Elimination questions

[Whoaday]

Webslave,

I have a couple of questions. In the Brostoff book, he talks about eliminating what you normally eat to find the culprit, because those are usually what we are sensitive too. I have read through much of this forum, and I have seen many times where you did and didn't eat certain things over the years. At one point you found some meds that let you eat what you wanted and you called it a breakthrough. Years later you found something else, and then now, you only stick to about 5 or 6 foods (chicken, rice, et cetera).

My question is, going along with Brostoff's thinking, wouldn't you potentially be sensitive to those foods? He says any that you eat a lot of your probably sensitive too...since you ONLY eat rice and chicken and other types like that...what's to stop that from happening to your safe food? And then, when and if it does, what can you eat then?

I do chicken and rice as a part of exclusion but is that saying that since I've had chicken before and I like it that I probably am sensitive to it? It just seems that by limiting your diet to find foods that cause a problem, they would end up causing a problem (which he even mentions.) He says large quantities of the same foods are a bad idea, but if you are limited to a few, what are you supposed to do?

What do you do, in that case?

[webslave]

The foods I eat now are ones I've tested with an elimination diet and found not to cause reactions. Some foods can become a problem if eaten too frequently, such as (for me), beef. I have reactions to all animal proteins, but only mildly to chicken, so I stick with that.

But I was able to isolate the really nasty foods quite quickly. Others, like onions, took longer to isolate. I'm now stuck with the foods that I really do not react much to, despite eating them all the time. I actually wrote to Brostoff years ago with the same question, and he didn't really have an answer, other than saying a rotation diet is advisable. I tried that but gave it up when I found I felt better sticking to the foods I know are "safe".

Life is quite tolerable on my restricted diet. My big new thing is to use a pressure cooker to prepare a soup from chicken (1 breast), carrots, potatoes, spinach, and a long list of other veges, then use a stick mixer to purée it. This provides a lot of benefits.

• A pressure cooker provides quick, low temperature cooking that retains almost all nutrients with minimal use of energy
• Puréed soups provide maximum delivery of micronutrients and aid digestion (especially good if you have IBS)
• Soup can be kept in refrigerator for many days, allowing you to eat nutritious cooked food at most meals
• Puréed soups can be an aid in weight control