I am not picky with food, I mean I won’t say no to any good food. Sure I might not eat some dishes – anything with exotic ingredients is a no go – but generally, I enjoy and love food.

I like eating out, I like cooking. I love food. And I am lucky that I get to enjoy food the way I want to.

Until recently –

This might be a little TMI to share on the net but if this episode didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have met up with an allergist.

For the past year or so – maybe a couple of years or more – my skin had been a real problem. I get super itchy at times and my skin breaks in rashes. I thought it was the weather. Dry skin, stress, blah blah blah. But in a not so distant past or I should just say early last month, my skin got horrible. One day I was fine, the next day I wasn’t.

It started on my face – swollen and red. Then scalp got super dry and very aggravated. Then my skin. I was covered in rashes. I was miserable. I was struggling with itchiness and not scratching it.

I went to see a dermatologist, she said that it might be eczema but the fact that I never had it when I was kid almost ruled out that possibility. She suggested an allergist. She didn’t want to start treating me for any skin condition if the rashes and everything else were triggered by allergy. But she did say to stop using anything that has fragrances. And she prescribed me some strong steroid cream to calm my skin down.

That next week, I saw an allergist. I had some blood work done. We found out that I am vitamin D deficient, which could be a factor why I am itching so much. I am allergic to dust, some trees and pollen, cat and dogs – I have two dogs so that’s a bummer. It was also confirmed that I am in fact allergic to some shellfish – well the crustacean side anyway, so shrimp, lobster, crab. I am also allergic to eggs, milk, wheat, almonds, soy and peanuts.

So my allergist and I agreed that an elimination experiment on my diet is in order. Giving up my dogs was not an option, so eliminating allergens out of my diet was the way to go. Aside from shellfish, which I had stopped eating when I was in my early 20’s, all the other food allergies I have is in my diet pretty much everyday. The past three weeks had been tough. Some of the food that I like to eat and some of my favorite food in fact contains those allergens.

It has been an interesting journey. I have been reading labels ever so diligently, actively avoiding some of my favorite foods, not eating out too much, and accepting the fact that I probably won’t be able to enjoy food as much as I used to. My diet had to change drastically and I understand that I have to choose whole food now and actually have to cook my food at home.

I told Chris that I’m still deciding if knowing my allergens is a good thing or not. But the results have been amazing. Since I had stopped eating food with these allergens, my skin had recovered nicely. No more rashes, no more itchiness. And I’m pretty sure the no fragrance thing helped out a lot too. The only thing that I am having trouble now is breathing since I have environmental allergies as well. But that is another story and I have an inhaler for that.

And now a dilemma rises.

How do I go about writing about food if I can’t eat most of them?