November is, for so many, the month of ramping up for all the holiday food… unless you can’t. Have you ever heard of FODMAPs? I hadn’t until a few years ago. FODMAPS are to do with Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Monosaccharides And Polyols, which are, if you didn’t groove on food sciences in college, short chain carbohydrates found in common foods which resist digestion in the small intestine. Basically, eating things like certain fruits, onions and garlic, certain grains, etc., caused the food to sit… rot… which can cause eight hour stomachaches. All you have to do to avoid that pain is watch what you eat. The lactose intolerant, celiacs, people with IBS from various other sources – all of them know how easy that is. Please note my sarcasm.
FODMAPs are a literal pain, but I’m grateful for the myriad people who have had dietary restrictions before me – the kids I knew who were born with kinease allergies, the students I had on all-protein epilepsy diets, the diabetics counting carbohydrates, and the dialysis patients avoiding salt, phosphorus, and potassium. Dear ones, I watch, and I see you still enjoy you food, still find flavor and joy without gluten, see you enjoy the clatter of pots and more with less — less salt, less sugar, less of what I thought I absolutely had to have to be happy. This is not a small thing.
So, thanks for that.
may it be abundant
not less –
no workaround
nor wan substitution
but packed tight and bubbling over –
your life.
Oh, Dear One. I feel you with the FODMAPs. Healing my gut from medication-induced lymphocytic colitis required a gluten-free dairy-free FODMAP year…except I couldn’t eat leafy greens, so that complicated things. Chicken and rice were my friends. I am better now, but I don’t take a single bite for granted. Here’s to abundance, in whatever form we can find it.