For the last 22 months I have been sugar-free.
That wasn’t intentional, it was an accidental by-product of the TED I went on for Zac’s FPIES.
But still. The only sugars I’ve had this whole time were the ones my body created from the potatos I eat.
When bananas became a safe food for Zac, they became a safe food for me, too! I was ecstatic!
That night I made us Banana Goat Milk Ice Cream. After the first bite, I exclaimed to Darrel “Oh my! It’s so SWEET!”
He tasted it, and shrugged his shoulders. “Not really.”
Really? “Not really?” I took another bite.
Y’all, it was so sweet it almost hurt my teeth. Seriously.
That’s when Darrel pointed out that I’ve been sugar free for so long, the natural sweetness of bananas was probably a lot stronger tasting to me than to him. (He who still eats fast food at lunch every day!)
That’s when I got a little sad.
Almost everyone in the United States today eats the SAD (Standard American Diet).
Those people may *think* they’re eating burgers, steaks, low-fat salad dressings, and deep-fried veggies, but they may as well simply sit down with a bag of sugar, a bag of bleached white flour, and a spoon and call it “dinner”.
Oh, and have a glass of canola oil as a chaser.
It’s a terrible way to eat.
The journey my family has been on these last two years has led us to the point where I can literally buy almost NOTHING from a grocery store. Not even from the “outer edges”, which is what most recommend as the first step on a “Real Food” lifestyle.
I don’t think it is out of line to say that 99.9% of the “stuff” sold in grocery stores IS NOT FOOD.
It is a “food-like substance”. Chemicals and crap designed to look and taste like food, but that actually is not food at all. (Or, at least, not the food you thought you were getting, based on the packaging. Click on the “nutritional information” link, if you dare.)
Peoples bodies are so inundated with sugar and chemicals that I’m sure most of them don’t think bananas are very sweet at all.
They’re used to far sweeter poisons entering their bodies.
I know this because I used to be one of them.
I used to eat the SAD. In fact, I could have been the poster child for the SAD! And I never thought fruit was all that sweet.
Whenever I read about recipes using applesauce as a sweetener, I would think to myself “Gee, it must really suck to be diabetic and have to watch your sugar intake so much. Applesauce isn’t sweet at all!”
Yes, I want to smack my old self now.
The truth is, real foods ARE sweet enough. They’re so sweet they can make your teeth ache…as long as you aren’t overloading on sugar by eating crap all day.
And most people cannot have the pleasure of a simple, incredibly healthy Banana Goat Milk Ice Cream because their taste buds are wrecked by Blue Bell.
That realization made me sad for everyone who eats that way. They really don’t know what they’re missing out on by not paying attention to what they consume.
Beyond being sad for the missed tastes and sweetness of foods, I also was sad because most of these people (just like me, back in my SAD days) don’t realize what the stuff they eat is DOING to their bodies.
The second day I could eat bananas again, I made banana pancakes for me and Zac at breakfast.
I had a horrible fructose reaction to the pancakes. Apparently, heating bananas releases more of the natural sugars in them, and for some FructMal people it is too much fructose to handle.
Lucky me, I’m one of them.
That whole day, I felt awful! My stomach cramped. My head ached. My thoughts were fuzzy and muddled. I was irritable and slightly angry all day. I felt like I’d been run over by a truck; my whole body was a little sore and stiff.
It was AWFUL.
The worst part of the whole day, though, was the fact that while I was feeling SO horrible, and knowing it was the bananas that did it to me…I CRAVED BANANA GOAT MILK ICE CREAM ALL.DAY.LONG.
I’m not exaggerating. I have some experience with addiction (long story) and what I went through that day was full-on, addict craving.
The way an alcoholic craves another drink or a smoker craves another cigarette. (Or the way someone post-surgery craves another Vicodin…a-hem.)
I have read about “allergy addiction” before but this was my first time experiencing it.
Regardless of what some articles claim, I wasn’t craving bananas because I knew I “couldn’t have them”. This was no “psychological trick” I was playing on myself. My brain knew bananas made me feel sick, and therefore was 100% certain that I should not eat bananas.
But my body literally itched every time I got near the freezer.
So let me state for the record from personal experience: allergy addiction is real.
And it is awful.
People who eat the SAD have NO IDEA that the run-down feeling they live with daily is a result of eating foods that are no good for their body.
They are constantly eating the foods that make them feel crappy, and so never truly experience the full effects in an acute way. The chronic “feeling bad” sensations are easily overcome with OTC medications, or simply eating more of the food that causes the problem in the first place.
Worse, some folks may think they’re craving ice cream because their bodies are telling them they need calcium, when in fact it is their body desperately trying to stave off the ill-effects of a dairy intolerance.
The problem with that is simply that if a food is bad for you, it will cause damage to your organs and internal systems over time. Irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, and probably even more serious problems can result from putting toxic foods in your body on a consistent basis.
Unless people stop eating the SAD and start taking control of what they put in their bodies, they will never solve the root problem.
They will continue to feel like dirt and worse, they’ll start going to regular doctors to obtain prescription medications that only serve to “band-aid” the problem – while causing more problems simultaneously (ever read the ‘side effects’ of a prescription pill?).
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I truly believe all people in America should go on an elimination diet for 2-4 weeks. Then they should begin adding foods back in to their diet one at a time, and pay close attention to how they feel.
If I were a betting woman, I’d put large sums of money on the fact that 90% of the people who do this will discover they have some serious food intolerances or allergies.
They’ll also probably lose a TON of weight, and stop needing to take medications.
Food is powerful stuff, y’all.
We’ve forgotten that.
Let’s try to remember.
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Have you ever had an experience like this? Please share!
