Pretty much everything available to eat fits in one of three categories:
- Food that will cause me pain, or is otherwise no good for me
- Food that is produced in such a way it causes suffering and misery, or negatively impacts the environment
- Food I really just don't like - as in, I find the taste or texture entirely unpleasant.
That's it - that's what I'm eating these days. Things that hurt my body, things that hurt my soul or things that make me gag.
I sit down for a meal knowing that if I actually enjoy it, I'll pay for it later. Or I'll spend the entire time I'm eating it feeling like I'm committing some sort of betrayal I need to apologise or atone for in some way. Sometimes both. Actually, often both.
If I could find a small group of foods that provided the nourishment a human body needs without hurting anyone, and be palatable for a long period of time, I could just feed myself like some people feed their cats - put the same food in front of myself day after day and feel confident that even though it's not enjoyable, it's at least doing the job.
I have IBS, which means my gut reacts strongly to foods that humans struggle to process. Apparently my intestines are kicking me for eating things that give other people mild discomfort. One of the main ways to control IBS is to find your trigger foods and just eat fewer of them. So slowly but surely I'm eating less and less food that's tasty and nutritious. Eating too many of the wrong kinds of vegetables can see me floored with abdominal pains for most of the next day.
It feels like a zero sum game.
At least, that's what I've been told most recently, that I have IBS. I was also once told I couldn't possibly have IBS because it's not a real thing, and I must have functional dyspepsia. That doctor, I'm reasonably sure, told me that because I had suggested IBS as a possibility after reading about it in a magazine (so of course it must be anything but that - can't have patients diagnosing themselves, now, can we?).
I found out a few years later that "functional" basically means you don't have a reason for it, just symptoms. Which, to my mind, sounds a little bit like throwing your hands up in the air and saying "well, I dunno - it's probably all in your head."
But I read just recently that IBS is a "functional" condition as well. And this article that I read also pointed out that "functional" means the problem is with the way something functions - like a malfunctioning piece of firmware rather than a damaged piece of hardware.
All of which is making me wonder whether I've got the wrong end of the stick, when it comes to trying to avoid pain. Maybe I should just eat the "delicious and nutritious" food that's good fuel for the machine and doesn't make me miserable, and then find a way to simply disguise/squash/shut up my stomach when it complains, rather than trying to avoid upsetting it in the first place.
Of course, I'll probably try this technique and then find out that I've actually got some sort of hideous auto-immune condition that I should have been treating this whole time, instead of covering up my symptoms and hoping they go away.
But I've got to do something. Food has become thoroughly depressing and I'm beginning to dread it.
