#worldallergyweek

I've been asked to support World Allergy Week by using the hashtag in the title. It doesn't seem to be getting going - and that's a shame.

Looking into this, I get the impression the week is driven by the World Allergy Organisation - which is mainly doctors. As these problems affect millions, especially at this time of year when hay fever gets going, isn't it about time the victims helped to get things going?

It's interesting when you look at the statement from the British Society for Allergy, reported here, that they are still at the stage of training GPs in diagnosis. Isn't that alarming? Most GPs probably do a little better by giving people prescriptions also. But I noted the World Allergy Organisation refers to "multiple organ" problems increasing. Now if you have salicylate hypersensitivity you know what that means .... everything from the eyes to the knees. That can mean a host of minor symptoms and, if you have to take them to the GP, you really need the doctor to understand the underlying issues.

RAS

World Allergy Week

Spring is stuttering into place in the UK. The trees and flowers are budding and blossoming while the weather alternates between hot and cold.

So, yes, it's a good time for World Allergy Week, which starts on Monday. To mark the occasion, I've remembered to get my repeat prescription, which I have managed without for several weeks.

Details here
RAS

Baked well tart

Much classic cooking is simply about creating different textures and combinations from basic ingredients such as flour, eggs, milk and water.

So we set about making a salicylate-free equivalent of the Bakewell Tart. And it worked.

Actually my other half did the work. I'm told this is what you do.

Partly cook a thin layer of pastry on the bottom of a baking pan.

Lay sliced Golden Delicious apple on top - and then plain cake mixture on top of that.

Bake.

Delicious!

It's not quite as jammy as proper Bakewell tart. We need some ideas. Perhaps prepare the apple beforehand and add some sugar?

* Talking of apple, we bought some cut-price green apples from Asda's. I was wondering why I had symptoms today - itching in various places and a strange bleed on the lip tonight. Then I realised that although they looked like Golden Delicious there was no guarantee they were. They tasted a little stronger than GD. They were probably something else such as Granny Smith.

I tend to live with mild symptoms without complaining - but maybe I should make more effort to identify what is causing them.

RAS

Cheap bananas

A few weeks ago I bought a big bag of market-price bananas from Tesco's. If you're lucky with these bananas they are edible. If you're unlucky they go off fast or fail to ripen properly. For a few pence, it's hit and miss.

These were large bananas and apparently just about ripe and at first quite edible. We put them in the fridge, where the skin turned brown but the inside stayed white.

Usable bananas are usually quite expensive and that's put me off experimenting with them. This was different. As time went by the flavour changed - they began to taste like the banana you get in tinned fruit salad, so far as I can recall tinned fruit salad. Not especially pleasant to eat raw.

I've tried cooking with bananas before. This time I fried up a mix of banana, golden delicious and tuna, with a little cabbage - then adding soy sauce for more flavour. I ate it with spaghetti. It was delicious, and, surprisingly, it tasted like curry. So maybe it would be even better with rice. I wonder how I can make it even more like curry. There is still the outstanding mystery of why tandoori appears on the diet list.

I used one for a banana split meal - with ice cream and cream. You could add chocolate sauce as well, I suppose.

After nearly two weeks, we used the last few bananas to make banana cake. Delicious and it lasted for a long time.

Now I wonder about fruit salad. I could make it with banana, golden delicious apple and green grapes. But I wonder where the juice would come from. Commercial salads often use a syrup - but the better quality ones use a fruit juice. Does anyone know how you could make a juice? I am thinking of a fruit salad with ice cream and cream. I am thinking and salivating.

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

Cookies

Sometimes I need a sharp reminder there's a problem. I normally assume cookies are okay. After all they are just dough and chocolate chips, aren't they? I've always loved them and cheap cookies from Tesco or Asda don't cause a problem.

Someone gave us a packet of Maryland cookies and I have been happily munching them - even in spite of the visit to the doctor I must arrange to discuss the health screening. I was wondering about the crunchy bits, especially as my throat is getting lumpy and my tongue feels funny. I have checked the packet - they are indeed choc chip and hazelnut cookies.

Reminder to me: nuts are a problem, a real problem. Now to find a montelukast.

* Ref that health check: a friend had an identical scary letter from the screening company received on the same day. He went rushing to his doctor only to be told his cholesterol was mildly elevated. No pills, no exercise prescription, nothing. On the other hand....I must do something about it.
RAS

Bad news! Health check results

It's well over three months since I had my NHS healthcheck. So I was gob-smacked today to get a letter telling me I have failed it. The letter actually says some of my indicators are 'outside the normal range' and that I need to see my GP, who will tell me about it. No information about which indicators.

I've been in a bad mood all day. My first thought was to write straight back and demand they give me the indicators before I see the GP. I was out walking for three hours this morning. At first I got really hot - which suggested to me I was about to have a heart attack. In truth I was too well wrapped up against the cold. Then I felt nothing - and that's been a problem with walking recently. I don't feel like it achieves anything - probably because I'm fitter than I was and stepped up my walking during the cold and snow, while others stepped down.

Tomato, tuna and tummy

I tried my home-made tuna and tomato sauce. As I'd got a supply of tinned tomatoes I made the rest of the family a bolognese sauce at the same time. I cook  for others like Beethoven wrote music - I have no idea what it tastes like and cannot taste as I go along. It's all pure guess work.

We also obtained a pack of shallots - which are allowed but we very rarely use. It was the last pack in Tesco's and reduced in price to 75p. I feel I could do more with them - can you pickle them like onions?

That was about two weeks ago and I may still be suffering. I had severe tummy-ache for several days following the meal. The Italian restaurants must be using a magic ingredient that counteracts the tomato - perhaps olive oil? This needs to be investigated further. I used about a third of the tin of tomatoes on myself and gave the rest to the others.

So I cannot recommend tuna and tomato as a way of getting tomato into the diet. However in case you have to cook bolognese sauce for the rest of the family when they refuse to share your sardine/mackerel/tuna and cabbage sauce, here is what I did:
brown mince in rapeseed oil;
stir fry some leek, cabbage and shallot in separate frying pan (and that formed the base for my own meal);
add the fried vegetables to browned mince, along with tin of tomato;
add a liberal dose of Italian herbs;
add a little bit of soy sauce;
add two beef stock cubes;
simmer and add some water from the pasta saucepan. If still too runny add a little flour to thicken.
I did not taste this once but they assured me it was delicious - and I did not catch them making faces behind my back.

RAS

Trying tomato

Sometime ago I reported eating out in an Italian restaurant and having to eat a dish packed with tomato and herbs. The dish seemed to be fine because it was fish, rather than meat.

I've now had the same experience again. We found a reasonably-priced Italian restaurant with a good variety of choices. The dish I chose was linguine and king prawn. I didn't expect it to have quite so much tomato in it - that wasn't advertised. But it was delicious, really tasty. And there have been absolutely no side-effects, zero side-effects. I did leave most of the chunks of tomato - but there was plenty in the pasta sauce also.

It helped no doubt  I took a montelukast that day and also helped I was eating a sea-food meal. But after a Christmas season which was quite difficult - and that may have been down to drinking white wine - it's fun to enjoy a meal with strong tastes and suffer absolutely no after-effects.

Now, if I remember right, my last list suggested tomato was low in salicylate - not high and not zero. But I've avoided it as I've avoided onion (see a current discussion on this site), because it seemed strongly implicated when problems first started. I vividly remember that meal of celery and cherry tomato when I was on a near-starvation diet and how my mouth just swelled up. The allergy consultant was also impressed by that story.

And Italian food was strongly linked to my initial symptoms. My body could not handle spaghetti bolognese and pizza. So should I try to introduce more tomato into my diet?

RAS

Coping with Christmas

I love this time of year - but every year now I have to check my anticipation. As I approach the season I think of stuffing myself with mince pies, a rich, dark Christmas pudding and turkey laced with cranberry sauce, stuffing, parsnips and rich gravy - followed somehow by taking the first bite of a rich dark Christmas cake.

It is all fantasy - and now I'm saying to people that Christmas is a time I lose weight when they put it on. I've been circumspect this year. I used to love those early Christmas dinners with work colleagues, friends and associates. Now I'm avoiding them. If I won't be particularly missed, I don't go - it's just too awkward to keep asking for the turkey to be served without gravy and for an alternative dessert to the Christmas pudding. I'm trying to persuade the family mince pie maker to make Golden Delicious apple pies with the same texture as mince pies. I'm still waiting.

There's flu around. I wonder if I could pick up the swine flu virus on Thursday in time to allow me to drink loads of wine to see it off - as I've done for the last couple of years. No sign of it coming anywhere near me so far. Perhaps I'd better go and sit in the doctor's surgery and see if I can pick it up...

RAS