DIET FOR APPENDIX V: WILD RICE AND MAIZE MEALS
Wild rice is only available from a few healthfood shops and delicatessans and is rather expensive. It has long, dark brown grains and a distinctive nutty-earthy taste that goes very well with some foods, notably fish, poultry and stir-fried vegetables. To cook, wash thoroughly, place in a large saucepan, cover with cold salted water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 45 minutes, then turn off the heat, stir the rice and leave to stand for 15 minutes. Pour off any excess water but do not rinse. The cooked grains freeze perfectly, and can be defrosted quickly by boiling in water or stock, without becoming glutinous. A mixture of orange or lemon juice and melted butter (if you are allowed these) improves the taste of the rice. For breakfast, defrost some wild rice by boiling in fruit juice, adding dried apricots and nuts. Maize meal or cornmeal can be prepared as polenta and used as an accompaniment to stews or casseroles. Combine 115 gm (4 oz) maize meal with a level teaspoon each of salt and mild paprika, and a tiny pinch of cayenne. Mix in 1\4 litre (1\2 pint) of water, adding the water slowly to prevent lumps forming. Steam in a double-boiler – or put a small pan (containing the maize meal) inside a larger one, containing an inch or two of water, to get the same effect as a double boiler. After 30 minutes, turn out into a greased baking dish and bake for 10 to 15 minutes at 170°C, 350°F, gas mark 4. Pour a few spoons of juice from the casserole over the top, and a layer of grated cheese, then put under the grill to brown. This also goes well with fish.
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PREPARING FOR THE ELIMINAYION DIET: REINTRODUCTION PHASE
Reintroduce one item each week, for example:
week 1 – food containing additives
week 2 – tea
week 3 – coffee
week 4 – beer
week 5 – white wine
week 7 – spirits
week 8 – chocolate Take some of the test food or drink every day, starting with a small amount and continuing for a week. If there is a reaction, then stop immediately. Wait until you are better, then go on to the next item. If there is no reaction then give it up again after a week, and test the next item. At the end of the testing period, you can reintroduce all the things that produced no reaction.
If you react to food containing additives, then leave these out again for a while, while you test other items. Then test them again individually – see pp305-6 for details of the different groups of additives. If you react to one member of a group, you may well react to others in that group too.
Try to continue your good eating habits after the diet is finished – don’t go back to eating a lot of salt and sugar, or drinking huge quantities of tea, coffee or alcohol (even if these didn’t cause any specific symptoms). Keep eating fresh foods, particularly green vegetables, and stay away from junk food.
Once you have established which items cause your symptoms, you will probably need to avoid these entirely for some considerable time, although you might be able to consume a small amount occasionally. Try them out from time to time, to see whether your reaction has abated.
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WHAT CAUSES FOOD INTOLERANCE? BUGS IN THE SYSTEM
Our digestive tract is home to a great many bacteria and other microbes, which do not cause any disease, and are actually important for good health. They are known as the gut flora. Some doctors believe that the gut flora may become ‘disturbed’, causing the beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus to become less abundant, and other, more damaging microbes, to take their place. This might then lead on to food intolerance.-
The main evidence for this has been gathered by Dr John Hunter of Adden-brooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Dr Hunter noticed that many of his patients with irritable bowel syndrome or IBS, dated their illness back to a bout of diarrhoea caused by an infection, or to a long course of antibiotics. Both these things are known to disturb the gut flora . Some women patients had first suffered from IBS after having a hysterectomy operation. This seemed puzzling, until Dr Hunter discovered that antibiotics were always given before such operations, to help prevent infections. An experiment followed in which some hysterectomy patients had the antibiotic treatment while others did not -11 per cent of those in the first group developed IBS but none of the second group did. In a further experiment, Dr Hunter looked at the bacteria found in the stools of IBS patients, and detected some differences from the bacteria of healthy people.
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FOODS CONTAINING YEAST
Main sources of yeast
Bread, including pitta bread and pizza, but excluding soda bread, matzos
and chapattis. Buns and cakes made with yeast eg doughnuts Yeast extract (Marmite, Vegemite etc)
Oxo cubes and most other stock cubes
Anything labelled ‘hydrolysed vegetable protein’ Beer, wine and cider Vinegar and pickles Sauerkraut
Vitamin tablets containing B vitamins, unless labelled ‘yeast-free’
Secondary sources of yeast
Dried fruit
Over-ripe fruit
Commercial fruit juices
Anything labelled ‘malt’
Yoghurt, buttermilk and sour cream
Synthetic cream
Soy sauce
Tofu
Any leftover food, unless eaten within 24 hours, or 48 hours if in a refrigerator
Whiskey, vodka, gin, brandy and other spirits
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ALLERGY: THE DISCOVERY OF IGE
The discovery of IgE was a breakthrough for classical allergists. Laboratory tests showed raised levels of total IgE in most patients displaying classical allergic symptoms..If the patient knew what antigen caused their symptoms, then a radioallergosorbent test or RAST (described on p79) could be applied to measure IgE for that specific antigen. The RAST result usually confirmed that there was an excessive amount of IgE antibody that would bind the incriminated antigen. In a very short space of time, IgE became the touchstone of respectability for classical allergists. Some even changed the definition of allergy, yet again, to mean reactions involving IgE only. This definition is still used by a few allergists.
When immunologists tried RASTs on patients diagnosed as food-allergic, they found a basic division. Those like Jane, with immediate, violent reactions, even to a very small amount of the offending food, almost always had high levels of IgE for that food, confirming the status of such reactions as classical allergies. Those like Susan, with ‘delayed’ or ‘masked’ reactions to foods, rarely produced positive RAST results for their culprit foods. More recently, some studies have shown that a small IgE reaction in the gut wall could be a contributing factor in people, but IgE is certainly not the major cause of the problem.
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