, I did them all. If it was an interesting night, then, I might go out for supper too.
Of course, It doesn’t work as well when you can’t eat or drink anything “normal”. Friends are learning to cater for me but, for example, those fixed price 3 courses for £30 jobs are a nightmare for me now, as lettuce and a bit of fruit does not do for a 3 course meal (and, it must be said, I am not keen on restaurants that try to overcharge me for a few lettuce leaves!).
I guess I am now ok with all the changes but what I have found is that other are not. I guess someone who doesn’t eat much when out and only drinks water may be seen as challenge to some of those that are quaffing wine and eating lovely food .. Maybe I put them off. Maybe I remind them of the diet they promised themselves. Maybe I became boring…Who knows? Maybe it was just that I didn’t handle the change very smoothly. I did try.
I have been accused of not being ill, of just being on a newfangled diet. I have also been pushed to eat something normal “just this once”. In the early days when I didn’t really understand my condition and the effect of the diet myself, it was difficult as I tried to fit in. I made myself ill in the process and the aftermath was that I ended up with consequential horrid symptoms. Now I just say I am likely to go into anaphylactic shock which tends, to (errr, in the nicest possible way), ”quieten” the doubters.
Upshot is both my networking and my social life have changed. I don’t get invited out by some of my old crowd and I have met new friends , including some who also have my condition. Some “old” friends are, of course, true friends through thick and thin. Testing times always show who these are.
I am very sad about it all. I just didn’t see this coming…
Good advice from my friend. We often eat out together - We pick our way through all the menus! LOL The Reluctant Raw Foodist
Eating out is no picnic when you have Histaminosis or Histamine Intolerance. Here’s my top tip for surviving restaurants: prepare! I have the text below printed on a two sided card to be presented upon arrival. I try to advise restaurants in advance by phone and then follow up with this in email. It’s actually less of a hassle and totally worth the effort. I also have a couple of restaurants who have a file on me in the system or know me by now. That’s where I take my clients so I don’t have to get into it with them! I’ve never had anyone be rude or dismissive. Restaurants nowadays take these things very seriously because they don’t want a lawsuit on their hands! I’m also always super nice and leave a big tip so they remember me.
Greetings,
I suffer from a fairly rare condition called Histaminosis. It makes eating out very difficult. It’s related to classic allergies and can be fatal. Since I am not a hermit by nature, and must eat out frequently for business reasons, I use this note so my requests may be passed on to the server/chef with minimum disruption to yourselves and my companions. I do understand that restaurants don’t cook from scratch every day, which is why I’d appreciate your help in choosing the absolute freshest items on the menu.
Meat and Fish
weightcage Asks:
thereluctantrawfoodist Said:
Yes thanks so much. I usually manage to get a restaurant to give me something although recently one tried to charge me £16.00 ($25 US) for a small side salad as I had it as my main meal! It was just a small bit of lettuce. A small salad does me fine although of course that is not what I eat as a meal. I eat a lot of salad a day - I can eat a whole cucumber and a lettuce and a head of celery in a smoothie so it is a good idea that I do not go to a restaurant hungry in any event…..LOL
I went to a thai restaurant the other evening and there was literally nothing as they did not want to part with their salad..but as I say it doesn’t matter anyway.. I just eat nothing if that is the case….
x
