Tomatoes, potatoes and other tummy troubles...

When I stopped eating meat almost seven years ago, I felt great!  Everything was wonderful. I gained a supreme love of all spicy foods.  Cooking wholesome meals involved lots of low-calorie vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, zucchini, eggplants and tomatillos.  My spice rack became an encyclopedia of flavours!  What wonderful food!  What wonderful combinations!

What wonderful...stomach aches???

I was first alerted to the idea that tomatoes could be the cause of my stomach problems.  I was reading a cook book and the author suggested leaving tomatoes off of picnic sandwiches until the last moment.  The reason?  The tomatoes would get together with the bread and start to ferment - immediately.  I concluded that the uncomfortable gas I was experiencing was simply due to the spaghetti sauce and spaghetti noodles getting together in my stomach and making carbon dioxide.  This is a poor excuse to give your dinner companions when the carbon dioxide makes it's entrance at your dinner table.  It is also little comfort three days later when the gas has not yet subsided.

So for a while I steered clear of tomatoes, but the stomach aches were not relieved.  Finally, on my birthday, after having a lovely, expensive meal with my fabulous husband, I could take the pain no longer.  My entire birthday was ruined due to gas, bloating and pain.

I immediately went on a hypo-allergenic diet for one week.  This diet allowed only brown rice, sweet potatoes (no relation to the good ole Idaho spud), green vegetables and pit fruit.  No other foods were permitted, but after one week I was absolutely free of stomach aches and bloating and I had lost eight pounds! (True story!)

The idea of the hypo-allergenic diet is to clear the system of all irritants and allergens, then to reintroduce potentially harmful foods one at a time to find out which ones cause problems.  "Well I better check potatoes first, because if I can't eat potatoes, I might as well die!"  I said.

So I cooked a plain potato and before I even put down my fork my stomach was a bloated, painful mess again. I wanted to die. Next on the chopping block (hahaha) were red peppers, same result.  Conclusion:  NIGHTSHADES.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightshades

Oh how adorable and innocent they look!

Nightshades all belong to the Solanaceae Family, and all contain the alkaloids Solanin, Tropanes, Nicotine and Capsaicin.  These alkaloids are all toxic in large quantities.  It appears these alkaloids cause most people no problems when ingested.  But for some of us, these plants are poisonous causing a wide range of unwanted side effects including possible liver damage.

This blog is to provide those with nightshade intolerance with recipes and ideas for cooking that don't involve the offending plants.  It is also to show off what I've been doing in the kitchen, because honestly, it might be the only thing I'm good at. 

If you hang around long enough, I might cough up my recipe for cilantro pesto.