Food Sensitivity List

This is a brief but comprehensive list of what I can and can't eat, mostly to help out people who are determined to feed me. :) If anything needs to be clarified, ask me.

When it comes to replacements for wheat-containing things, I often have substitutes or suggestions. In particular, I bake all sorts of wheatless breads. Let me know if I need to supply something.

The list of chemicals I react to is here.

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No tolerance:

• Soy milk (just the milk). I get immediate GI distress and I end up feeling like someone punched me in the gut. The soreness lingers for days.
• Caffeine. I don't notice much, but believe me, everyone else notices the rising of the Bitch Queen.

Trace tolerance:

• Wheat (including spelt and kamut). I can have regular soy sauce, or a couple of crumbs of bread in something, but breading and flour used to thicken sauces or soups is too much. I'll get pretty cranky and insomniac.
• Crustaceans. I can have imitation crab with natural flavor, but I haven't had the real thing in years. Given that the full-blown reaction would be anaphylaxis, and the allergy is for life, I try to avoid it as much as possible.
• Conventional poultry, pork, ground beef, and farmed salmon. Antibiotic residue in conventional feed makes me feel sick for a day or two. I can have a bite, but that's about it. Steak is fine, as are lamb, ham (something about the way it's cured), and wild fish. Free-range meat is usually good enough; organic works too, though it isn't measurably more safe (both have a success rate of about 95% for me).

Moderate tolerance:

• Tofu. While dry soy protein is fine, tofu is closer to soy milk and thus has the same effect if I eat more than a handful of it. Mixed into a dish it's fine, but don't expect to feed me a meal of it.
• Edamame (same as above). I love them, but I really shouldn't eat a whole bowl.
• Peanuts. Nothing dire, they just slow my digestion to a crawl. While it's nice sometimes to be able to last 16 hours on a single peanut-butter sandwich, it really isn't good for me to do that too often.
• Tap water. I tolerate it reasonably well these days, but I have to have distilled water or better for drinking (including tea) and things which are mostly water, like jello. Boiling pasta in it is fine, using it for rice is okay. All that happens is that I get very thirsty, but it's easy to get severely dehydrated.

Simple dislike:

• Onions. I consider them to be a seasoning, like black pepper. If you must, you must, but I prefer pieces that are large enough to pick out. I've also gotten significantly more sensitive lately to onions on other people's breath; if your face is likely to be within a few inches of mine for any extended period, you might want to give a little thought to whether you've had any onions lately.
• Char. All I can taste is overwhelming bitterness.

Perfectly okay (despite what you might think)

• Dry soy protein
• Steak, ham, lamb, wild fish
• Cheese! (I love cheese)
• Conventional eggs
• Barley, rye, and any other gluten-containing grains that aren't in the wheat family

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