Consolidation The not so very secret diary of Atropos, 11 &1/2

[Atropos]

Possibly TMI below... skip if you aren't feeling lavatorial!









... I don't know about anyone else, but my Alimentary Canal seems to love Dukan as much as I do!

After a settling in period where the occasional dose of senacot was needed, I seem to have developed a 10am daily routine - with (and I'm sorry about the next bit) - "perfect poos".

Number 4 on the Bristol Scale, everytime - the sort of poos medical types coo over.

For the first month of conso the change in diet seemed to change all that - but, once again, it's all settled down.

After almost a year of (admittedly mild) IBS - I feel like hanging the flags out.

 

[Poppy03]

That is too funny I must say that being on this diet has improved my digestive system no end. I have not suffered with any constipation or loose stools and my tummy has not hurt once either. Before I was described as IBS and my GP is doing a blood test for coelic (even though I know I don't have that).

This gives me hope that mine may continue too.

 

[Atropos]

That is too funny I must say that being on this diet has improved my digestive system no end. ... Before I was described as IBS and my GP is doing a blood test for coelic (even though I know I don't have that).
.

I am conscious that more and more people are reporting IBS/Coeliac* like symptoms - that aren't actually coeliacs (look at all the ads for things like Activia and Dulco-ease etc) -

My own suspicion is the Chorleywood bread process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - since for decades we've been eating our bread only "half-cooked".

I started in conso eating normal wholemeal bread, but I've swapped to rye crisp bread in the last 2 weeks (I love the crunch!).

*On the other hand - my poor mum had to go through almost 15 years of getting the brush off from GPs and developed oestroporosis before anyone thought to check for Coeliac - and lo, and behold!

 

[Poppy03]

I think the same way about bread. Just before getting really ill last year I had started baking my own bread and doing the sour dough bread also. Once I am onto conso I intend to bake all my own bread again and hopefully I will be able to tolerate wheat this time. Because of the stupid thyroid issue I have it has caused me to have things like deficient vit D which also will have a bearing on your bones and digestion and just today I saw an article on breast cancer and vit D.

It makes me crazy because I am such a healthy eater, cooking from scratch, grow 80% of our fruit and vegetables and I still get ill! Has your mum recovered now? I have to go for a bone scan soon due to all my problems, I pray that everything is ok and not the start of oestroporosi.

 

[Atropos]

I think the same way about bread. Just before getting really ill last year I had started baking my own bread and doing the sour dough bread also. Once I am onto conso I intend to bake all my own bread again and hopefully I will be able to tolerate wheat this time.

I haven't dared bake since starting conso - like you I was making sour dough last year. But next week I have access to an aga and a family reunion of up 7 bread eaters (+ 1 coeliac and 2 dukaneers) so I might get the flour bin out of hiding.

Sounds as if our past 12 months have been pretty similar - I lost count of the times blood was siphoned off to be searched for what ever it was that was making me feel so sick and bloated and fuzzy headed. Not coeliacs, not anaemia, thyroid ok, hormones - well, not ok, but not worse - not PCOS, not rheumatism, not haemochromatosis, not endometriosis, not diabetes...

I read the first article on Dukan in a hospital waiting room, could see how the science behind it might work - and convinced myself to try it 3 days later. I bought the smallest possible bag of oatbran, and imagined I would use the rest in baking long after I'd given up.

The rest is history - it's been like rolling a spool of film back, 15 years, to find a version of me as I was before my first hospital stay - rising like Aphrodite from a sea of lard.

I still don't know what is (or isn't) going wonky inside - but it's so much easier to cope with, whatever it is, with 34lbs less to carry around on my arse and tum

- oh, and perfect poos to cheer me up every morning!

 

[Topaz63]

Atropos, I'm interested in what you say about the Chorleywood process. My mother, now in her 90s, said in the 1950s that research had shown it to be a flawed process, unhealthy and reducing the nutritional quality of the product. She always baked bread using the Grant Loaf method for us as a family. She is now bemused by the amount of coeliac and other problems stemming partly she believes from the very strong flours used in almost everything plus the range of additives from soil prep to growing to processing of wheat. Must say I find it hard now to disagree with her, and tend to hunt down better produced food, organic or just well managed, where I can. It's not necessarily more expensive either-I pay less for eggs in my local farmers Market than in Tescos, and in a farm shop don't get the temptation of bogof etc so spend less and waste less.

 

[Atropos]

Grant bread is awesome - it makes wonderful toast; I used to make it when I was a student, in a bedsit. (My bf once drank my yeast mix by mistake - explosive results!)

Have you tried the Jim Lahey "no knead" method?

I remember the bakers strike in the 70s, when Chorleywood bread disappeared and the old local bakeries had to ration their loaves - long queues.

The adults around me were astounded by how good the real bread was - (and as children of the rationing and bad bread of 40s perhaps they had no memories of good bread to fall back on)

My dad hasn't eaten Chorleywood bread to this day.

 

[Poppy03]

Wheat was one of the reasons I choose this diet. All other diet plans want you to eat wholewheat, lots of it, but I can't. It has been better since they finally got my thyroid meds right so I am hoping I may be able to tolerate afterwards.

What is grant bread? Like sour dough? I get fresh yeast now from my bakery and I did order some from online, French I think it is, and that was really lovely. I remember the bakers strikes of the 70's, along with the oil strikes, petrol strikes. When I tell my older girls about it they laugh at me, but I remember sugar being rationed and having to sneak in and buy a packet because my mother needed two

 

[Atropos]

The Grant loaf was invented by mistake during ww2, by food campaigner Doris Grant:
Grant loaf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's very easy to make (just mix and pour) and the result is dense and a bit cake-y. But delicious.

 

[Topaz63]

I've not tried the Jim Lahey one, no. But the original grant loaf was no knead and that's the one my mother used. You put in more water of course and let it rise in a big bowl then knock it back with a wooden spoon and pour into loaf tins. Actually I must check the detail with my ma, as she carried the full recipe in her head. I always used the other Grant loaf, with one kneading.

 

[Atropos]

Topaz - your mum's version is the one I used to use. I think I got it from the Crank's cookbook (Now there's a blast from the past - hand-knitted veggie quiche and macrame buns)

The Lahey method is a revelation - it comes out of the oven singing as the crust crackles - a crisp gold crust, and open chewy crumb, full of holes, like the very best artisan loaf you sort of remember from some stone beehive oven on a greek island somewhere....

Oh dear. Must not think about bread....

 

[Topaz63]

Yes, I remember now that it was in the Cranks book, I gave my copy to my son as he went vege and it has good recipes in.

The Lahey method seems to take a long time as the rising is so slow.

 

[Atropos]

The Lahey bread doesn't feel slow at all if you can make it part of a daily routine - 10 minutes to mix, pop it in a cupboard, take it out the next morning, knock back, mix the next bowl, bake. In some ways it's even quicker than the grant.

 

[Atropos]

Ah - first moment alone with the internet in days!
Right in the middle of a family reunion, in a house into which my poor sister moved only 7 days ago (everything still in boxes), and catering for 3 Dukaneers (2 in cruise, 1 in conso) a coeliac, 3 toddlers, a fussy vegetarian teenager - and two bemused "I'll eat anything, thanks!" normal folks.
At least the new garden has a veg patch in full swing - lots of spinach and carrots.

The oven is full (Toffee Oatbran muffins and non-Dukan banana bread) and the kettle is boiling...

 

[Atropos]

Chaos in the kitchen!!! I have snuck out (covered head to foot in batter splatter) for a quiet coffee away from the mayham.

It's a double birthday today - one of the toddlers and one of the adults. And three birthday cakes are being made.

The coeliac is making a traditional fruit cake with wheat flour.
The non-coeliac non-dukaneer is making a flourless chocolate and almond cake.
And the conso dukaneer is trying to find a corner to whip up dukan cup cakes for the pp cruise dukaneers.

And the 18 months old baby is "helping" - with a chef's hat perched on his head, a huge spoon on his hand and three separate mixtures now smeared on his face.

So far we have avoided cross contamination... or homicide.

But watch this space.

 

[anjuschka]

Wow that all sounds like great FUN. I love your descriptions and hope you're all having a good time (eating 3 cakes?)

 

[Topaz63]

Atropos, I've just been doing a bit more reading of some of the discussions on line triggered by Gary Taubes' articles. I remember you saying in the thread where I summarised a few of GT's points that you had started Dukan dieting after reading GT. Logically, you would have started Atkins; what made the difference?
Also, I've been meaning to ask for ages why you use the name of the third of the Fates, or do you just like hawk moths?!!

 

[Topaz63]

Hey, what's happen to Atropos? Exhausted by relatives?

 

[anjuschka]

I agree - where are you we MISS YOU Atropos!!

 

[Atropos]

Atropos, I've just been doing a bit more reading of some of the discussions on line triggered by Gary Taubes' articles. I remember you saying in the thread where I summarised a few of GT's points that you had started Dukan dieting after reading GT. Logically, you would have started Atkins; what made the difference?
Also, I've been meaning to ask for ages why you use the name of the third of the Fates, or do you just like hawk moths?!!

Hi there! I'm back.

Atkins just didn't appeal - the high fat content made me feel instantly queasy. Something in the attitude to food didn't gel either... a sort of infantile hucksterism about food "All you can eat - with whipped cream on top!"

It wasn't until I read Dukan that I felt the leap of recognition - perhaps it was the more European-ish respect for real food, the refusal to demonise any food group. Actually - it was the gallette.

And I've been Atropos for decades - ever since I worked as a dresser in a theatre with a pair of scissors slung on a ribbon around my neck!