I’m sitting here this morning, going what? what? what did I eat yesterday that has my face so puffy this morning and my body feeling a bit inflamed?
I wracked my brain (well, for about 47 seconds). Couldn’t think of anything. Also couldn’t remember what I ate except that bowl of steaming chipped beef in nama shoya (get yourself some) around 1:30 a.m. last night.
Then — just now, of FB — I saw an ad for a dog-health product and something in the ad triggered a thought; my mind said: pierogies (wheat, pasta). And cream, dairy in the sauce. And a bit of a curry packet (who knows what’s in there) also in the sauce?
But I don’t really know. Is it one thing? Is it the combination? Is it the amount? Is it something else I ate altogether?
It’s so distinct, though, this next-day feeling. Sluggish morning. A face that looks like someone injected an extra 20 perfect of fluids into it overnight. Hand inflamed and my body a bit stiff overall.
Yet there are so many potential causes.
I know I harp on this point here and there. And I know there are elimination diets and such to try to pinpoint a transgressive ingredient, or two, or ten or 20.
But isn’t that the thing? That many foods cause inflammation. And little hidden ingredients in sauces and such may too. And maybe it’s not one ingredient, but a combination of ingredients.
As much as I mostly-kinda-sorta eat “close to the Earth” and consume lots of fresh ingredients and mostly I-cut-it-I-prepared-it foods, there’s those things like salad dressings and curry cubes and Duke’s Bold & Creamy Habanero Garlic mayonnaise (my latest oo-la-la in ingredient when whipping up a bite) that just make cooking and eating and life so much easier and more enjoyable.
And then there’s the little fact that I don’t eat a few meals a day as much as I nibble and nosh as I please: a bunch of salted watermelon cubes,;some crème fraîche with sunflower butter and an diced apple; rice and kale and onions and beef sautéed up real quick with some shoya and brown rice vinegar; a truffle (LMC is the best!); some peach shrub and ACV; a plate of sweet potato tots crisped up in my convection oven.
Et cet errrrrr ah!
On puffy mornings when I try to analyze my food intake from the day prior, the list of potential assaults is long. Was it the binding agent in the sunflower butter, or maybe something in the tater tots?
But then I’ve wondered and said to myself: “What if one of the offending ingredients were one of my faves, such as my beloved vinegars? Or the how-did-I-ever-live-without-it-before vanilla-flavored crème fraîche?
Would I not eat them if they were The Offenders?
Argh. Guess I’m mostly just noticing and wishing it all were easier …
My symptoms are mild. The annoyance, overcome-able. The indication that inflammation is happening, there. The question, still open.
