So I've been doing the wheat-free thing for several days now.

I haven't really noticed any major changes in the wheat vs. non-wheat by *itself*, but I have lost some accumulated holiday poundage and tumnmy bloat from not automatically reaching for morning toast, midday crackers, evening cookies, etc.

The attention I've been paying to my diet has definitely paid off though. After a meal of pork with a sauce of figs and carmelized onions I had a sudden resurgence of Angry Bunghole aka "Burning Ring of Fire". My head itched like CRAZY too. I could not stop scratching it, it was like I had
poison oak all over my scalp. Intolerable. But thinking back, when I had chicken pox at age 30, that appeared on my scalp first too. So it's not too crazy an idea.

No more onions after that. My bum's been slowly recovering, and my head doesn't itch any more. Overall, rashiness is subsiding.

I think, rather than any wheat or dairy or whatever allergy, that I just have sensitive skin *all over* my body, inside and out, and anything that tends to generally be an irritant to my outside, sets my insides aflame too.

The list so far includes citrus and other acidic fruits, coffee, hot peppers, and now onions and garlic. It makes sense. I wouldn't rub any of those foods on my face without expecting stinging or watering eyes or rashiness, why should I expect to ingest them without effect?

I'm not certain about any of this yet, but that's my hunch so far. I'll test it out more thoroughly in the weeks to come. In the meantime, I gave away all my onions and garlic on Freecycle. Leeks, I forgot the leeks. Dang. I LOVE leeks.

The other big factor that makes me suspect onion-ish things is Massive Onion Odor. If a normal person eats some onions or garlic, they stink for a few hours. If I eat onions or garlic, every pore of my being and every drop of bodily fluid reeks *profusely* for at least 2-3 days afterwards. Dan teases me about it frequently. That just doesn't seem normal, at lest it clues me in that I might not be too far off-case in thinking that I have a sensitivity of some sort. Not that I WANT one, let's just get that clear right now.

A random link I followed online clued me in that extra-virgin olive oil might be a problem for me too. Someone was talking about how both onions and EV olive oil cause them to rash out. Well, I always get EV olive oil, the greener and more pungent the better, because of the supposed health benefits, right? Although sometimes it can be definitely "spicy".

An olive oil expert says:
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Spiciness "...comes from the polyphenols in the oil, present at higher levels when the oil is fresh. They're the healthful antioxidants in olive oil, and they also keep the oil form oxidizing and becoming rancid.

In offical olive oil tasting parlance, this 'flavor' is called pungency. I say 'flavor' because it is actually a chemical irritant, similar to the capsascin burn of chiles. While pungency is desirable, it must be balanced with fruitiness and bitterness, the other two of the big three in olive oil
organoleptics.

Since neither 'pungent' nor 'chemical irritant' resonate as marketing concepts, we often resort the euphemism 'peppery.'"
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Interesting! So I think I've basically been irritating the hell out of my system for many years now, thinking that I'm eating healthy. I mean, it IS healthy food, just maybe too irritating for me.

Huh. More research is needed, as all good research articles say at the close.

I'm digging wheat-free primarily because it's totally gotten me out of my food rut and back into Cooking as Adventure again.

Quinoa Sour Cream Fudge Cupcakes...my project with Julian last night after he resolutely refused to sleep.

They taste a *leetle* bit weird, but still chocolatey and tasty.

And tomorrow I'm making Injera, those Ethiopian pancakes made of teff, the World's Smallest Grain. Pretty easy, you just toss it in a bowl with warm water and let it ferment for a day or two, then pour it on a griddle and cook it. Yum. I love injera. I hope it turns out.