“It is certainly delicate,” said my friend with an amused smile, “but I have not been struck up to now with its complexity. It has been a case for intellectual deduction, but when this original intellectual deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent incidents, then the subjective becomes objective and we can say confidently that we have reached our goal.” – Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

Twelve days of longing interspersed by craving and occasional manic episodes where I don’t care if I ever eat anything that tastes good ever again are over. Two remain. And I don’t think I would have the benefit that I do tonight without the rampant cheating that I perpetrated tonight. Okay, so given that my nutritionist gave me dairy back on day five, its not really cheating, but today at Bell Bates I picked up an organic spaghetti squash, three more boxes of Celestial Seasonings Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos, sheep’s milk yogurt, an avocado and a bottle of organic kefir, of which I managed to drink nearly three-fourths over the course of two hours. After the onset of a burning up high in my belly, right below my breast, I noticed that my daily bloating was of pre-elimination diet proportions. This warranted a second look at the kefir label. I think I could have died when I read INULIN…I could not believe I had been so stupid. Inulin is notoriously hard to digest; since I wasn’t taking my probiotic anymore while on the diet, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Just to be sure I looked it up and found that inulins are a “group of naturally occurring polysaccharides (several simple sugars linked together) produced by many types of plants” and “belonging to a class of fibers known as fructans.” (wikipedia) blah blah blah. Inulin is a fructose, one that is “problematic for people with fructose malabsorption.”

I think it would have been a lot better had I stumbled upon a spoonful of crystalline fructose, considering the low digestibility of inulin for many, however, I feel this is a clear lead. Unlike Sherlock, I can’t wrap things up just yet. Not nearly. Something I’ve been eating all week long has not affected me nearly as badly as the kefir, but has been causing symptoms all the same, namely bloating, diarrhea, and constipation. Or else, I’ve been doing right by my stomach and the bloating and friends are just residual. I can’t really be sure, but I have to make a decision about the next phase based on an educated guess of sorts. I can either continue with limited, clean dairy and move on with adding things in, or I can take out the dairy completely as I will have eggs to make up for the protein. Clearly re-eliminating dairy will be the smart choice, although I’m exhausted with such limited food choices by now.

Additionally I have not given up coffee completely. This I am chagrined to admit, as one of my pet peeves is the treatment of those of us with gastrointestinal distress as stupid children who don’t know how to stop putting harmful things in our mouths. More on this later, but I will be abstaining tomorrow and indefinitely. I wonder who will get my place in the Starbucks line.