System Flush.

[MoonCat]

Jester, that sounds a bit like the Mediterranean diet (not diet as in weight loss, just diet as in what you eat)...which is supposed to be a very healthy way of eating. I'm looking into that to try to get away from the rather heavy foods I grew up eating.

Those home fries sound really good, BTW.

[Jester]

My home fries aren't good. They're KILLER.

GK, why did you have to give up peanuts and cashews? (Which are two of the only three nuts I adtually enjoy.)

[KhirasHY]

Drink only water. I drink a lot of Gatorade, so that's tough, but I've gotten through day 2 so far.
No caffeine. Easy. I don't anyway.
No booze. Boo!
No dairy. Goodbye, cheese.
No red or fatty meats. Goodbye, bacon.
No processed foods. Goodbye salami, all condiments, all bottled salad dressings, all bread, all pasta, everything canned, including soups, and on and on.

Every time I get a cold, I hang on to the cough for weeks, even months after (I still have a tiny cough from over a month back). I'd consider trying those, except if I go sans caffeine, you will read a story about me eating someone on the side of the road for saying "Hi!" in a voice that sounded too chipper. This would only be made worse by removing cheese, which is probably my favorite thing ever. That said, I also never get racking coughs like that unless I have pneumonia, so I think I'm safe continuing to drink caffeine for now ;p

[Gravekeeper]

GK, why did you have to give up peanuts and cashews? (Which are two of the only three nuts I adtually enjoy.)

I can have them, if I want to live with the consequences. They turned out to be a bad skin irritant for me when doing the reintroduction. Peanuts, cashews and pistachios. Seeds are fine ala sunflower, pumpkin etc.

[AccountingDrone]

To sherwood -

And believe me, as a diabetic with a history of allergies I have a lot of experience with an elimination diet, though I did the extreme one, the BRAT version.

You do an elimination diet to isolate what food or condiment you are having health issues with. Many food sensitivities are very subtle especially in the age of the "natural flavor" inclusion.

BRAT is bananas, rice, applesauce/apple, toast/bread. That is it. No seasonings other than salt on the rice. It is about the most null diet there is short of nothing but white rice and water. After your original symptoms go away or reduce enough to give you a base line, you start adding foods in one food per week and noting if any symptoms return. Typically the next food added in will be eggs or milk, then soy. It is a slow and annoying process, believe me.

The issue with many foods that you don't think are causing trouble is that the entire family may be a trigger, but not what you think of as an allergic reaction - not everything causes the shits or vomiting, or trouble with the airway closing up. You asked about cashews - they are related to poison ivy, as are mangos - and the can cause reactions when eaten or even just handled. Anything that has protein chains can cause a reaction, so you can have a dietary allergy to everything except water. The nightshade family can cause arthritis like symptoms, gastric distress, and one person I know claims migraines as a result of the nightshades [which includes potatoes. You know how much convenience food contains potato starch?]

The 'natural flavor' can frequently include mushroom powder for the umami - same as MSG, just without the bad press. So I tend to avoid anything with unspecified 'natural flavor' unless I have communicated with the company and discovered what the source of the natural flavor is. Just like mushrooms and bell peppers are used to bulk out portion size in commercial foods - which I might add many people are actually allergic to bell peppers and mushrooms so should be rethought about by the food service industry.

So, your 'flush' is really just eliminating something from your diet that is a sensitivity, it isn't really flushing toxins out of anything. If you are peeing and crapping, your body is doing it just fine normally. It is when you stop peeing and crapping that you are really needing something done.

[Firecrackers Not Included]

Jester,
You're doing a good thing. What sounds to be the most of what you are doing is ridding your system of unnatural junk. YOUR BODY WILL LOVE YOU.

Do it long enough... and you will lose the cravings for that 'ol junk.
(ask my vegatarian mother)

[Jester]

Peanuts, cashews and pistachios.

And there's the third! Yep, the three nuts you can't have are the only three I really like.

Now, I don't mind nut-crusted proteins, like fish, and nuts are often in things and don't really bother me. Except walnuts. Vile, vile things. Eating walnuts, to me, is like chewing on the coffee table. Bleah.

(Ironically, I recently had candied walnuts come as part or a cheese plate, and I absolutely loved them, much to my surprise.)

BRAT is bananas, rice, applesauce/apple, toast/bread.

Ironically, the BRAT diet contains the only food that I know I'm allergic to: bananas. And I'm lucky, in that that food allergy is a very minor one, merely causing me a scratchy throat, but nothing more than that. And it's really, really minor: banana flavored stuff is fine, banana chips are fine, banana shakes are fine, even if they have bananas in them, hell, even half a banana is fine. A whole banana, however, makes for an annoying scratchy throat. And plantains, which are close cousins to bananas, don't affect me at all. And I'm certain of this, as I've eaten more than my share of plantains in a sitting. Then again, as I've never had plantains raw (the only way bananas set me off), maybe I'm wrong that there is no allergy there. Hmmm...just thought of that.

[Jester]

Jester,
You're doing a good thing. What sounds to be the most of what you are doing is ridding your system of unnatural junk. YOUR BODY WILL LOVE YOU.

I don't eat a lot of junk. Desserts are occasional things only, I don't eat fast food just about at all (at least ten years since I've eaten anything from McDonald's, for example), and other than the occasional plate of buffalo wings or a box or two of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies (the ONLY real Girl Scout Cookies!), my diet is generally rather healthy.

But as of tomorrow, I will go back to Gatorade. To beer. To rum. To wine. To salad dressings other than olive oil and lime juice. To bacon. To sandwiches with cheese, salami, and mustard. To red meat. To bacon. To Mexican and Italian food.

I love fruit. I love veggies. I love salad. I love fish. But I love, love, LOVE variety.

And bacon.