Bloating Diet

I got all anxious and wound up just getting ready to go to Jan's (and mine by default) friend's 50th birthday lunch at Bellvista Tavern.  There's a lot of money going into that estate.  I went there years ago when the lake had been built and there were a the few occupied suburban streets.  It is a large community now and still swallowing up more koala country just like Pelican Waters has and continues to do.  Koala's are pretty much extinct here now - I guess the survivors are at Australia Zoo.  Brisbane's Koala population doesn't look like being saved either.  The remaining will be relocated.

Sharon's Mum has cancer in her blood but if it also turns into leukemia she will only have three months to live, in the meantime she and Sharon's Dad run a stall at the Caboolture Markets every Sunday and Sharon is part of it too doing the clothes side of it.  They are going to America early next year (again) to get stock or contacts and this time they are taking Jan for a holiday too.

The meals were brilliant but I had to compromise my latest tortuous diet.  Battered whiting and salad minus the chips with aioli is what I ordered trying to find something that would not compromise a low starch diet too much yet fit in with the lunch specials.

It seems I now have to eat a low starch diet in order to avoid wind and bloating which I've had for so many years or decades that I cannot even remember the start of it.  It started with me reading about everyone's fructose malabsorption on the Facebook group and remembering that once upon a time I was told I had a sucrose, maltose and lactose intolerance.  It was called a disaccaride intolerance at the time of testing back in the 80's.  I had also been discovering that a gluten-free diet helped a little but it certainly wasn't the whole answer.  I was always confused about the sucrose intolerance because out of every darn thing I put into my mouth table sugar is about the only thing that I can say does not cause an obvious digestive problem.  No pain.  No bloating.  No attacks.  I still love my lollies.

I have had the lactose intolerance taken care of by only eating low-lactose foods and drinking only lactose-free milk.  I have tried other milk alternatives and didn't like them but now I find out that they contain starch so that maybe why.  Well rice and soy milk do.  Almond milk would be fine if I could afford it.  I would not drink it now because I am getting enough almonds lately.  Almond flour at its horrific price is the only flour that does not contain starch because it is mainly protein.  I have been using almonds I had here and blending them into meal and making pancakes and biscuits but rationing them out.  They are a bit heavy to eat but better than nothing.  I don't get bloated either.

For the most part I have been eating meat, certain vegetables, berries, lemons, bacon, LF milk, chicken and fish.  Most fruits have starch, many vegetables including potatoes, peas and corn, all cakes and biscuits and cereals including the gluten-free alternatives.  Going without bread, rice, buckwheat (which I was using), potato, and porridge has been the hardest.  There is obviously a certain amount of starch that I have to have and will be able to tolerate.  I have been OK reintroducing a sachet of porridge or some tapioca pudding but I didn't get away with either the batter on that whiting or the aioli sauce because the day I went out for lunch I had pain and bloating.  Up until then I had not had any bloating or glue-like stools.  I guess it had been around five days of starch elimination by then.  It is really a time-consuming process because package foods are out and it means so much more cooking.  I allow myself Kantong Peanut Satay sauce so far. Peanuts are OK.  I think Coconut Cream sauces could be OK but I will probably have to make it.  Hopefully sweet and sour sauce will be OK too.  It is all to do with the thickeners used.  In fact I don't know what can be used as a thickener to make sauces that are starch-free.  Modified corn starch is just one of the many possible starchy ingredients on most packet food.

Some of the things I remember that I now need to avoid are lactose, high-starch foods (which is all the good stuff), onions of different kinds, probably garlic, sorbitol (as an additive and in fruits), pear juice, wheat, probably gluten and finally inulin.  They are putting inulin in everything these days.  It is a fibre and I first found it in a high protein whey powder.  I have a whole kg tub of this stuff that I cannot use because it gives me pain and bloating.  Inulin, is not permitted on the low FODMAP diet for IBS because it remains undigested in the bowel. I am going to have to watch out for it because I found it in my latest yoghurt purchase.  Someone recommended Black Swan Greek Breakfast Yoghurt because it is lactose-free and sugar-free yet naturally sweet so I bought some and it gives me bloating and pain. I then checked the ingredients and inulin is listed.  I just put another heaped dessertspoon in a raspberry milk smoothie and now I have doubled in size around my abdomen.  I have to throw it out. If a starch-avoiding diet helps control ankylosing spondylitis(AS) because the lack of starch leaves nothing for the bacteria that causes AS to feed on then it might help me too with joint pain.  Maybe I have that particular strain of bacteria.  Who knows, doctors don't test for enough things.

I'd like to get hold of this book talked about in the video

Back to family stuff- S is still in Brisbane.  He phoned the second night saying everything was OK but not since then.