Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Restrictive Diets

I love food. I come from a family that loves food. I also enjoy cooking. Some of my happiest memories are of family dinners, or dinners with a group of friends -- everyone gathered around the table eating a feast that is the culmination of a day in the kitchen, laughing, talking, and drinking wine.

Holiday Feast

I am one of those nerdy people that takes photos of my food at a nice restaurant.

Airport Fare

Even if it is just Rob, my son, and me for dinner, I like to plan something that has a creative twist almost every time I cook. For example, last night my theme was Eastern European. We had pan-fried, crumb coated pork loin chops with mushrooms, potato latkes with sour cream and apple sauce, beets, and french bread. The latkes were the creative twist. Instead of using grated potato only when I made them, I also grated in some parsnip and a bit of fresh ginger (a James Barber recipe). They were yummy. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the meal.

I remember my paternal grandmother, who passed away when I was six, as being a fabulous cook. All of her daughters (my aunts) carried on the tradition. My Mom also is a very good cook, and she taught my siblings and me to cook and bake, and let us experiment in the kitchen. My siblings are all great cooks and so are my adult children.

Although I grew up in a northern, fairly remote small town, my parents encouraged adventures in eating. From a young age, we ate local fish and game (moose, grouse, venison, smoked salmon), whatever ethnic foods were available (pickled pigs feet, pickled herring, kippers), and foods that most of my peers did not (stuffed beef heart, oysters, blue cheese, hot pickles). My parents had a large garden and grew their own vegetables, fruits, and berries, which my Mom preserved for the winter. We also gathered wild huckleberries, mushrooms, and so on. My Mom baked almost every day -- squares, cookies, cakes, pies, and specialties like cream puffs and jellyroll.

Pumpkin Pie and Banana Cream Pie

Having once been a child, then a parent, and now a grandparent, I know that small children sometimes are reluctant to try new foods. My Mom had a sensible approach. She never forced us to eat, but she did have two rules. 1. If we served ourselves something, we had to eat it. (She encouraged us to take a small helping, and if we wished, to have seconds.) 2. We had to at least taste every item in the meal -- a mouthful or teaspoon-sized amount. She also, very shrewdly, limited our access to snacks during the day, so that when we sat to the table, we were hungry. Hunger is a wonderful appetite enhancer!

Baking Cookies With Grandma

My parents also took us out to restaurants from a young age. We were expected to sit up nicely and behave ourselves. If someone made a fuss, my Mom took the misbehaving child out to the car and stayed there with them until they were ready to rejoin the rest of the family in the restaurant. We also learned that when we went out to dinner to someone's home, we should use our best manners, eat whatever we were served without complaint, thank the hostess, and offer to help with the dishes.

We often had extra people around our dinner table. Dad would arrive home from work with someone travelling through town who needed a good meal. Or one of us kids would invite a friend to stay for dinner. One of my brother's friends came home from college with him for a visit and stayed for a year. When my best friend's family moved to a town two hours down the road, she started coming to stay for the weekend every second weekend. Friday night was usually steak night, so our friends especially liked being there for dinner on Fridays.

In adulthood, I have continued the tradition of cooking for people and hosting dinners. In one place that we lived, Rob and I were part of a dinner club that was a lot of fun. Each month a different couple in the group hosted a dinner for everyone.

Through the dinner club experience, I learned that a lot has changed with respect to group eating behaviour since I was child. It seemed that most of the people in the club were on some type of restrictive diet. The group included a vegetarian, a person who couldn't eat dairy, a person with a sensitivity to eggs, a person with a sensitivity to sweet peppers (me), and a person who didn't eat any fruits or vegetables on the "dirty dozen" list (unless organically grown). It made it tricky to plan a dinner that would please everyone. I was just about ready to quit when one of the members developed a health issue and was supposed to avoid all fats and all green vegetables!

As a cook, I find that restrictive diets limit my creative options. I like to develop menus that will please the eye as well as the palate, that use local ingredients, and that are healthy. Rob and my son are appreciative diners, and fun to cook for. As a diner myself, I am easy to feed. (If I am served something with peppers in it, I just pick them out and put them on the side of my plate.)

I do not have a lot of patience for restrictive diets. I understand that sometimes the restrictive diets are prescribed because of health issues. I do my best to accommodate people's dietary preferences because I like spending time with friends and family members, and cooking for them is a way of showing them that I care about them.

However, I have never chosen to put myself on a restrictive dietary regimen. For example, I have never been on a weight loss diet. That doesn't mean that I am a glutton, or that I chow down on excessive amounts of red meat. I am very interested in the relationship between nutrition and health, and I care about eating in an environmentally sustainable way. I also try to notice if I am developing unhealthy eating habits, and to change those habits. That said, moderation is my guide, and I am willing to try most foods.

Eating Up the Contents of the Freezer Before our Move: Mussels and Steamed Dumplings

During my recent years of excessive overwork, I developed some health symptoms that were worrisome, among them sharp abdominal pains. I went through a bunch of medical tests which ruled out some of the scarier possibilities, but did not provide any answers. The last specialist that I saw suggested that I try out a low FODMAP diet. Apparently, there are a number of components in food that some people have difficulty digesting.

My symptoms are not consistent and do not exactly match any of the common diagnoses. But a person does not have pain attacks for no reason. So now, for the first time in my life, I am on a restrictive diet. My plan is to try to adhere closely to the low FODMAP diet for about six weeks, and then when the abdominal symptoms disappear, I will gradually begin to add various foods back in one at a time so see if there is a particular food or foods that my gut is reacting to.

Harrumph! We will see how it goes.

17 comments:

  1. Hi, Jude - I am sorry to hear about your health symptoms and hope that they are not serious. While reading through your post, I kept on thinking of this recent video. As I have often been the one with food restrictions this clip made me laugh! https://www.facebook.com/22Minutes/videos/10154156380703339/

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    1. Hmm, I can identify with the cook in that video!

      Jude

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  2. I'm sorry that you are experiencing abdominal issues and hope you can identify the culprit soon (and it's not something you love to eat). I'm pretty lucky that there isn't much I can't (or won't) eat... everything in moderation seems to work best for me. I would love to join a dinner club, but only one that has a "No Food Restrictions Allowed" policy. Cooking a meal for a bunch of people with various restrictions can take the fun out of it.

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    1. Of course, one of the things that happens with getting older is that many of our contemporaries have health issues, and I totally understand that. I readily accommodate to cook things that they can eat, and that are appealing to everyone. Or I cook a variety of dishes so that if someone chooses to skip a dish, they still have many others that they can eat. But it can get tricky when every diner has different eating restrictions or preferences.

      Jude

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  3. I hope the diet does the trick! I’m a vegetarian and I think I must be coming up to my 35th anniversary (can’t remember exactly). I don’t think of it as restrictive though, because it was a positive choice.

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    1. Anabel, I have several excellent vegetarian cookbooks, and I enjoy cooking vegetarian meals. Although my husband has a strong preference for meat-based meals, we have cut back on red meats significantly. Typically, we will have red meat about twice a week, and the rest of the dinners are a mix of vegetarian, poultry-based, or seafood-based. Living at the coast means that there is a wonderful selection of fish and seafood to choose from. There are also many farms in our area where we can get locally grown vegetables, eggs, and other farm products.

      Jude

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  4. Hi Jude, I'm sorry to read about your health symptoms. I hope you can identify the culprit and it's something easy to eliminate. I'm like you in that some of my happy memories are family dinners. In fact one is coming up next weekend with about twenty of us. I've been pretty lucky that I have no food restrictions and I've enjoyed different cuisines.

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    1. Hi Natalie. I like having the freedom to try different cuisines and to eat a wide range of foods. I feel quite sorry for myself right now because the low FODMAP diet is very restrictive. When I first started out on it, I followed it quite closely, but after about three weeks on it, I hadn’t really noticed much improvement in my symptoms. So I am sorry to say, I have started to cheat a little on the diet. I’m still mostly following it, but when I do consume something I’m supposed to be avoiding (e.g., some milk, or some bread), I try to determine if the symptoms worsen. I’d like to start adding back in foods which are not problematic.

      Wow, a family dinner with twenty of you! Are you cooking for everyone?

      Jude

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    2. I wonder if your symptoms are muscular-related from having excessive work hours before (e.g. prolonged sitting). For the big family gathering of 20 or so, we rotate the host duty, coordinate the menu, and each family unit brings something so no one has to slave in the kitchen. We also pitch in to set up the tables and clean up after. We've done this for many years and have become quite pro :)

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    3. Yes, I have wondered too if prolonged sitting is what triggered it. I am trying to be active every day.

      Your family dinners sound awesome!

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  5. I loved your description of your meals growing up and your parents' expectations for eating out. We often take our young grandchildren out to dinner and have had other diners come over to compliment them on their behavior. It's so rewarding to see the restaurant manners being passed down. I hope you are able to discover the cause of your stomach pains. It's especially frustrating to restrict your diet and not see any improvement. On the other hand, maybe that means you won't have to cut out any foods in the long run. Good luck!

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    1. I think my parents were wise in how they brought up children. They had certain clearly stated expectations, but within those rules, they gave us a lot of freedom. Good for you in passing the restaurant manners along to your grandchildren!

      Btw, Christie, it seems that I can no longer get to your blog by clicking on your name. That link takes me to Google +, and I can’t get to your blog from there. (I don’t have a Google + identity.)

      Jude

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  6. The first part of your post made me hungry, the second part made me appreciative of the way you were brought up (I was brought up similarly when it came to eating habits, although my parents - and I - don’t like to cook). I enjoy eating food and, especially during travels, am open to trying new things as part of the cultural experience.

    Food has changed a lot over the years, the way it is harvested and treated. For health reasons, my husband and I are on a “plant-based diet” at home, but we still eat anything when being invited over for dinner. Dietary restrictions have gone through the roof and it doesn’t make meal planning easy!

    Sorry you have issues yourself now, Jude. Keep us posted about your progress and diet remarks! I am especially curious, as my husband developed discomfort in his abdomen two months ago and a diagnoses can not be made.

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    1. Liesbet, you must have had the opportunity to try many amazing cuisines in your travels all over the world. Food is always a very big part of my travel experiences. Rob and I still reminisce about our favourite food and wine experiences in Portugal — the cataplana, the bacalau (salt cod - we hated it), porco preto (the Iberian acorn eating black pig), sardinias, and juicy oranges picked straight from the tree.

      Apparently a lot of people get abdominal pains, and they are notoriously difficult to diagnose. It can be anything from muscle adhesions to colon cancer to an inflammation of the appendix, to Crohn’s disease, to a hernia, or many other things. Hopefully Mark is able to figure out what is causing his issue.

      Jude

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  7. Sadly, I'm not one of those people who enjoy cooking - especially cooking for other people. As my 'family' grows, so do the diet restrictions ... vegans, vegetarians, gluten intolerant ... and it makes my frustration with cooking grow.

    I do hope the cause of your issues are identified and easily resolved, although it sounds like the diet isn't helping. It's just one more problem with aging as our bodies start to reject stuff we once ate with enthusiasm ��

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    1. btw - YAY! I finally figured out how to comment on your blog 🙂
      It didn't like my Wordpress credentials, but apparently my google ones are just fine!

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    2. Joanne, hosting big family dinners is something I have always done (starting as a teen helping my Mom) and also I have enjoyed inviting friends over for meals. However, so often now, I find myself cooking duplicate dishes (e.g., a regular and a vegetarian lasagna, or both a dairy and non-dairy dessert, or including gluten-free options). It does make it more tricky to host a dinner.

      Happily, I have abandoned the low FODMAP diet after a six week trial as it did not seem to make any difference, and am back to eating everything and anything.

      Sorry to hear that you were having trouble commenting on my blog. I was having issues with the comment function a couple of months ago, but thought that I had resolved it. I know that some others who comment regularly are Wordpress bloggers, so I am not sure why Blogger was giving you trouble. Glad to hear that you found a solution, and thanks for commenting!

      Jude

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