So after my milk in the fish mishap and my lunch debacle yesterday I started rethinking exactly what was causing my discomfort…I was stumped. It wasn’t until Darling Hubby came home, looked at the facts of my day (that I ate an egg salad sandwich on bread with no milk and with Miracle Whip which contains no milk and had a pretty quick onset of pain) and suggested that it might be a soy allergy.
Well, duh, that makes total sense…It’s pretty much after every meal or snack with prepared ingredients that I start having pain…turns out that pretty much everything, aside from the fresh fruit/veggies and made from complete scratch stuff, contains some form of soy. It’s in the cheese crackers, it’s in my bread, my Miracle whip, my vegetable oil, my ice cream, my cream cheese, my chocolate, my candy…the list goes on! It’s actually really ridiculous just how often soy pops up in pre-packaged foods.
In looking at my daily meals, I was thinking that milk was the culprit because every time I’d have an attack, I’d have some milk product – flavored milk (ovaltine), hot chocolate, ice cream, chocolate candy, cream cheese, cheese crackers, pizza, Hamburger Helper, coleslaw…turns out that all those things have soy…Even during the last week when I’d completely sworn off milk I still had the occasional twinge of pain after eating…it was after consuming the wraps and salad dressing, the fish, and the Miracle Whip (all contain soy) that I had problems.
So, today was the first day of a soy free diet. I had a cup of Chai with honey and lime juice and a banana for breakfast. My snack was a Yoplait light yogurt (key lime) and I didn’t have any pain…My lunch was a big bowl of plain pennette pasta, my mid-afternoon snack was an apple, dinner was oatmeal with maple syrup and brown sugar (there’s really nothing left in my house that doesn’t contain soy, so my pickin’s are pretty slim!) and my evening snack was a box of apple flavored raisels and a cup of chamomile tea. Nothing…I’ve had yogurt and not a twinge. Again it makes me think we’re on to something. The weird thing is that now I’m actually hungrier more often…probably cause my stomach doesn’t hurt anymore and I’m not afraid to eat.
I’m going to have to do a lot of research to see what all contains soy and what I can substitute for it. It seems that soy isn’t as well labeled as milk, nuts and wheat allergens are and there are several names that you might not consider to be a soy product.
I’m not 100% sure that we’ve come to the right conclusion, but I’m fairly certain Darling Hubby is right. My big concern is that soy is found in everything…I’m going to be very limited in what I can eat and I hate to deprive the rest of my family of the things they enjoy eating simply because I can’t have it. Darling Hubby has already said if I’m going soy free then we are all going soy free for meals where we all sit down together, snacks are a horse of a different color. I think if this pans out and I really am sensitive or allergic that I’ll be making my own bread for me in my bread machine (everyone else can still eat the store bought bread). I might look into a hot air popcorn popper so I can have some healthy popcorn rather than the microwave/bagged stuff that I’m sure is laden with soy. We’ll probably be eating a lot more pasta. I’ll love eating more of my homemade spaghetti sauce…
As for substitutions, I’ve already found out that the margarine I’ve been using has soy…as well as the unsalted butter in my freezer. Salted butter is, oddly enough, soy free. I’m going to have to switch from the vegetable oil, which is made solely from soybean oil to olive oil, which is probably a better switch. Darling Hubby suggested we could make our own mayonnaise in addition to our own bread. Even tuna canned in water contains soybean oil. I’m still planning to do lots of fresh fruits and veggies and make my own sauces and gravies from scratch.
The whole thing is actually really overwhelming. I’m dreading going to the grocery store Saturday…I’m going to have to look at everything and probably take notes! Gah!
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