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Food is a Big Deal. What we eat and how we eat it matters.
l am the only two legged creature in my home; I eat with my dogs. Seriously! I have thought about making a picnic bench for them because they all sit around the table (on the floor) while I eat. They are very polite and don't get any food till I have finished, but still...
Food is a big deal. It has a powerful impact on our health and can be the catylyst for some of our most formative memories. Some of those memories may be good, others not. Most of us have both negative and positive associations with food.
Our Table is a safe place to share information and experiences with food and eating habits that have either helped us feel better or have made matters worse. Pull up a chair and share what you have learned so far.
Have you noticed that certain foods decrease inflammation? Do others trigger a Lupus flare? Do you have recipes you would like to share? Would you like support in changing old habits to new? What are some of your best memories of food? How do you eat now-alone and in your own world, or is meal time a chance to gather with loved ones?
Note: We are just a gathering of ordinary folks; no one in this group is claiming to be an expert in nutrition(except for Ann who really is an expert and has a degree in nutrition education and Lone Wolf who is also a holistic practitioner.) But Life With Lupus is a patient to patient support group and while we depend on one another for support and shared experience, we cannot give out professional advice.
Food For Thought: Please keep in mind that food is a touchy subject ranking right up there with politics and religion so please run all comments through a thick filter of compassion and decorum before posting.
I would like to add the first post in Suzie's honor bc she had the great idea to share recipies. My recipie is for a
soothing tummy tonic
that is good for whatever ails ya:
Wash a chunk of ginger root about the size of your thumb (or more or less)
add to a full crock pot of water
add a few grains of washed brown rice
let it steep
sip it all day
if there is any left over, store in fridge, but there probably won't be, so have more ginger ready for the next batch
Today my uncle told me that "all autoimmune diseases are caused from poor nutruition." He then went on to say that i could cure my Lupus if I took apple cider vinegar pills.
I know he means well, but it made me feel like I have Lupus because I didn't do something right...that there was something i did to deserve being sick.
I agree that nutrition is very important.--and I do feel better if I stay away from gluten and dairy, but I seriously doubt that the cure for Lupus is as simple as apple cider vinegar pills.
I am always torn between the idea that I have control over my own health and the fact that some things are out of my control. where is the balance?
I’m so excited about this group. I love Food! 
me too
what are acidic foods? like citrus?
my challenge for today is to feel what i feel without running away, without eating or drinking something to chase the feelings away. i used to smoke to run away. now i will try to just feel.
Ann, thanks for posting the two charts--i will print them out to use for refference. You know, the two times I felt the most well was the two times I had nothing in my system at all. I was preparing for a ..procedure...and had to make sure nothing was in my system. I felt well.
I wish I could fast and then just introduce foods one at a time.. any idea as to how to go about that?
thanks Ann, i will look for it. I think if i go to a very basic diet like the macrobiotic maybe? I should be able to ....to? what I can't think what it is I want to figure out. i feel overwehlmed with food.
I gained weight on the two steroids--prednisone and fludrocortisone and now i am off the flud but still carrying too much of the weight. I am disgusted with my self and trying to stay calm
"Hello...it's just me again. I was passing by on my way to my real living room...i saw the lights on in the virtual dining room and thought I'd peek in." She said.
She poured herself into a dining room chair like a contractor pouring cement.
"I am miserable, ya'll. I ate wheat today because I thought that was going to be the only thing to eat. Since I can't drive I have to rely on others to take me to the store. We have a form of public transportation but you have to arrange for rides in advance...and since I am not well organized I didn't plan enough food.)
So I called a cousin and asked if I could tag along if she went to a grocery store, but I didn't hear back from her till much later in the day. And I was hungry! So I made an ginormous pan of pasta that my daughter bought by mistake (thinking it was gluten free) and I ate some. Not too much, but even a little makes me feel kind of crappy.
Then (this made the devil laugh) after I had eaten, she called and said, "Did you want to go tho the store with me?"
My mom always prided herself on how "we may have been poor but we never went to bed hungry."
We were Rabbit children. She used to go to the grocery stores and tell the produce manager that she had rabbits and asked if it would be ok to take the produce that had already gone bad to feed the rabbits. Then she'd take it home and dump it all in the kitchen sink, pick out the good stuff for us to eat and throw the rest on the compost heap.
We were happy to have it. Plums were my favorite.
There were other times when I was not so sure that mom told the truth when she said we didn't go hungry because I remember eyeing her food and wishing I could have the last bite of meat... which she guarded because she had to have some too. She worked hard every day and needed food as much as we did.
So, anyway, when there is even the hint of a food shortage I freak out a little. Maybe that is why I like being able to starve myself when I was younger---it made me feel in control of life itself...if I didn't eat then I had outsmarted the enemy. Needing food (they way all humans need food) was risky for me. It meant that I might have some or I might not. It meant that I had to rely on someone other than myself and that was just plain scary. It was far better to train myself to never be hungry. I got so good at it I could go for long periods of time without eating.
Anyway, here I am at Our Table...it reminds me of the group home i was in when I was 15. I loved it! They had a dining room and when we were not eating there was a big Log Book for us to communicate with the one another. If there were things we couldn't just come out and say, or if the person we needed to say something too was not there, the Log Book was happy to oblige.
I never worried about food there, but I was already addicted to the power that not eating gives (falsely.)
And, here I am again at another table; here I am given a new opportunity to change for the better, to heal from things that made me the way I am.
JC left a quote in the quote box the other day:
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.-John C. Maxwell
I have been mulling over it ever since.
I think I can do one small thing every day to change my life---to re-route this river.
That is why I came here tonight; I came here to face what I feel, which is fear and its nasty residue.
The fear started during the pre-shopping cooking pasta frenzy, then the crazy hurry-up-and-get-the-food-before-it-it-all-gone- fear came at the store..along with a heap of guilt for needing a ride and worry that I am such a bother my cousins till they wish I never moved to this town...
then the guilt/fear combo I had after eating non gluten stuff..and the biggest fear: that I won't be able to stop eating is what I had for dessert.
No wonder my belly hurts!!!!
so, one thing I can do: I can choose to put on a very relaxing meditation cd and relax on purpose instead of just waiting till I am too exhausted to fight IT any more.
ok, well, I got a river to pray...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSif77IVQdY
night ya'll
alive and at the beginning of a new day.
An update on the fight with my loved one.
He was right. I was leaning on him too heavily with my medical problems---that is what he was mad about...not the fact that I lost my dl but that my timing for telling him about was wrong. I never realized how intrusive an illness can be...it occludes the channels of normal parent child relationships.
Dear loved one, I am sorry for putting you in the role of caretaker. I promise to change.
Hey Janice, this is a good one!! I have noticed that certain foods make me feel worse, such as sugary foods, diary products, especially ice cream, but I haven't noticed any one thing that agitates my inflammatory, I guess because my muscles are always inflammed due to my polymyositis, which means "many inflammed muscles" and it causes my shoulders, neck, ankles, thigh muscles and my knees to hurt so bad. They have decreased my prednisone all the way from 60 to 5mg, so it will be interesting to see how that will work,
But I try to eat a lot fruit every chance, but I have to watch the really sweet ones, like watermelon, and bananas, But now that you have opened my eyes, I will pay attention and let you know whats going on.
And about my personal situation that I posted, just pray and ask God to give me guidance.
Thank you for sharing this---I could almost smell the bacon and coffee. My grandmother cooked bacon and eggs every day and had an electric avocado green percolator.
But the best aroma was the roasting green chili and homemade tortillas that wafted up and down the dirt road that lead from our house to our grandmothers---we just lived a few blocks from one another and Aunt Jayne lived in between.
oh no no...the best was the smell of the peanut mill at harvest time...we lived a few blocks from Borden Peanut mill...my grandfather worked there (and so did mom and grandma from time to time) and my brother and i used to take our children's encyclopedia and "read" (we didn't really know how) while mom, grandma and grandpa worked. I love the smell of roasting peanuts.
I really love how you described your grandmother---very loving and it makes me love her too.
I made an awesome coleslaw tonight: shredded cabbage, chopped apple and a teeny bit of mayo...it was really good!
Just noticed this, good recipe for bad tummies and it made me chuckle & :) that it was in my honor.....U r too funny! Cool group.....good job Jan! :) Suzie xo
janice said:
I would like to add the first post in Suzie's honor bc she had the great idea to share recipies. My recipie is for a
soothing tummy tonic
that is good for whatever ails ya:
Wash a chunk of ginger root about the size of your thumb (or more or less)
add to a full crock pot of water
add a few grains of washed brown rice
let it steep
sip it all day
if there is any left over, store in fridge, but there probably won't be, so have more ginger ready for the next batch