A box of this, a can of that, and a stash of frozen microwave dinners are super convenient. In many ways convenience foods save time. I used to eat them and had found a few decent tasting ones. I loved me a good frozen pizza too. Mmm…but I soon learned that there were some dangers lurking below the surface for my body and health that would lead me down the road to an inconvenient food lifestyle.
Food Intolerances
First, I developed food intolerances in my mid-20s. There were several years that mealtime was a game of roulette. Would I get sick eating dinner tonight or not? After 6 months of keeping a food diary, I noticed something. Intermixed with random meals making me ill and little to no pattern, I saw that Chik-fil-a and chinese food would always get me sick. Hmm..a little google searching revealed that they both rely upon monosodium glutamate.
Monosodium glutamate or MSG for short is a salt derived from the amino glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is naturally occurring in many foods and for a while I was able to just remove the added MSG and her cousins (yeast extract, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed/autolyzed protein) from my diet and live happy and healthy for several years. Mainly meant cutting out the unhealthier convenience food and fast foods, which is better for us all anyways.
Glutamate’s Revenge
But then I started having issues again late 2018. Mouth sores, waking up in the middle of the night sweating and my heart racing like crazy for no good reason, gaining weight no matter how healthy I ate or how much I exercised. Just feeling a bit “off” all the time. My doctor recommended testing for celiac (test was negative) and after that she put me on an elimination diet to get to the root cause.
Surprise! The root cause was…drum roll….glutamate. My old nemesis again. I had apparently become more sensitive to it even in natural sources. Two of the biggest culprits revealed by the elimination diet were slow-cooked meats and gluten. Low and slow cooking releases the bound glutamic acid in meats. So hamburgers are fine, but pot roast is a no-no. Meat isn’t the problem, it’s just the way it’s cooked!
Fun fact I was not told when I first learned of my glutamate sensitivity: Gluten is composed of about 30% glutamic acid. So too much gluten and I react the same way as I do to MSG. Rarely worth it to eat these days. I much rather watch folk eat bread and cookies than be sick for days afterward. I will enjoy an occasional “splurge,” but it had better be really worth it!
The trick with glutamic acid is that I do need to eat some in minimal quantities as it is an essential neurotransmitter in our brains, but balancing the threshold is tricky. I can go over it far too easily without properly planning out my meals. So, please don’t be offended when I ask you precisely what you’re cooking and exactly how you’re cooking when you invite me over to a meal. Pretty please?
Why inconvenient food
Folk can argue how I ended up this way. Maybe it was due to the year I had to take too many antibiotics before sinus surgery that messed up my gut microflora. Or maybe it was the genetic hand I was dealt as a great aunt is also glutamate sensitive and another family member is celiac. Whatever the reason, food is the cause and food is the cure.
Modifying our crops, overly processing our foods, feeding our livestock less than natural diets, and spraying a wide variety of things on our foods isn’t helping the issue either. Did you know some farmers feed glutamic acid to their pigs on purpose? I didn’t until last year. Certainly explains all those years I suspected pork was making me sick. Our industrial food system that makes food oh so convenient is also the one producing the majority of the food that makes me ill. I knew that I had to start the journey to growing, cooking, and preparing my own food for my longevity and quality of life.
Grown your own
If I’m going to be the healthiest version of myself that I can be, I have to grow and prepare my own sustenance and teach others how to do the same. Inconvenient food may take a bit more planning ahead and time in the kitchen, but food has never tasted better. In future posts I’ll be sharing how to make inconvenient food more convenient, meal planning and prepping tips/hacks, and share any new skills we learn on our journey to grow and prepare real, traditional, homegrown food.
Before I go, I’ll leave you with this photo to reflect upon. This is not a freshly abandoned microwave dinner. I have walked past this tray for nearly 2 weeks curious to see if any wildlife or bugs would sample it. Birds (at least my chickens) LOVE corn and considering how many ants raid our kitchen compost bin you’d think this would be an easy target. So why was there not a single critter attracted to the food tray? If an ant won’t eat it, is it safe for me?
