Altered Dinner, Chocolate Treats and Galactose

A bit of a follow on from last week. I made the fish dish again for dinners this week as planned. I didn't include the garlic powder but replaced it with pressed garlic cloves. I'm not sure if it tasted nicer but it was at least as delicious and certainly not worse. I haven't had any negative affects from it either. I think it's time to dispose of the garlic powder. I even had lunch in a cafe yesterday from their gluten free options and I still feel fine, whereas I didn't eat out last week. So, by process of elimination, the garlic powder is the only culprit for me feeling dodgy as a result of the fish dinners last week.
I found a new sweet treat this week that could set up a bad habit. I snacked on some chocolate. I saw some chocolate bars as I was browsing in a supermarket out of sheer boredom recently. I don't remember the name of the product but I do know they come in nut, coconut, berry, mint and orange flavours. I checked the packet as I always do and they are gluten free. I won't be eating the nut one because the last time I ate a sweet treat with nut ingredients I had abdominal pain. Nuts are tough on my digestive system. The main selling point for me though was that they are designed to not spike your sugars in the way regular chocolate would. I tried the mint one and it was lovely. My blood sugar was normal before supper. I tried the orange one the following day and my blood sugar was a little bit high before supper but I did take a little less insulin before dinner and I think I might have had another light snack while out and about so it wasn't a surprise. All in all those chocolate bars didn't spike my sugars just like it said. There is no added sugar and no artificial sweeteners in them. Only natural sugars from the ingredients and natural flavours. If I think of the name I might include it in another post.
As with all packaged foods there were allergens in bold but this one came with a warning I had never seen before. It said do not consume if suffering from galactosemia. I had never heard of this condition before so obviously I googled it. It means galactose in the blood and it refers to a group of inherited disorders that impair the body's ability to process and produce energy from a sugar called galactose. I had never heard of this sugar before and googling it only gave me scientific jargon that I don't really understand. But I suppose it's something to take an interest in as another sugar that can enter the system. Something I might need to be aware of with type 1 diabetes.

This Week. Part 2: How I'm feeling

I remember that I stopped getting garlic powder before because I didn't feel great after it. Or at least that was the chief suspect. I got it again this week for inclusion in the sea bass recipe and it never dawned on me that I stopped getting it before until I started feeling strange this week. I'm having the hake (that I ended up using instead of sea bass - see part 1) anyway because I don't want it to go to waste after going to the trouble of cooking four portions Sunday and saving three of them in the fridge for the next few days.
On Monday things started getting uncomfortable in the bowel region and I had abdominal cramps. Strange thing is there was little to no bloating. So it got me thinking. Perhaps the garlic is more concentrated in the powder and the fact that I haven't had leeks in quite a while meant that there was a high concentration of FODMAPs in the dish. Maybe it wasn't gluten at all. But it could also be that there was just enough of a contamination in the garlic powder to make my body detect gluten. Not enough to be as sick as I was the last time I ate gluten but enough to make my body react and cause inflammation in the gut. I don't know for sure but it's probably best to get rid of the garlic powder anyway. I plan on making the dish again at the weekend but this time I'll use pressed garlic cloves and compare how I feel. There will still be garlic in it that way. I can also use it as a taste and flavour comparison to see which I prefer. If there's no difference I can either not use garlic at all or keep using the cloves.
I want to move away from that dish now and just talk about how my physical health is affecting my mental well being. Being single and living alone means I'm alone with my thoughts a lot. I've been experiencing itchy rashes on my skin, especially my legs, on and off since I got out of hospital in January after being diagnosed with diabetes. I went to the doctor about it months ago and he gave me a steroid cream and an emulsifying cream for it. It felt like treating the symptoms without investigating the cause to be honest. Lately it has been flaring up again and when you're alone with your thoughts things like skin cancer enter your mind even though the doctor said the rashes were an allergic reaction to something. I've heard of people being allergic to certain types of insulin and mine have come on since I started taking insulin. But I really shouldn't over think these things because I'm only creating more worries for myself. I'm seeing the diabetes nurse next month and, assuming the itchiness doesn't get worse and the rash doesn't spread, I'll ask her opinion before going to a doctor again about it.
I'm still nowhere near trying the AIP diet and perhaps that'll help with my skin if I do start it. That's a hopeful thought to end on so I'll leave it there.

This Week. Part 1: Recipe

The plan is to do a two part blog post this week. A recipe now and how I've been feeling in the next part. I would normally post a photo of the dish but I don't have one for this particular one. If I get one I'll edit this post. This week, for dinner, I had intended to do Sea Bass en Papillote from The Paleo Diet Cookbook by Loren Cordain. The only Sea Bass I could get from the shelves at my local grocery shop had a sauce already in the packet and I didn't want to risk gluten contamination. I didn't go to a fish monger because I just wanted convenience and the fillets in the grocery shop are cheaper. I probably should have tried a fish monger because it would be healthier and worth the expense in the long run. Anyway, I went with Hake instead and used lime juice instead of lemon because I had limes and didn't want to waste them. Apart from those I followed the rest of the recipe as written.

Sea Bass en Papillot
4 servings
ingredients:
4 large carrots
2 leeks, roots and top green portions removed
4 pieces of baking parchment cut into 30cm (12") squares
4 sea bass steaks
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp dry white wine
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dill
1 tsp black pepper

method:
Preheat the oven to 220C (425F).
Peel the carrots and cut into matchsticks. Cut the leeks into matchsticks to match the carrots. Place equal amounts of carrots and leeks on each parchment square.
Place a sea bass steak on top of each mound of vegetables. Combine the oil, wine, and lemon juice. Drizzle equal amounts over each fish portion. Sprinkle with garlic powder, dill and pepper. Gather the sides of each parchment square together and tie with kitchen twine*.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. Open the parchment and transfer the fish and vegetables to plates.

*You can try folding and tucking in the parchment to wrap it if you don't have kitchen twine

AIP Preperations and Gluten Sickness

A few weeks ago I bought red cabbage with the intention of making a red sauerkraut. The cabbage ended up going mouldy in the press so I had to throw it out without making the sauerkraut. This is an example of the lack of motivation I spoke of in the previous blog post. The weekend before last I made a batch of chicken stock and froze it. My motivation that weekend was it was part of my meal prep because I planned on using the chicken for meals. But it was also part of a longer term plan to alter my diet in preparation for investing in AIP literature and trying the diet. I don't have a time frame for that though and don't have a meal plan for implementing it anyway yet. But at least the chicken stock should be good for up to six months in the freezer and I can use some in future dinner recipes anyway regardless of whether I go with AIP or not.
I had a bit of a setback at the weekend on the coeliac end of things. I ate something that I was assured by someone else was gluten free. I ate without asking what was in it and how it was prepared. I took a gamble and it didn't pay off. They were home made treats by someone who doesn't fully understand coeliac disease and the risk of cross contamination. As soon as I got home I felt bloated. I went to bed feeling ok though. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling nauseated and like my stomach was tying itself in knots. I went to the bathroom and for the first time since I was diagnosed six years ago I actually vomited from gluten. I checked my blood sugar afterwards and was still in range so I was able to go back to bed and sleep. But I brought the basin from the kitchen sink with me just in case. Thankfully I slept through the night after that. Even though no one wants to vomit, I felt it was a good thing the following day. I wasn't as sick as previous times I had gluten and I was able to function. Maybe I got most of the gluten out of my system before it could cause my immune system to do some real damage. I didn't go hypoglycemic the following day either. in fact my blood sugar rose by a over a mmol overnight when I tested before breakfast. The diarrhea came a bit later than usual though. That happened a couple of days after instead of the following day.
It's strange how my body reacted to gluten that time. Maybe because I scoffed down a lot of the contaminated food that time compared to an accidental ingestion. I had also been to a yoga class that evening and yoga twists are supposed to be great for the blood circulation around the digestive system and the muscles that control it. So maybe my digestive system was doing what it was supposed to be doing at a higher performance level because of this and eliminated the gluten as quickly as possible.
I don't think I've anything to share from the diabetes end of things that I can think of so I'll leave it there for now.

Ideas For The Blog

I have neglected this blog just like I did the old gluten free blog. It's hard to stay focused when being autoimmune without a job and not enough social interaction saps your mental energy as well as your physical energy.
I was going to say I had plans for the blog but it's difficult to call them plans when there is a chance of neglecting the blog and abandoning plans due to procrastination and lack of focus. So I'll call them ideas for now. I'd could try the autoimmune protocol diet and blog about my journey through that. I could share recipes that I use in interesting meals to run alongside diet changes. I could track my health and fitness journey. I'm returning to yoga classes this month after they were closed for the summer. I might take up a martial art as part of a fitness regime. The problem with a fitness regime is the same as this blog - lack of focus. It's hard to practice on your own when it's difficult to stay motivated. Perhaps I'll come up with a system to stay motivated. That could be another idea. I am seriously considering getting a tattoo as well. A medical alert tattoo to replace my diabetes medical alert bracelet. Something that'd look cool but also be functional. I could probably get a blog post out of that, or maybe even drag it out to two or three by tracking the healing process. I could also talk about dealing with physical and mental health issues in relation to being autoimmune.
They are just some of the ideas I can do with this blog. This post is just about getting back into the swing of blogging again and sharing ideas that could potentially become actual plans and eventually become posts. It's all about trying to get into a routine with it I suppose.
 Also, a reminder that if you're looking for a post about something specific you can browse the labels column on the left and clicking on the most relevant one should help you find what you're looking for.