One of my discoveries in occasionally keeping is blog is reading other people's blogs on living with Crohn's. One of my favourites is the Mind Your Body Blog, which is written by Oak Park Behavioural Medicine in Illinois. A bit random with a Canadian expat in the UK, but hey, stranger things have happened in the internet!
The writers are health psychologists, and one of them is a fellow Crohnie. She has also recently been contending with one of the banes of my existence - soy.
http://opbmed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/lets-talk-about-soy.html
I've blogged about my soy intolerance before - http://foodlovingcrohnie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/oh-canada.html It's a bloody pain (literally).
I'm back in Canada at the moment and am attending a conference in St. John's before heading to Toronto. This is my first time in Newfoundland, and it really is as awesome as Newfoundlanders say it is, despite it being all of 6 degrees whole I've been here (it's mid-June!!)
But the problem with conferences is conference food. I've given my lengthy list of allergies and intolerances to the conference staff, but most of what they have offered is general alternatives (gluten free, veggie, etc), rather than a handy ingredient list. Most of the food has been served buffet style so I've been able to pick and choose what I'm eating.
Thursday lunch time, the offer was tomato soup with grilled chicken salad. I skipped the salad (not low fibre) in favour of soup, crackers and chicken, and I was doing a happy dance in the queue upon reading the ingredients list on the Premium Plus crackers and finding out they are no longer using soybean oil.
So I munched down on a fairly low carb lunch, and it took about 20 minutes to start regretting it. Horrible stomach cramps and trapped wind. Cue Wind-ezze, which doesn't relieve it. Start doing the mental arithmetic of everything I've eaten in the last 24 hours. Can't be the Rice Krispies at breakfast. Can't be the cheeky DQ blizzard with Skor I had despite the cold weather. Somehow managed to get dinner down and continued to battle stomach cramps for the rest of the day and well into the evening. I'll spare you the description of the carnage in the loo at 5 the next morning.
Of course, when this happens to a Crohnie, you start to panic a bit about flare-ups, especially when you are away from home. I try not to panic, but it was a worry as I have been under a lot of stress at work lately, plus the general stress of travelling. Thankfully, I was a lot better on Friday, which was especially good as I spent all day on a coach without a loo. Even managed a trip to the pub for proper Canadian wings and a local beer. That went down no problem. So what's going on?
Saturday night was a banquet, which was held kitchen party style, and was great fun. I got into a random conversation with some people at my table about food allergies and intolerances. I mentioned not being able to eat soya, and one of the other people at the table said she can't eat it either. "What did you think of that so-called chicken at lunch on Thursday?", she says. "I had that," I said. "Yeah, hardly any chicken in that," she says. "Whenever it's processed into those lovely flat shapes for salads, they use soya as a filler to get the texture, and it's like 2% chicken protein once they are fine with it."
"Oh bloody hell, now I know why I was sick!" I say. "Same here," she says. "I hate not getting labels."
So at least I know there is nothing to panic about and this was just the constant presence of soya in North American products biting me in the ass (literally) again.
The writers are health psychologists, and one of them is a fellow Crohnie. She has also recently been contending with one of the banes of my existence - soy.
http://opbmed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/lets-talk-about-soy.html
I've blogged about my soy intolerance before - http://foodlovingcrohnie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/oh-canada.html It's a bloody pain (literally).
I'm back in Canada at the moment and am attending a conference in St. John's before heading to Toronto. This is my first time in Newfoundland, and it really is as awesome as Newfoundlanders say it is, despite it being all of 6 degrees whole I've been here (it's mid-June!!)
But the problem with conferences is conference food. I've given my lengthy list of allergies and intolerances to the conference staff, but most of what they have offered is general alternatives (gluten free, veggie, etc), rather than a handy ingredient list. Most of the food has been served buffet style so I've been able to pick and choose what I'm eating.
Thursday lunch time, the offer was tomato soup with grilled chicken salad. I skipped the salad (not low fibre) in favour of soup, crackers and chicken, and I was doing a happy dance in the queue upon reading the ingredients list on the Premium Plus crackers and finding out they are no longer using soybean oil.
So I munched down on a fairly low carb lunch, and it took about 20 minutes to start regretting it. Horrible stomach cramps and trapped wind. Cue Wind-ezze, which doesn't relieve it. Start doing the mental arithmetic of everything I've eaten in the last 24 hours. Can't be the Rice Krispies at breakfast. Can't be the cheeky DQ blizzard with Skor I had despite the cold weather. Somehow managed to get dinner down and continued to battle stomach cramps for the rest of the day and well into the evening. I'll spare you the description of the carnage in the loo at 5 the next morning.
Of course, when this happens to a Crohnie, you start to panic a bit about flare-ups, especially when you are away from home. I try not to panic, but it was a worry as I have been under a lot of stress at work lately, plus the general stress of travelling. Thankfully, I was a lot better on Friday, which was especially good as I spent all day on a coach without a loo. Even managed a trip to the pub for proper Canadian wings and a local beer. That went down no problem. So what's going on?
Saturday night was a banquet, which was held kitchen party style, and was great fun. I got into a random conversation with some people at my table about food allergies and intolerances. I mentioned not being able to eat soya, and one of the other people at the table said she can't eat it either. "What did you think of that so-called chicken at lunch on Thursday?", she says. "I had that," I said. "Yeah, hardly any chicken in that," she says. "Whenever it's processed into those lovely flat shapes for salads, they use soya as a filler to get the texture, and it's like 2% chicken protein once they are fine with it."
"Oh bloody hell, now I know why I was sick!" I say. "Same here," she says. "I hate not getting labels."
So at least I know there is nothing to panic about and this was just the constant presence of soya in North American products biting me in the ass (literally) again.
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