GLOW

Sharing food with others is one of the most wonderful experiences, isn't it? For those of us with food intolerances or allergies, it can be a rare occurrence! About two years ago, my health problems, which I had had for a number of years, had almost completely taken over my life. I started to notice that my symptoms seemed to increase after eating certain foods. This intuition led me to do personal research, and to work with a physician and a nutritionist to start to isolate my triggers. I learned quite a bit...the only problem being that my list of triggers seemed to take up an entire college-ruled notebook page. I desperately searched online for others with similar profiles. These searches helped me find my way to some of the great food blogs out there, most notably Affairs of Living, whose author, Kim, has a daunting list of foods she must avoid as well. The only problem? Every body is its own universe, so no one has the exact same profile. Despite the enormous wealth of talented bloggers with restricted diets, I was still left feeling overwhelmed, and at a loss for how to give my body what it needed.

Two years later, after countless hours of research and experimentation, I feel that I am on the road to recovery, and feel a strong sense of obligation to help others who might find themselves in similar predicaments. What can you eat? Where can you find it? How do you prepare it? I'm still looking for the answers, but my hope is that this may be a forum where we can help each other on our respective searches, and reclaim the irreplaceable human experience of sharing our labors of love at the kitchen table.