Allergic to wheat, citrus, melons, peanuts, mulberries, cruciferous vegetables, onions (although I seem fine eating small well-cooked amounts used for seasoning), and a few other items I never eat anyway. But, with IBS, I also have to be careful of the foods that irritate or trigger that condition - dairy (which I only eat in the form of cheese, anyway), sugar, wheat (on allergy list, too), caffeine (My coffee!), beans (My main source of protein), garlic & onions, sugar-free sweeteners, alcohol (My wine!), cruciferous vegetables (also on my other list), peppers, and most spices. And, I'm a vegetarian!

When I'm having an IBS flare-up on top of my allergies (as I am now), I live off of blueberries, coconut-milk yogurt, herbal tea, plain white rice, and plain baked potatoes with no topping. Such an exciting diet. And, that explains why I've lost 32 lbs in 7 months!

It also hard for me to cook just for me. My husband has a different set of issues - he is diabetic and dislikes all vegetables other than lettuce and tomatoes. He eats beef or pasta. He's been our main cook since we've been together. He used to make vegetarian pasta dishes for me - no more. He bakes potatoes for me now and washes my blueberries! We never eat the same foods.

I've been relying on meals from Daily Harvest - vegan, wheat-free, and delicious but bland for me (I always loved spicy foods) and many of their selections have broccoli or cauliflower, so those are not doable. The handful I can eat get tiresome after a while and honestly, they are not what I WANT to eat. I want my cultural food. Oddly, I feel like an immigrant in a country where the foods are unfamiliar and scary or I just don't like them. It would be so much easier to never eat again. And, since I was borderline anorexic in my youth, that brings up SO MANY other issues.

Let's just say, it's complicated.