"Toxic Food Syndrome" update - Reintroducing "Toxic" Foods.

I originally posted about the Immuno Labs Toxic Food test back in July when I started it. You can click <----- to read that post for more details about it. So it's been about 3 months and it has come the time to begin reintroducing the foods that show up on my "reactive" list (in red). Under my Doctor's advisory, I have started with the items on the list with the lower reactive level numbers. That means I'm starting with the foods that have a +1 next to them. The way it is reintroduced is by eating 1 of the +1 red items and waiting a couple days to monitor any effects. It is a time consuming process and can be very frustrating, but if you suffer from any illnesses that can't seem to be resolved by any other conventional western medicine techniques then you would most likely have the patience to do it. I've been reintroducing for almost 3 weeks now. To be honest, I haven't made it very far down my list of +1 items. I started by testing wheat. I used soba noodles as the source of wheat. Japanese soba noodles are buckwheat noodles, but if you read their ingredients you will see that almost every packaged soba noodle sold has wheat flour as it's dominant ingredient. I found this very interesting when I began the elimination diet process. Since I was not able to eat wheat for about 4 months now, I thought of eating soba in my beginning days of the diet. Buckwheat is actually a yam and not wheat at all. This meant that I could eat buckwheat noodles (soba), the problem was I would have to find a 100% buckwheat noodle. I have only found 1 local source to purchase a 100% buckwheat noodle and it is at Whole Foods. Needless to say, I did not purchase it because of the ridiculous price! Anyway, I love soba so I started my wheat reintroduction with commonly found packaged soba noodles served in a modified Kitchen Basics brand chicken stock which meets my dietary restrictions. I've been enjoying this at home and it is a wonderful change from eating potatoes and corn every meal. I've also tested soybean in the form of tofu. Tofu or soybean has been questionable. I am not sure yet. I had some bad experiences due to eating at restaurants in the 1st couple weeks of my reintroductions and have basically compromised the controlled variables of my tofu experimentations. I don't think I had any reaction to the tofu, but am not certain. I will re-test it over this weekend with the block of tofu I have sitting in the refrigerator right now. I wanted to verify my tolerance of wheat for certain prior to moving on. Yesterday was Kelli's Birthday. She's been living the past 4 months with my diet. Not necessarily eating only what I am eating, but living with the inconveniences of not being able to go out to restaurants for meals like most normal people. I had a great idea as we were walking around in Waikiki to try eating lunch at Matsugen Soba on Beachwalk. I posted a blog about eating at Matsugen Soba back in 2007 and it is linked here. Amazingly, I even had a producer from the Martha Stewart Show contact me about using my photos that are in my blog post about Matsugen. This is when they did an episode on Matsugen Soba opening a restaurant in New York. I ordered the Kinoko Sansai Soba and Kelli had the Tenpura and Hiyashi Udon. She requested no shrimp, all vegetable tenpura. We both enjoyed our noodles. I made it 24 hours now and no signs of intolerance. On the other hand, one of the vegetable tenpura that Kelli bit into was avocado! She is allergic to avocado and had to spit it out. She had a little stomach ache which may have been due to that avocado. Anyway, she is not part of this toxic food test but it was just a coincidence. It was a delicious meal! An example of what Kelli has to deal with is not being able to go out to Hy's Steak House or Ruth's Chris for her usual Birthday dinner. Since I wasn't able to take her to a steak restaurant for dinner (safe dinner), I made us steak dinners last night. It filled us up, tasted great and wasn't prepared with any ingredient that could have left me in pain the rest of the weekend. We even had a delicious dessert! Strawberry & Lemon Sorbet! All for under $30! Hahaha. What a bargain!

A few Interesting Things I read in some blogs that I follow...

I came across these neat pears that are grown in the shape of a Buddah on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. Check them out! <--. Kat blogged about tandoori chicken and couscous. Makes me want to check if I can eat couscous for one of my starch replacements since I can't eat wheat or rice. Kat's Blog<--. Affairs of Living Gluten Free... posted a tomato free red sauce this week that I'm anxious to try. It's based on beets & complies with my diet restrictions. Photos by Jalna posted a bunch of old photos of Hawaii that she received from a friend. Those photos are amazing! <-- Solomish has been posting his hiking adventures. So have a few other friends on Facebook. I can't link their page Facebook posts because Facebook doesn't work that way. Anyway, it's been making me want to go on an adventurous hiking trip! Last Friday I watched my 1st movie at the Movie Museum in Kaimuki. Neat little place there. The movie we watched is Kamome Shokudo, an excellent movie from 2006. It's a Japanese film that is filmed in Finland. I highly recommend watching it. Finally, the Thunderbirds will be performing for Honolulu this weekend! I'm looking forward to watching the show tomorrow. This links to my blog about them in 2007.

Wheat/Egg/Cow's Dairy Free Chocolate Cookies

I've been craving chocolate and cookies since being on this restricted diet for almost 2 months. I finally decided to try to bake some wheat, egg and cow's dairy free cookies. I've been looking forward to trying some baking since I found the goat milk butter at Whole Foods the other week. I searched the web for some sorghum cookie recipes, but they weren't adequate for me because they seemed to include things like Crisco, eggs or rice flours in addition to the sorghum flour. I decided to just wing it. I used to bake butter cookies years ago so I kind of just went with that feel... I used the force and just threw in a block of goat milk butter (approximately the size of a normal "stick"... I'll refer to it as "1 part"). About the same amout of sorghum flour, 1 part. Then about 3/4 part potato flour, a 1/4 part corn meal, a 1/4 part unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/4 part white sugar, 1/4 part brown sugar, couple pinches cream of tartar, couple pinches of baking powder, couple dashes of salt, a few drops of vanilla extract and 1 shot of fresh pulled espresso (ok it wasn't really "pulled" since my machine is a full auto...). I mixed these all together with a wooden spoon while preheating the oven to 350F. After the ingredients were all combined, the consistency looked and felt perfect (like past cookie doughs). I spooned small amounts onto a thick baking tray because I prefer firm & small cookies. I popped it in the oven on the bottom rack for 9 minutes then checked it. It wasn't quite done yet unless you like soft cookies. I left it in for about another 5 minutes, but I did open the door a couple more times during that to check on them. If they were left in continously without opening, I estimate cooking time to be adequate at about 12-13 minutes in my oven with this pan. I immediately placed them on the cooling rack to get them crisp. They taste nice and cocoaey (is that a word?). I've already eaten a few of them. I want to keep them as a snack when I have cravings, but I don't know how long they will last. They don't taste like "normal" cookies, but they do fill that void in the snack category. I like them enough to continue making them this way.

Ginger-Orange Chicken Breast

Here's a boneless skinless chicken breast with a ginger orange glaze. The chicken breast is seasoned with salt and pepper then I floured it with sorghum flour and grilled it in a pan with a little olive oil. After it was nicely browned and cooked pretty much through out, I began dipping it in a mixture of orange juice, ginger powder, sugar and cayenne pepper then putting it back in the pan. I did this a few times then poured the remaining orange juice mixture into the pan and removed from heat to allow it to reduce a little. It had a nice moist inside and a tangy taste with a slight spice from the cayenne.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Browned Goat's Milk Butter and Mizithra Cheese Broccolini...

OK... We bought a huge tray of boneless pork chops from Costco the other day. Combined with the fact that we're a household of two, we're also house/dog sitting at Kelli's parent's house for the week. I don't know how we'll consume all the perishables in our refrigerator!!! Anyway, to conform with my special diet, I prepared this dinner. The pork is seasoned with the basics, some salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary & olive oil. Nothing fancy just because it's not necessary. Kelli wanted to eat the Mizithra Cheese we bought from the market last week. We bought some broccolini from Whole Foods and while we were there I was so happy to find Goat's Milk Butter! (Because I can't have cow's milk.) It's been almost a month of no butter for me and I was having withdrawals. Almost to the point of giving in and sticking a spoon in a bowl of butter just to lick it clean. Thank goodness I found this butter! I pan roasted the broccolini then added a couple tablespoons of butter in the hot pan to get the butter brown. Then I added some freshly grated Mizithra cheese. **Note, don't add the Mizithra cheese when it's too hot because it browns/burns very fast.** Anyway, dinner was served with microwave prepared baked potato. This Meyenberg Goat's Milk Butter is great! It tastes like conventional butters. I think the texture of the butter might be a little softer and it certainly seems to melt faster. My next test, now that I've found butter I can eat, is to try some baking like scones, crusts and such that pretty much require the use of butter. Now if I could just find a decent bread substitute for me to slap some of this butter on it and just endulge...

"Special" Corn Muffins...

While I'm on this restricted diet, I am having withdrawals from cakes, pastries, breads and such. Click to more details on the restrictions. Last weekend I decided to try to bake corn muffins without any wheat flour, eggs or cow's milk. I used the recipe that comes on the box of Albers Yellow Corn Meal. I replaced the flour with about 75% sorghum flour and 25% potato flour. The egg was replaced with a whole ripe banana, crushed into a paste. The milk was substituted with goat's milk and I used extra virgin olive oil in place of the vegetable oil. I have never baked corn bread or muffins before so I cannot compare them to any of my past results (because there are none...). The result of this recipe is good. I ate a couple of the fresh and immediately froze the rest of the batch. It's recommended to freeze products that use alternatives to wheat flours to keep them moist. For breakfast or a snack, I pull one out of the freezer and pop it in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes to get it nice and toasty. It has a nice cruchy corn meal texture with a light essence of banana. I'll definitely be keeping my freezer stocked with a batch of these for me to snack on every so often. Have you tried any good recipes using alternatives??

KCC Farmer's Market

KCC Farmer's Market 4303 Diamond Head Rd Honolulu, HI 96816 Normally on Saturday Mornings. A few weeks ago, Kelli and I went to the KCC Farmers Market for an early morning walk and some shopping. It was the weeked prior to the Farm Fair weekend which meant the next weekend the farmer's market would not be at KCC. It was a nice morning and that also made it very crowded at 730am! We bought a watermelon that we just ate yesterday. It was very sweet and only cost a couple dollars. We also bought some pre-cooked luau (taro) leaves because Kelli wanted me to make some luau stew. Luau leaf is a very firm dark leaf. It takes hours to cook down into a soft mushy consistency. It also takes a lot of large leaves to end up with a pound or so after it's cooked down. It's something like the way spinach cooks down, but takes much longer. First I browned some boneless beef shortribs in a large pot with some olive oil, salt and pepper. After it had nice color I added canned chicken broth to cover the meat so it can simmer for an hour and a half or so (until tender). After it was tender enough so the meat would almost fall apart if poked with a fork, I seasoned it to taste with basics, Hawaiian Sea Salt and some pepper. Then I added the pre-cooked luau leaves to finish the stew. It was great that the leaves were pre-cooked (and sold frozen). It only takes a few minutes to finish after adding the leaves to the pot. We made a large amount so that most of it could be refrigerated and eaten later during the week. It was delicious!

Chicken Tacos & Food Rotation & Combinations...

I have read through my book about "Immuno Health Guide". I came across this section and chart about food combinations to avoid. It appears to me that to follow this recommendation, one would not eat a "well-rounded complete meal". I would be eating single entree type of meals. Doesn't seem possible for me to work with. I also read another section about rotating the non-reactive foods. It means if I ate beef and potatoes yesterday that I should avoid eating beef and potatoes today! There goes eating left-overs the next day... I'll have to make sure it can last several days. Not to mention I probably should not be eating the beef with the potato in the first place according to the chart above! At least it allows me to combine the beef with oil... :P After I read the section about rotating my foods, I began to worry. If you take a look at my non-reactive food test results, my grain/starch type of foods that are easily obtainable are rather limited. At this point I only have corn and potato to fill that craving. Since Corn Chex is the only mass produced (major brand) corn only product that I could find as a simple snack that doesn't cost more than a fillet mingon, I have been buying Corn Chex and using that to supress my hunger. This got me worried that if I don't rotate it and give my body a day off of corn products I might become sensative to corn! I can't have that happen... Since I already ate Corn Chex for breakfast, I decided to keep with the rotation and eliminate potato from my diet today so I can eat potatoes tomorrow. I made some chicken tacos for lunch. First I boiled 1 iqf Tyson Chicken Breast in a pan full of water (about 2-3 cups). Added a bunch of rosemary, couple pinches of sea salt, a few dashes of garlic powder and a bunch of black pepper. I boiled it until the chicken was fully cooked and the water was reduced to about 1/4 a cup or so. I removed the chicken and put it on a cutting board to be sliced. Then I strained the boiled water reduction into a small sauce pan and added 3 cubes of chicken broth that I have frozen in my freezer (1st in ice trays then into ziplock bag after they are frozen). I heated this reduction without reducing much more of the liquid. Then in a heated pan I grilled one side of the white corn tortilla (no wheat flour). On the second side (the outside or underside of taco) I splashed some extra virgin olive oil on it then flipped it to grill this side. I spread half of the sliced chicken and sprinkled over with hard cheddar cheese (I'm non-reactive to cheese as long as it's hard cheese & not milky). Grilled it for a minute or so until the bottom is slightly crispy and the cheese has a chance to melt. Remove from pan into my plate and put some chopped iceberg lettuce on top. Then I poured the flavorful reduction sauce over it. Fold and enjoy... or eat with a fork and knife if you are fancy. This was quite a delicious lunch and it followed my diet guidelines. Except, I did eat lettuce last night, but oh well what can I say... I'm not perfect yet.

"Toxic Food Syndrome"... my quest towards better health.

What is "Toxic Food Syndrome"? Well, it's something I'm researching to see if it helps my chronic health condition. Some of you may know I have been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease since about the year 2000. If you don't know what it is, CrohnsOnline.com has a brief description of it. It is a digestive tract disorder that has been affecting me in my small intestines. For those of you who didn't know I am dealing with this, now you know. I am sharing this on my blog for others who suffer with this to possibly help them with the directions they may be forced to choose between. This will not be a one time post on this topic. I will continue to update this "tag" under Crohn's Toxic Food Syndrome as I come across decisions, postive, or negative results and opinions I have about all of these things. If you've read my blogs in the past or read through some of the archives, you will find that I post a lot about restaurants and their food. That will drastically change. The past couple months I have made a slight change toward my postings as I have not been able to enjoy restaurant experiences as I used to. I've posted a few wheat & dairy free issues I've dealt with and related things. Let me attempt to briefly describe my experience. Prior to ~1999, multiple visits to various "Internal Medicine" Doctors over several years got me no where as far as my complaints of stomach pains. Finally, in 1999 I had such a major infection an emergency visit to a Urologist discovered it. Then I was off to emergency surgery. Biopsy results testing for Crohn's Disease at the time of the surgery came back NEGATIVE. I returned to my work after several months of recovery. A few months later severe pains returned and I was back to the hospital for another biopsy which showed positive results for Crohn's. I have been under the care of the same Gastroenterologist for 10 years now. My main reason for posting this blog is to discuss my concerns about diet and how/if they affect the way I feel. Under the guidance of my Gastroenterologist, diet/food has no affect on my condition. I've followed this theory for 10 years in disbelief. Many other Doctors who specialize in nutrition or "alternative medicine" believe Crohn's is curable or manageable by diet. A recent flare up of my Crohn's in May has pushed me to seek additional guidance. I've started receiving nutritional & diet care from a Medical Doctor who also specializes in "alternative practices". This is when the interesting stuff begins... Toxic Food Syndrome... My first visit to this Doctor who I'll refer to as the "Alt Dr." (Alternative) was very interesting. He explained that many patients with similar complaints have been "cured" or drastically helped by treatments that traditional western medicine and insurance companies consider to be alternative medicine. He drew some blood samples in the office that were sent to Immuno Laboratories in Florida. He gave me this book to read (which is a compilation of patient testimonies) and had me begin a no wheat or dairy diet right away. He explained that most people have reactions to wheat and dairy and don't even realize it because it's delayed and/or internal. These are some things I purchased to follow the no wheat & dairy diet... The test is called the "Immuno 1 Bloodprint (TM)". It's a test that checks how my blood reacts to certain foods. It's not really covered by conventional medical insurance (HMSA). The cash cost of this test is $300 and the results take about 3-4 weeks. I met with Alt Dr. earlier this week to review the results. My results were reviewed in depth by one of the staff at the Alt Dr.'s office then again with the Alt Dr. It came with this book that thoroughly describes how to follow the test results to begin what is called an "elimination diet". The test also gives me access to personal assistance from the website, www.BetterHealthUSA.com, a guide to the elimination diet. It also comes with a pocket card of my reactive foods. I thought the no wheat and dairy was impossible to find prepared food to eat while out and about. I was following the no wheat and no dairy diet for about 4-5 weeks already. I've posted some frustrations about it during those weeks. Not too many, mainly because I was just TOO FRUSTRATED! Now I've decided to actively post my experiences because I realize how frustrating this can be for us newbies on these types of diets. I continued to have uncomfortable feelings in my abdomen. I was beginning to think this could be a waste of time, but when I received these results, it was a sign... if I had to eat out, I was eating pho (rice noodles & mung beans) or sushi w/out shoyu (rice). This image is the results of my food reaction test. Yes, wheat and cow's milk is on the list. I have not had those things for weeks now. The items on the top of the page (in red) are the things I should not be eating. There is a number beside it (1-4). That is the level of reaction my blood had to the food item. I was astonished to see that I had a rather high reaction of 3 to RICE!! It's devastating! I am Japanese and now I am to live my life without RICE!! How will I do this? Especially because I cannot eat bread products (wheat, eggs, dairy & yeast) and I also have reactions to soybean. The elimination of soybean is also major to me. It eliminates Soy milk, tofu, soybeans (of course), natto, shoyu (soy sauce, I actually purchased a wheat free soy sauce last month), miso dishes, soy based desserts, many snacks, soybean oils and the list goes on to also include various lotions if we discuss non-edibles. Another item I want to highlight is Sesame at a level 3! I have sesame oil, sesame seeds and I even once had a sesame plant growing in my vegetable garden! Tomatoes is rated a 2 and I enjoy tomatoes and actually have a pack of roma tomatoes from Sam's Club in my refrigerator (purchased day before results) and a tomato plant growing on my lanai!! At this point I'm rather happy I never planted a new chili pepper plant. Sadly I am reactive to chili pepper and I love my chili spices! Luckily I am non-reactive to black and white pepper... thank goodness!! The baker's and brewer's yeast is also creating an issue for me. When reviewing what to avoid to avoid those yeasts, in my "normal" diet it eliminates vinegar (unless it's distilled), authentic rootbeer (my favorite soda!), pickles (American & Japanese... both favorites of mine!) & oil & vinegar salad dressing (my 1st choice... always!). I don't mind the other stuff yeast eliminates like beer, wine and some other alcohols because I gave up all alcohol years ago. Which is a good time to mention I used to drink a glass of red wine a day in 1998 (pre-surgery). Of course I will cover my reaction to wheat, a reaction of 1. I love to bake. I tried baking without it using substitutes like RICE flour which I happen to have triple the reaction to! The results just were not satisfying to me. I actually worked a temporary baker's assistant position in a Japanese bakery in the middle of the night for a few months just for me to learn how to bake breads!!! This is how much I wanted to bake artisan breads and not to mention eat the breads. Of course I could still be baking the breads, but not being able to eat them would be torcher! My favorite place to eat on a weekly basis, at least, is Cafe Laufer. I haven't been there in months! All I would be able to do there is drink my most favorite purchased iced coffee! My highest reactions are to almond and and oat, level 4. I love oatmeal and enjoy almonds... there isn't much more I can say about this. =( =( =( ^^^Sorry for that super long paragraph. I didn't want to bother splitting up my disappointments... so read it as 1 paragraph of disappointments with 1 positive about pepper... hehehe.^^^ Anyway, on with it. I have began my elimination diet which eliminates everything on the top (in red). It's been 3 days and honestly, I actually feel better. Is it psychological? Is it because my Crohn's is not active now? Is it because of the elimination diet? At this point I obviously don't know. I would like to think it's because of the diet so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time and energy, but I have no proof yet. Again, this is why I've decided to make this a regular blogging topic. To document my trials and tribulations with my supposedly incurable Crohn's. If you read the red list, you will understand why it is virtually impossible for me to buy a prepared meal. As far as I know, there are no restaurants in Honolulu that I can walk into and order off the menu (except maybe Wendy's... I can order a plain baked potato... whoo hooo!, but technically there isn't a Wendy's in Honolulu and the closest would be Aiea! :P Oh wait I forgot about Salt Lake, OK I can drive there for my $1 plain baked potato). On the light side of things, I'm told I will be able to re-introduce items from my reactive list 1 item at a time over the months to come and see if I have reactions. I have hope that I can re-introduce BREAD into my diet perhaps with egg substitute if need be, but at least maybe I can have a piece of bread sometime this year! Or a cake or cookie for that matter. Does anyone want to try to follow this diet for 1 day? Tell me where you find something I can eat from a restaurant. Please I don't want to buy salads without toppings or dressings. I know I can eat that, but that's not a trully prepared meal. I want to be able to go out for the day without carrying around a Ziplock bowl of "Now Gluten Free Corn Chex Cereal" for me to eat so I don't starve. Post a comment of what you find out there. If you are too shy to post a comment, email your suggestions or questions directly to me. Thanks for reading about my frustrations! RickNakama@Gmail.com

Tired of searching for lunches... even dinners...

Well, it's only been about 2-3 weeks of this new no wheat & dairy diet my nutrional medicine Doctor suggest I try until the food allergy tests are available. I've been so frustrated trying to eat (out). I am not saying you should try to be on this diet... I would never want anyone to be stuck on it. Just try to order any meal item at a casual restaurant or fast food place that most people would be buying lunch from during their work day that does not contain any wheat or dairy ingredients. It's virtually impossible. Even when you see a menu item described as what you think should be wheat and dairy free, when it's presented to you you realize you can't even eat it because it has some kind of wheat or dairy in it. This is what it's come to... I'm too annoyed of paying ridiculous amounts of money ordering food that is basically a simpler food (should be cheap), but usually costs more. Back to my Japanese basics. I'm just eating tsukemono (prepared pickled vegetables) and rice. I might as well be a vegetarian already. **Edit** Why not add a nice cup of sen-cha...