Love a Mystery? (Nah, me neither)

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, my body recently decided that, as it plummets into middle age, it would be fun to develop a food allergy. For almost two years now I have been scratching my head over the specific ingredient (or combination) that might be causing me to get sick. It often seems to be a baked good that causes a reaction, so I've learned to be wary of anything that appears to contain lots of ingredients. If it's a packaged muffin that contains lots of artificial ingredients and has not been touched by human hands, I seem to be fine. However, if it's made from scratch and contains ingredients actually found in nature, I might be in trouble.

Yesterday I took the kid to a street festival downtown and she wanted a cookie, so I bought one for her. She took one bite, realized it was a "healthy" cookie, and spat out the bits still in her mouth (onto my plate, which I appreciated oh so much). Not wanting it to go to waste, I took a bite myself. Now, I've learned not just to plow into stuff willy-nilly. I take a bite and wait to see what happens. The first bite seemed okay so I took another. I felt the familiar burning on my tongue and immediate abandoned the cookie. It took two plastic cups of white wine to numb my tongue sufficiently. The good news is that the cookie had a label.

Here is the list of ingredients from the cookie-from-hell:
  • organic whole wheat pastry flour
  • organic oats
  • heath bits
  • organic sucanat (suca what?)
  • soy grits (kiss my!)
  • turbinado sugar (I think that's made up)
  • organic soy nuts
  • soy protein
  • flax seed
  • salt
  • baking soda
  • baking powder
I think it is the wheat, as I've also gotten sick from wheat pasta and other products containing wheat. However, I can eat wheat bread just fine. Maybe the wheat flour in most commercial breads has been processed half to death and that's why I don't react to it? What say ye, armchair diagnosticians?

Whatever the case, I do feel like I am getting closer. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pack for the state fair, where I'll be eating sugar-coated deep-fried sugar on a stick (or something pretty close to it).