Diet Trial PART 2

My tests came back with intolerances to yeast and egg white, so I am to avoid both for 4 weeks starting from the 15th June. The dietian said most people had difficulty with the wine – wine, what wine, well wine is fermented so has yeast, what, and beer, yes, and try to avoid all vitamin B, and of course Marmite – AAARRRGH. But it’s only for a month – I signed the form. I get the sensible information; try to eat 3 meals a day, exercise 3 times a day and for my body weight drink 2 litres of water daily.

I also get two pamphlets.
Yeast Free Diet :
No bread full stop, there is a handy recipe for soda bread and scones. No food made with bread – sausages, breadcrumbs, fishfingers. No cheese with rind, Camembert, Gruyere etc. No wine, beer, cider, lager, apparently vodka is ok? No buttermilk, soured milk or cream. No grapes, plums, or over ripe fruit. No soy sauce, Worcester sauce, pickles, vinegar, mayonnaise. What can I eat exactly? The list contains such delights as: Ryvita, Matzos, Oatcakes, rice cakes. YUM! I can feel my mouth getting dryer as I type.

How to avoid eggs :
No fresh pasta, egg noodles, egg fried rice, biscuits, shortbread, ice-cream, custard, ALL cake, nougat, chocolate containing lecithin and Horlicks. They provide a recipe for egg replacer – sounds yummy: 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, 2 tbsps flour, 3 tbsps water. I mean would anyone actually do that.
So I begin. On day one and two I am at a complete loss as to what to have for breakfast, and end up eating strawberries and cream, which whoops, having typed up this, realise I should have read the yeast one properly, and avoided the cream. Someone suggested yogurt, so day three I eat a big tub, this morning I resorted to cold curry. If I was at least a little organised I’d be making lovely healthy dishes of tuna salad dressed with lemon and oil, cooking up snacks of asparagus wrapped in pancetta. I seem to have unwittingly been thrust onto Atkins, which means the last of the baby weight has come off, all my old underwear fits as do my clothes, and I even got on the waist cincher belt I bought in a fit of pique when I was 8 months pregnant.
All this is well and good and there is, I have to say, a slight improvement on the symptoms side, but I am sceptical as I had a whole year symptom free when I lived in France, and I subsided on wine and bread and very ripe cheese.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reached for bread but resisted and this week the only rosé coloured liquid to pass my lips was one vodka based Cosmopolitan.
But it is my intention to do better. Instructed to build up to strict following on the last 2 weeks, I may slip in a pizza today then really plan some menus and be good.