Thursday, August 29, 2013

feeling much better -- on a diet aimed at lower histamine

Whew -- although i'm awake and it's the middle of the night, i'm feeling MUUUUUCH better.  The DOH reports mold and ragweed readings still in the "high" range but grass pollen has dropped down to "moderate."  For the most part, i've been trying to eat a lower histamine/tyramine diet, but i've made a few additions -- and i even got a little accidental mold contact in the house in the last 12 hours!

Part of the improvement MAY be attributable to a short fasting period i enjoyed yesterday -- on Tuesday evening we ate a whole duck between us (cooked in a "new" and wonderful way as described in Dana Carpender's "Five Hundred Paleo Recipes" "Unsightly but Delicious Duck")....  Well, eat half a duckling, and you're not going to be hungry again for quite some time!  I drank mostly black coffee until Wednesday dinner, at which time i couldn't even finish my (admittedly huge) ribeye steak ... though i polished off my share of the swiss chard with asian spices that J prepared to go with it.  With this i allowed myself about eight or nine ounces of petite syrah ... oh, and twice during the afternoon (when i started to feel hunger again) i had a small square of the egg-cheese-jalapeno preparation that's on my recipe page.  Yum.

I started working on the next house-rehab project -- the downstairs powder room where the wallpaper started to fail.  That's where i found the mold, behind the toilet (which is under the window).  Some of the previous owners' rehabs have been very poorly done, and every time i pull down old wallpaper i find things that make me roll my eyes in disbelief.  Friends, if you have to make repairs to old plaster walls, do yourself a favor and put a layer a primer between it and your new wallpaper....  I'm surprised my sinuses didn't start screaming at me, working in that tiny airless room, up-close-and-personal with mildew ... or whatever it was.

***

Got back to sleep around 5:30 and got a few more hours -- and i still feel very good!  :-)  I guess my next experimental move will be to [gasp] go outdoors for a little while.  We'll see if the summer heat (which finally arrived) makes me feel crummy again.

My husband, though, says he now feels symptoms of a chest-cold and has for a couple of days -- dating to when we got the new vacuum cleaner and air filter.  Although our rugs and therefore the air we breathe are much cleaner now, there's no doubt i stirred up some almost-literal "old shit" (the stuff that Spense scratched off himself, which then got trodden into the carpets).  This may be an indication that he's catching something i just got over.  Bear in mind that J almost NEVER gets sick -- he's got the most robust body i've ever heard of, even compared to my mother's 90 years of generally good health!  Back in the days he was smoking, he was always able to blow the lung-testing machine to the top of its scale, whereas i (nonsmoker) barely got it into the "normal" range.  I'm grateful he's learned tolerance of my wimpiness!

Today's pollen and mold have been reported -- mold and grass pollen have both moderated and only ragweed is still high.  Quality of life continues to improve.  ;-)

Doing a last proofread while sitting down for awhile -- just got finished making more mayo and oopsie rolls, and clarifying the duck fat i saved the other day.  Also reclarified the last tallow i saved, but alas it's developed a little rancid smell -- this will get saved in the "ordinary tallow" bag for use in my new betty lamp, or making candles.  Damn.

8 comments:

  1. Congrats on getting better. My allergies usually take time to go gradually away. I hope I don't sound like a nag who wants to deny people a pleasure, but anty-allergy diet also includes avoiding spices, but on another hand, spices are useful when a flu or a cold has to be treated. It is my ethnic point of view, not required to be shared by whole world.

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    1. thanks, Galina! most of the food i ate while feeling crummy was pretty simple and plain -- that's what sounded good! grilled steak with just salt and pepper, black coffee, roast chicken and duck, panfried eggs or burgers with (again) just salt and pepper.... J's asian-seasoning chard was the spiciest thing i had for a week. :-)

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    2. Duck sounds particularly delicious, it is a shame they manage to produce mostly lean ducklings now. How long did you cook yours? I usually use oven, but I think it is the time for me to make it pan-cooked.

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    3. The directions said to score the fat oll over the bird, then roast at 300 F for four hours, turning after each hour and pricking the fat well each time. The skin turned out beautifully crispy and the meat moist and tender, and not greasy. It was delightful!

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  2. Duck sounds amazing!

    are you taking quercetin as well as doing the low histamine/tyramine diet?

    I started quercetin at the same time as the diet and am astonished by how much I am clearing out. LOL my sense of smell even came back

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    1. i tried quercetin years ago and never found that it benefitted me, so when the original bottle ran out i never got more.

      the biggest problem with duck, of course, is the same as with all poultry and pork raised commercially -- they start out storing more of their fat as omega sixes, and corn/soy feed just makes the ratio worse. i eat duck and goose much more seldom than i would if i raised my own. in chicken and turkey, i like to buy the leanest bits and then cook/serve them with good fats. :-)

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  3. It is true, a duck fat from commercially raised ducks is not particularly healthy. It is still amazingly tasty.

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