Summer Tomato Blog

Thanks to my friend Caryn, I just found this marvelous blog/web site, called the Summer Tomato http://summertomato.com/category/basics/

The gal who runs the site writes about eating healthy foods, exercising and learning to eat seasonally and cook your own meals instead of eating out at restaurants, which are generally havens of crappy foods laden with fat, sugar, salt and thousands more calories than any one human needs to consume per day.

Those are all great things to aspire to, especially for the average guy or gal who can eat omnivorously, and not worry about having their colon explode if they consume a sunflower seed or an errant raspberry.

But for me, food is a minefield, especially all the whole grains, fruits and vegetables that are coming into season this spring and summer. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE most fruits and veggies, with the exception of okra, brussel sprouts, green beans, onions and strawberries/raspberries, (I am allergic to the latter four items) but when I eat broccoli, for example, or spinach, I have to plan to spend the next 24 hours in the bathroom, in pain, evacuating my bowels and taking percoset so that I don't scream, cry and alarm my husband and son. The same goes for oatmeal, which I adore. Eating oatmeal with dates or raisins and brown sugar is, for me, like eating a land mine. My intestines swell with gas, my colon cramps and writhes, and I am back on the toilet with explosive diarreha for what feels like an eternity. Beano or other anti-gas liquids also make me ill, as does any sort of 'lactaid' kind of pill that is meant to help one digest dairy products. They just do not work for me, and never did. The same goes for eggs, though I adore them. Recently I had the chance to eat some fresh eggs from cosseted local chickens, but I felt it wasn't worth the horrible gut pain they cause just to taste the ova of a chicken named Dosie I'd met in person.

Supplements, particularly ones that have calcium or magnesium in them also kill my gut, and constipate me so badly that I can't go to the bathroom at all, but must feel terrible urges as my colon cramps and tries to do its job, but can't. I'd love to get my Crohn's disease under control and be symptom-free, but I have no health insurance, and my gastroenterologist refuses to give me any new medications until he does a colonoscopy to see if I've got another stricture or some other inflammation in my gut. Colonoscopies cost around 2-3K, by the way, so there's no help from that quarter.

In the last couple of days I've read and watched a lecture by a scientist telling his audience how evil sugar is, especially white table sugar and the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, which is supposedly not even digested by your body, but turned by your liver into fat nearly instantaneously. Wow. Of the few foods I can digest, of course, there's regular white bread, decaf tea with sugar and corn/rice cereals that nearly always contain high fructose corn syrup, but don't contain whole grains. Unless, of course, I want to buy these whole grain rice cereals that are 'organic and all natural' and cost 6 dollars a box. Unfortunately, not only do I have a wreaked digestive system, I am also a freelance journalist who has spent the last year and a half without any assignments, and is therefore poor. I can't afford to buy expensive fruits, veggies, cereals, etc. I am also allergic to nuts, so noshing on walnuts to reap the benefits of all their omega 3s isn't going to happen. And don't get me started on how expensive fish is here in the Pacific Northwest, where it is supposed to be plentiful. The closest I get to eating the requisite amount of fish is frozen fish sticks or canned tuna. I love saltine crackers, because they're easily digested and they taste good, but I know they're not what I am supposed to be eating.

Still, I can and do attempt an apple every few days, or a pear, and my family eats chicken at least twice a week. My husband can't live without pork, particularly pork tenderloin and bacon, so I am not sure how to winnow that from my diet, and he's also a fan of red meat. We try to have a pasta dish with shrimp that my husband makes with a tomato-based sauce every couple of weeks, and we are all fans of potatoes, cooked carrots and beets. My husband and son love corn in any form, and my son and I both adore asparagus, but it has to be well cooked if I am to eat it without pain. Soymilk and soy cheese pizza are two things I can't live without, and are a regular part of my diet, though I always add black sliced olives and a bit of spinach to my soy cheese pizza for flavor. I also always use olive oil in cooking, the baked goods I make are vegan and I assume a bit healthier than the sweets I could buy in the store.

I know that I have 'portion distortion' problems, and eat too much of the foods I can eat, but since there aren't a lot of things I can consume, I would at least like the ones I do to taste good. Things that taste good to me invariably have sugar in them. I find myself watching "Dr Oz" dispense diet advice and wonder what he'd make of my portly form. I certainly would be unable to eat the foods he advises, because I'd be sick all the time if I did, and I wouldn't be able to attend exercise classes 5 days a week as I do now. But, since I am not hypertensive, not diabetic and I don't have a cholesterol problem, I wouldn't fit well with his 'truth tube' and fear-mongering over the obesity epidemic.

At any rate, I was thrilled to see Mo'nique win the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role in the movie "Precious," last Sunday. She was one of the only women in attendance who wasn't a size 2 or below. I also saw a burlesque show on Capitol Hill several weeks ago that had a larger gal and several older women who had what is commonly called "junk in their trunk" sashaying about on stage wearing pasties and tiny underpants as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it was...it was also sensual and liberating to see women comfortable in their skin and with their sexuality, though they are women of size. YOU GO, BIG GIRLZ! Woot!