Back in the days when I was in college and preparing for the future, I remember mention of such dreadful tests as the M-CAT and V-CAT which one had to pass to get into particular professional schools, so when I heard the name of L-CAT, for a moment I wondered if I was soon to apply to law school, which would be weird as I was at my doctor's office. The actual name is Alcat and it is a blood test for food sensitivity, or so I've heard from several people who have taken it. I dragged my feet and hemmed and hawed and did everything to avoid the eventuality, but finally (10 years!) I took the plunge, at worst it would just be another dead end but I was sick of being sick.
As I feared, it came back with a list of foods that my gut and immune system apparently don't like. I'd cut a lot of stuff out of my diet, thinking them the worst offenders in making me physically achy, tired, and ill. It was quite a shock when the worst offender turned out to be wheat and I had pretty much been living on wheat based carbs for the last few years and one item on my 'do not eat ever' list came back as 'okay.' I know other people who had had good luck with the test and felt much better after altering their diets, so I decided to do the same. I've been off wheat for a month now and have felt great, not 100% but probably 85% better. It isn't a perfect system, certainly or a cure, but it makes life livable again. I was pretty skeptical at first, but for me, this test actually made a huge difference.
In my professional life I've dealt with diet related skin issues in dogs, and one 'test' is to put the hound on a hypoallergenic diet for six weeks and then slowly introduce single ingredients back into the diet, and when a certain ingredient starts causing problems, you know what the dog is sensitive to and avoid it thereafter. I accidentally did that to myself yesterday. I found the candy dish at work and found my favorite candy bar, which I had not had since my dietary experimentations began, forgetting that this particular piece of candy was a chocolate covered cookie, yep, wheat, oops! And within a few hours all my symptoms came back with a vengeance. So I guess I should publish a case study or something, but for even more corroborating evidence, I tried another experiment. Beef was the mysterious ingredient I had avoided for so long, so for the first time in years, I ate meatballs (made with rolled oats instead of bread crumbs) and they were wonderful and, as the test predicted, didn't upset my stomach like I thought they had for so long. Less bread, more steak I guess!
I still love wheat, even if my gut doesn't, I'm an avid bread baker and my family eats flour by the five pound bag, but I also feel good enough now that I want to cook and experiment in the kitchen, before I never had the energy. So this has been a challenge, and a good one, it's like learning to cook all over again. I can have oats, I'm not gluten sensitive, but to something else in wheat, so if there's a trace of gluten in something that's okay. I put oatmeal in the blender and make oat flour and can use that in cake recipes, pancakes, muffins, and even soufflé's, but the couple attempts I've tried at yeast breads have been a disaster, but I can live without them, at least now that I've found a substitute for pizza crust (eggs and cheese!). And it's a great excuse to make lots of special K bars (scotcharoos).
The hardest part of all this is eating outside the home. At home I can control what I eat, but I live in a culture that is very socially food based. You go to restaurants with your friends, people invite you over for food, there are potlucks and church suppers and pancake feed fundraisers everywhere, and even when I go somewhere professionally, after a long morning working cattle, often you get invited in for lunch. I had a hard enough time prior to this, being afraid of most vegetables, so I would often unwittingly offend an eager hostess by not taking three helpings of cucumbers in white sauce and a large piece of pumpkin pie afterwards. You read that right, many of these dear ladies expect you to eat three or four large servings of everything or they feel insulted! Now I need to tell them I can't eat wheat? Maybe if I take a good serving of beef roast they won't notice I didn't eat the bread? Someone should write a book on the social aspects of peculiar diets!
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