Picky Eater

As a child I was, I guess, moderately fussy in that childish and random way. Nothing too serious, there were a few dishes I flat-out didn't like but mostly I ate well and happily (My Mum, who reads this but never comments, may feel strongly enough about that statement to break her silence!)

As a young adult I had a very nasty case of food poisoning (environmental health investigating a restaurant, two weeks off work, almost two stone in weight lost. That kind of nasty) and after that I was never quite right again. I would suffer a lot of pain in my gut. Pain, that I would later find out, had the same intensity as labour pains. Really bad pain. It was irregular and mostly happened at night. I went through phases where I would throw up almost every morning. I had a few investigations at that point but it settled back down and nothing was found to be wrong. So I was left with the rather unsatisfactory diagnosis of IBS. Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This diagnosis covers such a wide range of experiences and symptoms as to be utterly useless, its like diagnosing every skin condition with "Itchy Skin Syndrome"

I had one year of being a vegetarian but most people involved in that year would probably prefer not to talk about it. I made a lousy vegetarian. But vegetarianism isn't really pickiness (in most people)

When I had my first son I decided to try all the foods I didn't think I liked again because I didn't want him to see any fussiness from his parents. I wanted his approach to food to be open and uncritical. And family life stabilised my life, as it tends to do, and I was able to begin to unpick some of the triggers for bad attacks
(pasta, drinking too much wine, dried mushrooms) and formulate other suspicions but I still had near daily low level pain and the odd full on attack and I couldn't understand it. I'd tried cutting out various groups of food in the past to see if I could spot an improvement but it never worked.

A few months ago I decided to venture back to the doctors to see if science had moved on in the five years since I'd last sought medical help  for the problem (and been offered pain killers only). It had. I was referred to a dietician attached to the gastroenterology-enterology unit who has started me on a low FODMAP diet. It is incredibly restrictive in seemingly random ways. No wheat, rye or barley, no onions or garlic, no beans or lentils, fructose and lactose must both be restricted. Fruit and veg is almost a lottery (cauliflower is out but cabbage is fine, apple is out but orange is fine) so there is little to help you group it easily - the booklet they give you fits into my handbag, thank goodness!

Luckily I cook from scratch so this hasn't been too hard to fit into my life, I've had to make a few substitutions and sacrifices but its been okay this past week and the results have been worth it. I have gone from being mostly in pain to being mostly pain free!

After eight weeks, I will get to try to reintroduce these items so the list of don'ts will hopefully become smaller and I will hopefully be able to know exactly what my triggers are.

But the massive downside is that I am now the pickiest eater ever. Each packet needs to be interrogated for rogue ingredients. Nearly every meal suggestion is shot down in flames because of something it includes. So I apologise in advance to anyone catering for me in the near future. Please know that I am not normally picky.