Why at the age of 40 am I going vegetarian? It seems a bit crazy, even to me when I try to explain it to friends and family. It isn't a completely new concept for me, I tried it after my daughter was born and I was nursing, before discovering that all those migraines were related to the soy I was consuming. Growing up and spending the summers with my grandparents meant eating mostly vegetarian meals during the summer, just to deal with the fact that the garden was taking over our lives. And I was the grand kids that loved veggies. Asking me to at nasty stuff like fish or beans with pork in it was another matter, but I loved sweet potatoes, turnips and spinach even as a very young child.
A few months ago my doctor put me on a migraine medication that caused my tastes for certain food like substances to change. Anything carbonated began to taste like cleaning chemicals. So sodas were eliminated from my diet. Then I suddenly couldn't taste chocolate. You have no idea the disappointment in treating yourself to a raspberry chocolate truffle cake and biting into it and it tastes like grout. Upon eliminating the majority of the foods that most people would consider vices - my preferred sweets and sodas, I became more sensitive to my food allergies.
In my case I am allergic to soy and dairy. I was diagnosed with my dairy allergy as an infant when I couldn't keep food down and cried all the time. My family strongly believed in the "you will grow out of it" and began giving me dairy just as soon as I was off formula. The soy issue cropped up when I started school and was first introduced to soy products in my school lunches and began having migraines at the age of 6. That went undiagnosed until I was in my late 20's and they were testing my son for ADD, and it turned out to be a soy allergy. When we eliminated the soy, we also nearly eliminated my migraines.
Well here I was at not yet 40 one night and I thought I was having a heat attack. I was scared. Then it became obvious that it was the worst case of gas I had ever had. I began to have this reaction any time I had red meat. I had already been getting hives any time I consumed turkey and itching with any sort of poultry. And as a young child already established that I didn't like fish (except shellfish, which my daughter is allergic to). I don't actually seem to have this reaction to grass fed red meats, but that stuff is expensive and other forms of protein are cheaper. I can only assume that my strange reaction to meat is a result of them feeding the animals soy, a known issue for me. And after going a couple months without eating the stuff, smelling it cooking makes me feel like I need to pull out the toilet bowl cleaner. I realize that the reason it smells like feces is that feces gets it's smell from the dead blood cells, but once that smell connection was made it can not be unmade.
So there you have it. The reason I am going vegetarian is a combination of allergies and I am probably slightly crazy. I just started this particular crazy journey in October and have already lost several pounds. I finally went dairy free at the beginning of December, just before having surgery, and my face, hands and feet suddenly became much thinner. Seems they have been swollen for years because of my allergy.
With my blog I hope to share how well I am doing with my new diet. Talk about how things are changing with my body, energy levels ect.. And most importantly how I am dealing with getting meals on the table. Because with a dairy-free, soy-free vegetarian diet, there are not a lot of eating out options. I also live with a husband that says he wants to go vegetarian, but hasn't really made any strides towards it and a nearly 12 year old girl who specifically says she doesn't but hasn't made any effort to actually eat meat unless it is put in front of her (and who never ate meat until she was 3 even when it was offered to her). And the girl child is allergic to dairy and shellfish and the husband needs to avoid dairy and soy for health reasons as well.
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