My adventures in EoE cooking have been both time consuming and frustrating. I've been fortunate to have a friend who is well read and great at cooking food that is both delicious and allergen-free. She stocked my freezer full of meals that really made my summer 10 times easier. (Turkey and sweet potato chili? Yes, please.)
Marshmallows were safe to eat and easily available at camp . . . if only there were an ounce of nutrition, I would have been set. |
She also made me a birthday cake, and it did NOT disappoint. |
Dessert. Kind of. |
So the day that I found an egg substitute at the supermarket was this shining beacon of hope. It boasted the ability to replace scrambled eggs. It wasn't just an egg replacer to use in recipes; it actually replaced eggs. So without even reading the ingredients, I added it to my cart.
The next morning, I hopped out of bed with plenty of time to cook before we had to leave, because: OMELET! I was pumped. As I was preparing the "eggs" according to the package's directions, I noticed this weird odor. I thought it was coming from our dishwasher, that sometimes starts to smell like rotten food when it hasn't been cleaned in a while. It took me less than a minute to figure out that it was the faux eggs. The more I mixed, the worse it got.
I dug the package out of the garbage to see what they were made of . . . algae flour. ALGAE FLOUR! Yep, that sounds about right, because they definitely smelled like seaweed. Once it was cooked, the flavor wasn't bad . . . but the texture was slimy and the smell wasn't great.
There was another time I tried to make an omelet out of chickpea flour. It did not end well.
Epilogue: I did have another EGD last week and after 10 weeks of eliminating wheat, dairy, soy and eggs, my esophagus was free of eosiniphils. There were still signs of EoE scarring, but that was normal. It was the happiest day of my whole summer, for sure.
I started to add eggs back in this week, and if it goes well, soy comes next. No matter what happens, I'm happy to be this much closer to figuring out the cause of my EoE.
It wasn't all bad. I ate A LOT of tostadas this summer. |