Dietary Decisions

I have always had a sensitive digestive system. At one point in my life, I used to consume two bottles of Pepto-Bismol every three days in order to manage uncomfortable systems. The floor of my car was littered with empty pink bottles.

I discovered through trial and error that onions were causing the problem. I tried eliminating certain foods from my diet, and when I got to onions, my stomach settled down. I now do my best to avoid them.

I still need to manage my diet carefully. It doesn’t take much to send my stomach into a frenzy.

A few months ago, I started having chronic issue again. There were days when I had to cancel planned outdoor activities because I didn’t want to stray too far from a bathroom.

I began to eliminate certain foods from my diet again, hoping that sooner or later, I would figure out what was triggering the problem.

First, I stopped eating potato chips. Chips are one of my guilty pleasures, but I know that they’re not good for me.

Next, I cut out all nuts and peanuts. Nuts can cause inflammation in the gut, so this seemed like a good strategy.

Eventually, I stopped eating most snacks, including the blue corn chips that I love.

Unfortunately, none of these changes had any impact. I was still feeling terrible. I considered taking a break from dairy, but I haven’t been able to find a substitute that works for me. I wondered whether I might need to change the filter in my water purifier; perhaps some bacteria had collected inside.

I was reaching a point of frustration, because I wasn’t sure what to try next. I fasted a few times, and despite feeling hungry, elimination of all food helped my stomach to settle down. Clearly, something I was still eating was causing the problem.

I sat down to watch television one evening and snacked on a bag of gluten-free pretzels. I switched to a gluten-free diet four years ago, and it was exciting to have a snack that I could still enjoy. When I stopped eating chips, I compensated by eating more of these pretzels.

After about five minutes later, I suddenly felt nauseous. That was it! The pretzels were bothering me. I have no idea what they put in the recipe that causes me problems, but something sure did. I stopped eating them immediately; a day later, I felt much better.

A lot of the health problems that we face come from things that we do willfully to ourselves, what we eat, what we drink, what we smoke, how much activity we undertake. We don’t realize the damage that some products do to us, because they seem benign, we have no reason to suspect otherwise. 

Many foods we eat out of habit. We eat what our families have always eaten. We go to lunch with our colleagues and order the same type of dishes. It might not dawn on us that we might be sensitive to something that doesn’t bother anyone else.

When we consciously evaluate what we eat and how it makes us feel, we can avoid or mitigate serious health problems such as obesity, allergies, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, even cancer in some instance. Everything that we consume impacts how we feel, whether we think about it or not.