You are what you eat.

Think about your favorite foods. I'm thinking Thai food. Cookie Dough. Any kind of pasta. Chick-fil-A! Mmmmmm. Now, imagine someone told you you could never eat those foods again.

That's what it felt like when my doctor told me I had food allergies to five of the most popular ingredients in the American diet:
1. Wheat
2. Milk
3. Eggs
4. Soy
5. Peanuts

It was a like a death sentence in the world of food. What! I can't eat wheat! No pasta. No bread. No cookies! Wheat's in everything. Ok, ok. Fine. Well, I guess I don't need to drink a glass of milk everyday, I'm not getting any taller. No, wait, milk is in butter, it's in cheese, it's in ice cream. Sigh. I can never go back to Switzerland! It would be too horrible to go there and eat no cheese and no chocolate! OOhh, but I can still go to Hungary...GOULASH! Yay! But no egg noodles. No Germany. No spaetzel. And Italy, forget it.

Okay. I'll just eat Asian food. I'm down with that. I'll just pretend I'm in Korea! That's where I came from. Maybe that kind of cuisine is what my body craves. I'll eat rice, kimchi, seaweed, soup, and meat. It's too good to be true-Not so fast! Soy sauce. I can't eat soy! It's practically in like EVERY Asian food. I LOVE ASIAN FOOD. This is no good!

I have always pretty much eaten whatever I wanted. When I'm feeling fat, I cut down on the cupcakes, but never have I actually been on a diet. And now, I'm totally on the opposite end of the spectrum. I've got to study every damn thing I put in my mouth, which means I'm hungry all the time.

I decided I would give this diet a couple months trial.

I started reading the labels on everything. What was once a routine trip to the grocery store became an afternoon activity. Pretty much every box or can I put into my hand went straight back onto the shelf. What is this "soy lethicin". It's in freaking everything. I don't care to what quantity, the labels on almost all packaged food in the grocery contains this ingredient.

By the end of the trip, my cart was merely full of fruit and veggies, rice and Rice Krispies. Bye bye cookie dough. Hello veggies.


I started shopping at Sunflower Market and Vitamin Cottage. So this is where all that organic, guten-free, alternative diet food lives. It was a whole new world. Soy-free this and milk-free that. Did you know they make cake mix that's wheat-free, milk-free, egg-free! Now that's worth $5. Ever hear of rice cheese (yuck, is disgusting), or corn pasta? Hallelujah.

After a number of bad run -in's with goat milk (ewwe), overcooked rice pasta, and wheat-free, dairy-free "Mac and Chreese," I surrendered to a diet of simple but boring rice and seaweed and an avocado for calories. It's one thing to be Vegetarian. It's a whole other story to be allergic to wheat, milk, soy, eggs, and peanuts. Unlucky.

It's ironic that within the same few weeks I started my new job working on a show for the Food network, I also discovered my food allergies. It was like the universe was trying to tell me to focus on nutrition (or lack there of) and take some time to learn what's in the food I eat.

Interestingly, a date with a true Allergist shed a whole new light on the situation. While my original blood test indicated I had five dreaded food allergies, completing a skin test revealed nothing of the sort. The food allergies...Bogus! That's right, the initial results were absolutely BOGUS. Thank God I didn't let this fiasco continue on any longer.