Caterers and muffins

I sent the following advice off to some caterers this week. Time will tell if I get an edible meal out of it:
It's salicylate allergy
What?
Unfortunately salicylate - much the same as aspirin - is in many fruit and vegetables, in caffeine and in most nuts, herbs and spices including pepper. The simplest solution is plain food and ungarnished vegetables with no sauces or gravy. All meats and sea food and cheese are good.


The following foods are good and commonly eaten:
Cabbage
Peas
Banana
Chocolate
Decaf coffee


Small mistakes are not fatal!


I'm not sure if I should have mentioned chocolate as I have largely given it up - but not in chocolate cake. Some supermarket chocolate muffins turned up in our house this week. I have eaten too many of them and feel unwell. I can only conclude they were stacked with loads of caffeine. This morning my left eye was sore - a sure sign of problems - and it is now spreading down my left jaw and left neck. I have taken a montelukast.

RAS

Giving up chocolate

Well, not entirely, but I'm giving up slab chocolate. A few days ago I had an acute pain all up my left arm - and it then spread down the left side of my chest. It was a little bit frightening.

I took a paracetamol and it subsided.

I knew I had eaten some sandwiches which were a little mixed - and had also had one of those breakfast croissants with fruit in it. I thought it was pain au chocolat but it turned out not to be - and it was so tasty I could not stop eating  it. In the sandwiches, which came with a working lunch the same day, was onion and other oddities.

On its own that's not enough to provoke an extreme reaction. After a little thought I realised I had changed my chocolate type the previous week. It was the final see-saw in an issue that has been bothering me for some years. Mild chocolate seems okay and can be tasty and quite stimulating - in the absence of coffee. However it's rich in fat and sugar. Now this year I've been steadily putting on weight. Not enormous amounts and I'm not fat but it was beginning to feel a little out of control, especially in the light of my NHS Health Check.

So I decided to try, again, switching from the cheap dark chocolate - which is about 60 per cent cocoa - to proper dark chocolate, which was about 85 per cent cocoa. It's bitter and should deter over-consumption. It's also rich in caffeine - as I found out two years ago.  Silly even to think about trying the stuff.

My arm is still a little stiff. I've tried finishing my bar of dark chocolate. That's probably a mistake - especially since I have run out of montelukast and have deleted the email address for a repeat prescription.

So I've got to stop snacking on chocolate things. If they're safe, they're too fatty and sugary. If they're lean, they're unsafe. I'm now getting through pints of decaf coffee as a substitute. Then it will be back to chewing carrots I think.

RAS

Dark chocolate

I'm not addicted to chocolate - I'm not - but without coffee it's the only stimulant that can help with working. I've been trying to eat plain, dark chocolate because it's supposed to be better for you. And I tend to buy cheap 200g bars from Tesco or Asda.

The visit to the GP about the health check still hasn't happened -  but fitness and weight are now serious matters in my mind.Maybe some very dark chocolate would be the answer. It kills the appetite quicker than smoother, sweeter chocolates and should contain as much kick. It should be a way of cutting down fat and sugar intake. So a bar of Tesco 75% cocoa chocolate seemed a good idea.

In all this the research I did two years ago was forgotten. The problem is the darker the chocolate, the more the caffeine. 200g of plain chocolate is said to be equivalent to two cups of instant caffeinated coffee. Let's say the plain chocolate is 50% cocoa.  So 40g of 75 per cent cocoa chocolate would be about 60% of a cup of  caffeinated coffee.

And that's how it felt. Yes it killed the appetite and gave me a kick. It also gave the digestion a kick. It may be responsible for the ulcers in my mouth. It may also have triggered a bout of left-side syndrome (with gout in the left arm and leg and soreness in the eye.) It felt like the after-effects of drinking defac, filter coffee - which always seems to contain quite a lot of caffeine.

Tesco are now selling another brand of cheap, dark chocolate by Ryelands, and it's cheaper than Tesco's own brand. It claims to be about 50% cocoa. That's probably too strong but I'm trying it.

Depending how I get on with the doctor - if I ever get round to it - I may have to find a way of doing without chocolate.

RAS

Chocolate cake

 Last night I had a piece of chocolate cake. This morning my arms are covered in bright red lumpy spots. I've taken a montelukast.

RAS

Giving up chocolate - and decaf

Not completely, but I have cut down on chocolate big time since seeing last week's analyses of how much caffeine contains.

I used to snack on dark chocolate on the grounds it was "healthy". Also because of its bitter taste you eat less of it than if you start on dairy milk chocolate. So I'm not going to start snacking on milk chocolate. I'll still eat chocolate products, chocolate cake and gateaux which seem to be pure chocolate, cream and flour.

I cannot say it has made much improvement to me. However I'm managing to avoid taking pills.

I also think I need to stop drinking decaf filter coffee - the sort that comes out of machines. Most salicylate lists say decaffeinated coffee is okay - but they may be referring to instant coffee, which is very bland. It is interesting to see how much caffeine "decaf" tea has - almost as much as instant coffee.

The machine decaf tends to be very strong and the effect is "instant". It goes straight to my left eye, which starts blurring and aching just as it did before this whole problem was identified. And I feel it causes digestive problems. Perhaps I'll start carrying instant decaf around in a jar.

RAS

Caffeinated chocolate

Alarming news today from British regulators who say there's substantial amounts of caffeine in all chocolate. Sometime ago I reassured myself there was hardly any in chocolate - and that I could continue snacking on otherwise healthy dark chocolate.

Not so, according to the Food Standards Agency. It's not they are taking any interest in salicylates; far more serious is that they have linked caffeine to the health of new-born babies and urged pregnant women to cut down.

Now the FSA says four 50g bars of plain chocolate a day is equivalent to two mugs of caffeinated instant coffee. Those are small bars and that's quite a lot of coffee. I buy chocolate in 200mg bars and probably get through one bar in three or four days - so that's the equivalent half a mug of caffeinated coffee a day. That could explain some of the minor salicylate reactions I suffer now and again.

The full FSA list is interesting as it tells you the caffeine contained in each item:
* 2 mugs of instant coffee (100mg each)
* 1 mug of filter coffee (140mg each)
* 2 mugs of tea (75mg each)
* 5 cans of cola (up to 40mg each)
* 2 cans of 'energy' drink (up to 80mg each)
* 4 (50g) bars of plain chocolate (up to 50 mg each). Caffeine in milk chocolate is about half that of plain chocolate
So what about decaf coffee? I googled "decaf chocolate" and came up with a some interesting links. I don't think anyone has made decaf chocolate.

But US chocolate maker Hershey doesn't seem to think it is necessary. If you follow the link it's worth noting that their dark chocolate bar contains more than three times as much caffeine as their ordinary bar. It could be their chocolate doesn't contain much caffeine because it does not contain much chocolate.

Now I don't know what to do. I've relied on chocolate to keep me going - chocolate desserts, chocolate snacks, chocolate drinks. I'll have to cut down!

RAS