Allergies, vegan, paleo etc?
Mushrooms are disgusting. Keep that fungus away from my plate.
Beyond that and a few unusual organs/bugs, I’ll eat pretty much anything.
I’m on a all animal products diet for gut and health reasons. I started doing keto for hypertension, once that cleared up I found full carnivore much easier to maintain. The benefits to my health have been pretty amazing. If I cheat, or go off the food plan, I feel it pretty quickly.
If I eat something with sugar now, I can feel my heart rate increase. If I eat some plant products, I can feel my gut bloating.
It does make eating out a little tricky, but most restaurants have a good option on the menu (poached eggs, grilled chicken, etc)
I can’t have too much salt because I have Menieres disease. It’s a degenerative inner ear problem which means too much salt makes me dizzy, more salt makes my inner ear swell, that leads to feeling like there’s something in my ear and vertigo.
I’m one of the “lucky” ones. I can control it with diet (at least so far) but, other people can’t. That means they live in constant fear of a vertigo attack or even what they call “drop attacks” which makes you feel like you’re pinned to the ground. Often there’s no warning before they hit.
i have some kind of dairy intolerance (untested, lactase only partially alleviates symptoms), threw up eggs recently and now want nothing to do with them, think gelatin and honey are just gross, and am too cheap/worried about contamination to buy meat and fish
all of this adds up to me being basically some kind of mostly vegan but i can’t take ethical credit for it lol
Can’t eat lava because it isn’t food.
you could eat lava once
You can try
Gluten free. It’s not confirmed fully, but I probably have Celiac as one of my parents does and a DNA test said I was a carrier of at least one known mutation. In Japan, there’s not treatment so getting it fully verified would involve adding gluten back to the diet for weeks, being miserable, and getting nothing but higher life insurance premiums. I miss good bread.
I also don’t drink much dairy as it upsets my stomach in large doses. Cheese is mostly fine (at least for ones without a ton of lactose). I pay for, but still sometimes eat, ice cream on occasion.
Other than that, I try to avoid most processed things. Not 100%, but a lot of what I eat is single-ingredient or homemade.
I’m also celiac but in the US. How easy it to eat gluten free in Japan? I’ve considered visiting a few times but eating there has always been a concern.
Most soy sauce contains gluten and almost everything contains soy sauce. So, it’s actually somewhat difficult if that tiny amount causes issues. The good news, though, is that food labeling laws are pretty good for stuff you buy yourself, so looking for 小麦 on labels to avoid them works. A lot of people do struggle, though. Most of the Japan-focused subreddits never moved over here, but they do contain threads about the topic as well if you search.
40% or more of my daily calorie intake within an hour of waking up in the morning.
Crikey that’s a big percentage, must fill you up for the day though. How hard is it?
I don’t know any other way to live.
Ah I see
Low sodium diet for my heart - which is shockingly hard to do. In the US at least, it seems like everything has added salt. It’s absurd how much salt is in a can of beans or soup. I do my best to stay away from premade or processed food.
The saddest thing is that I don’t salt my meals when I cook, at least not really. I love to cook but that really hampers the taste in many many things.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/salt-guide#medical-conditions
There is interesting published research on the benefits of salt. Salt isn’t the hypertension boogyman it’s been built up to be, the real hypertension culprit is the sugar and carbohydrates.
Yep it’s hard. I cook from scratch and avoid salt… I try to compensate with heavy flavours like curry spices, oregano etc. You get used to it
I’m veggie because it’s so much healthier, cheaper and kind to animals. It’s not hard to stick to, and I’ve no regrets
I don’t eat sugar. Well, I guess it’s almost impossible to avoid all sugar completely but I don’t eat sweets, pastries, jam or any kinds of food with high sugar content. I don’t add sugar to any food I make and I always go for the product options with no added sugar if available.
Once you wean yourself off sugar it’s actually not that hard to stay away from it, it’s funny how that works. I have such low sugar tolerance now that eating candy makes me basically feel ill.
I try and avoid sugar which is hard cos I love it, I’m down to 3 small things of chocolate per week. My tolerance is deffo down, if I eat chocolate that day I can’t stomach any more sugar the entire day
Mostly vegetarian, but fish once a week and sometimes can’t say no to a good steak. Besides that no added sugar or generally no HPF. Favorite sweet is date with strawberry-powder. Well one could consider that processed but shut up 😁
I have celiac - so no gluten for me. Animal products don’t make me feel great, so I mostly don’t eat those. Sometimes soy is bothersome, so if I can, I avoid that too.
starting to see chickpea, pumpkin seed, etc. “tofu” popping up in stores and am excited for my friends who can’t have soy but would still like to have crispy protein cubes
I love the alternative tofus popping up! I’m eating pumfu right now 😄
IBS-M here. I’m intolerant to 4 out of the 6 FODMAP groups, alcohol, fatty foods and gluten are also not well tolerated by my gut. It’s pretty frustrating, I can’t eat most fruit and all alliums. I can’t go vegetarian/vegan either, so I have to adapt a lot and eat pretty much the same 4 things cooked differently. I take probiotics daily to mitigate the symptoms, but it definitely takes a toll. The easiest one to deal with is lactose, because of lactase, but the rest is pretty much no go, or I have to endure days of pain and mood problems.
I have no strict lines I draw, but generally I lean towards eating low amounts of beef and cold cuts, for both climate and health reasons.
My philosophy is broadly one of harm reduction, where I don’t necessarily cut anything fully out, but try to choose options that are better for my health and the environment when possible. This basically translates to leaning towards high-protein legume based alternatives as staples - the lunch I eat most frequently is falafel in pita with a variety of vegetables, sauces and hummus: all vegan and pretty respectable with regards to protein - and choosing chicken when I eat meat over other types of meat.
Have you tried hummus grated carrot and sultana wraps? Winning combo.
I have not, but I generally eat out for lunch and don’t do the primary cooking at home, so it might be a while before I get a good chance to try.
In fact, the thing I cook the most is microwaved oatmeal, which I flavour with banana milkshake whey and some milk. Not a particularly culinarily sophisticated meal, but healthy and in the very least vegetarian.
vegan
also found out relatively recently (~7 years ago) that i’m mildly allergic to coconut, i thought the itchy mouth after eating it was normal lol
oh, and a wine allergy, it just gives me a headache very soon after drinking anysulfates are the usual cause of wine headaches, it may be worth looking into de-sulfated wine if you otherwise enjoy it
