I decided that I was going to try and properly stick to a vegan diet from Monday whilst attempting to bring my blood sugar under some sort of control. By then I'd had very little animal product for a few days and thought I ought to use up the butter, cream, chocolate, eggs etc, so I made a huge chocolate/baileys brownie and force fed it to willing volunteers who needed a morale boost during an essay reading session... Yes, I had a (large-ahem) slice. Nom. I am surprised my blood sugar only went as high as 10.1 and I was delighted it had returned to normal by bed time. Maybe a few days plant based diet has already had an impact? I don't know, I'm not medical, but it seems a good indication. It's a shame my stomach complained like mad about the brownie, it was growling and upset for 24 hours afterwards.
Stomach problems can be huge in the transplant community. The medication we take is so destructive that a lot of us end up on a drug to protect the stomach lining; I take Lanzoprazole. I have wondered recently whether there is damage to my stomach as I am more easily irritated by foods if I eat too much, or if I add in something new. Over the last 2-3 years, every meal I ate ended with my stomach growling for a few hours afterwards and actually being quite uncomfortable at times. I've had issues with digestion since the transplant, which occasionally manifested itself at the most inconvenient and annoying times, but could usually be resolved by a few days of eating white bread (starch) and the gradual re-introduction of other food back into my system. That Monday discomfort reminder was enough and I have maintained a vegan diet since then.
If I am dairy/lactose intolerant that's a shame, as I have a bit of a cheese habit; one draw in my freezer will testify to this. It's just as well I only paid about ¼ of the retail price, because I bought it all from Tosca on a new customer/half price deal! To be certain whether dairy is the cause of my gestational discomfort and spiking blood sugar, I think I will put it back into my diet in a week or so and just see if my glucose levels rise and see if the same stomach problems return. I've run out of glucose strips (packs of 50 are £29 in Boots and that lasts about 8 days), so until I hunt out a cheaper set on eBay I can't actually check. Clouds and silver linings: if I am diagnosed as diabetic in August, maybe I can get these strips on prescription...
In the meantime: the hunt is on for a dairy replacement which is neither repellent, prohibitively expensive, nor akin to an alien life form. I have said so many times that I am not a fan of anything that has been engineered to the nth degree and I can't tolerate soya, so this is going to be a hard ask. I've found one company that make the brilliantly named No-Moo cheese range and they are Swiss (no shock there, then). The biggest grumble I have about this is the fact they use vegetable oil instead of olive, or coconut, but at least it is not hydrogenated. I scoured the list for 'iffy' ingredients when it arrived and was pleased to see I recognised everything by name and it seems to be made predominantly from water, oil and almond butter, all churned up into a patty that looks vaguely enough like cheese - turmeric is the spice/colourant used to achieve this. You first eat with your eyes, right?
All this said, I'm not sure about the use of carrageen (a binder extracted from seaweed), as there is some debate about whether this additive is an irritant. Ultimately, this is an experiment to see if it tastes good. If it does, can I replicate the item in my kitchen when I REALLY REALLY NEED to eat cheese? At least then I will have a product that doesn't have anything weird in it at all. Time will tell whether this concept is a delight, or a monstrosity.
