Room TemperatureFriday
Looks Like It Was the Cherry Soda After All
A diary entry from the sick bed, and the one thing I’ve decided to hold onto.
It was red.
Not a tasteful red, either. Vibrant, nearly aggressive, the brightest thing I had put in a glass in a very long time. It sat there bubbling away and catching the light, looking genuinely beautiful and also, if I’m honest with myself, looking like trouble.
I have not knowingly had food coloring in years. I cut it out of everything a long time ago and I don’t make exceptions.
But it was a chill evening. Nash and I were having a nice time. I did not want to be the woman who breaks the mood over a drink. So I asked myself the question you always ask right before you make a mistake.
Why not?
I took maybe three sips. I knew immediately.
That was last night. It is now six in the evening the following day and I’m writing this to you from bed, which is not where I had planned to spend today.
It doesn’t feel like being glutened exactly. It’s its own thing. Cramps, bloating, and the whole-body stress that arrives alongside them. But it was enough to take an entire day out of my week, and I’m writing to you anyway, partly because I said I would and partly because this is the honest version of what the week looked like.
So here’s the part I’ve been circling for a while.
I don’t always understand my stomach. There are long stretches where everything is fine. I eat well, I feel well, nothing is on fire. And then I open the door to something new, as you do, because nobody can eat the same nine things forever. Sometimes it goes beautifully. Sometimes it costs me two days.
And I still don’t know exactly what got me last night. Here’s what I do know. It was a mixed drink, and I had had every other thing in that glass before, more than once, with no trouble whatsoever. The one new element was the soda. A brand I drink regularly, in a cherry version I’d never tried.
So the suspect list is short and I still can’t close it. The dye, possibly. Something on the sweet side of that label, possibly. Two suspects, no verdict, and the only way to know for certain is to run the experiment on myself again at some point, which is a thrilling prospect.
A few weeks ago it was agave nectar. First time trying it, and I reacted terribly. I was so certain it had been the almonds I’d blended into a smoothie that I spent a good while being deeply suspicious of almonds, which as an accusation turned out to be completely unfounded.
It was the agave.
Have you ever spent weeks blaming the wrong food? Please tell me I’m not the only one.
Which is how I got my second suspect. When I read the label on that cherry soda, one ingredient made a light bulb come on. Agave inulin. It’s the one thing that brand uses to sweeten its sodas.
Very sweet things do this to me. Anything high in sucrose, if we’re being technical.
Which brings me to the frustrating part.
Every time this happens, the answer is more cutting. Find the thing, remove the thing. I have been doing this for years now and the list keeps getting longer, and there is a very particular flavor of discouragement that shows up the moment you realize you’ve found another one.
So agave is my common denominator, and it sent me to the FODMAP lists. Agave inulin is right there on the high side. I’m working through what to do with that. I don’t plan to cut every high FODMAP food. I’d rather find a middle, learn which things sit high on that list, and watch for those more closely. I’m calling it a thing rather than a diet, because I’m right at the start of it and I have a lot of reading to do. I’ll tell you how it goes.
But here’s what I worked out lying here today with nothing else to do.
I’m not only cutting. I’m also adding.
Every time something comes off the list, I go looking for what can replace it, and the looking has walked me straight into foods I would never have touched otherwise. Vegetables I’d have skipped right past in the store. Whole categories of things I’d never have bothered with, because why would I? I already knew what I liked and I fully intended to eat it forever.
From the Recipe BoxGreek Yogurt Chocolate MousseSee the Recipe →
A complicated digestive system makes life harder. But it has also made my life far less predictable, and I’ve decided to take that as a feature rather than a sentence.
You can read it two ways. You can look at a life where you’re never quite sure what tomorrow will agree with you and find it frightening. Or you can call it spontaneous, which is what it actually is, and get on with it.
On days like today, I’ll admit, the frightening reading wins for a few hours. It hurts. It’s stressful. There is nothing philosophical about any of it while you’re in the middle of it.
So I take it on the chin. I lie around as long as I need to. I burp as much as the situation demands, which is gross, and I’m telling you anyway. I take the rest that’s being forced on me instead of fighting it.
And then tomorrow I try something new again.
From the Recipe BoxDark Chocolate Molasses CrunchSee the Recipe →
It is quarter past six and I have been looking at the same corner of the ceiling since lunchtime, so I’ve had plenty of time to turn this over. What I keep landing on is hope.
I saw something online not long ago, just a post somebody had put up, saying that the most powerful force a person has after love is hope. I have no idea where it came from, but it stuck to me, because I’ve watched it hold up in my own life. I could stay down about this for a month. My whole system is thrown off, I have a brand new suspect to investigate, and not one person would blame me for being thoroughly fed up.
Hope is the one piece of this I actually get to decide.
And it isn’t only about food. Something doesn’t go the way you pictured, so you try again somewhere else. A different drink tonight. A different person to call.
One practical note before I go.
If you’re gluten intolerant and you get a nagging ache or cramping after sweet things, it might be worth reading up on agave inulin. That’s what I’m cutting next, and I’ll report back once I know more. I’m not telling you it’s your problem. I’m telling you it’s mine, that it took me an embarrassingly long time to spot, and that it never would have crossed my mind if somebody hadn’t said it out loud first.
Life keeps handing over the lemons. I have made so much lemonade at this point that frankly I’m bored of lemonade, so today we’re adding lime and calling it something else.
That’s the whole philosophy. Make a different drink.
Just not that one.
One More Thing!
What’s the one you didn’t see coming? The ingredient that turned out to be the culprit, the thing you’d never have suspected in a hundred years.
Write to me. The list of things that get missed is longer than anybody admits, and somebody out there is still looking for theirs.
Thanks for reading, and see you next Friday.
Write to me at hello@brimly.co. Past issues are archived here.
Stephnie Grace is a recipe developer, editor, and co-founder of Brimly, specializing in gluten-free, soy-free, and gum-free baking. She writes Room Temperature, a Friday letter from behind the scenes at Brimly, for anyone who is new to gluten-free and not sure where to start.
