I’ve heard about the elimination diet a few times now, and I think I’ll get off my ass and do it. I would’ve thought though that I’d need to give it a bit longer than a week. Well, let’s see how it goes. And thanks for the advice, it’s definitely welcome.
Be warned: The elimination diet may remove joy and happiness from your life as you eliminate every single food you like. it may be worth it depending on how bad the migranes are.
I have rather unusual ability. That is, when I pull together the will power, I am able to make myself like a food. I usually don’t do this because 1) I am quite lazy by nature 2) I don’t like those types of foods in the first place. But if it turns out that I can only eat foods I dislike, I can just force myself to like them.
Even if I couldn’t it would definitely be worth it.
eventually as foods are eliminated you are left with very simple, very plain foods. i.e. plain rice. for a few weeks. if you take out:
spice
alcohol
chocolate
sugar
several oils
some beans
mushrooms, fungi
wheat
milk
meat (I think)
seafood
and more that escapes my memory
you end up with not a whole lot left… Its been many years since I had exposure to the elimination diet but it is very hard work. I have seen someone graph their migranes in relation to succeeding at the elimination diet. The elimination program they were on involved eating plain food for 10 after their last migrane and then trying a sample from a set of (20?) pill-bottles which contained one of the eliminated substances. it looked like − 5 days after they had any foods they stopped having migranes.
But as one might begin to question—what is life without chocolate, wine, beer, sugar. Their migranes were not as bad as you describe yours, but when I met them they were gradually transitioning to the opinion of accepting the occasional migrane as long as they still had a glass of wine once a week.
Wow, your friend must really love wine. I don’t drink alcohol, but is it really all that? I just assumed that most people have alcoholic beverages for the ‘buzz’/intoxication.
I just assumed that most people have alcoholic beverages for the ‘buzz’/intoxication.
That highly depends on who “most people” are. Most college students at a party drink alcohol for a very different reason than e.g. most people who go on tours of the Napa Valley.
So is the taste very different to other drinks? I mean, its such a staple in so many parts of the world, I can’t help but think its either: delicious, unique or just an easy to get intoxicant. Maybe all of the above.
Not only the taste is different to other drinks, there is a great variety of complex flavors available. Wines can be very very different from each other so that you can pick a region/style/vineyard/etc. that matches your individual taste and change it as often as you like.
A non-alcoholic comparison would probably be cheese—it also can be very different and have complex flavors. Some people don’t care and eat the yellow goo (aka American cheese, ugh), and some people do care very much.
But haven’t studies shown that wines are a lot more similar than people think? As in, very cheap, common wines are considered to be as good as high quality wines by wine testers when they don’t know what it is.
The cheese example is interesting though, That’s probably the best way I’ve heard it described.
But haven’t studies shown that wines are a lot more similar than people think?
No, studies have shown that people suck at placing empirical taste on a one-dimensional “cheap low-status wine—expensive high-status wine” axis. Different wines do taste very differently and it’s trivially easy to verify.
extra note, I believe the proportion of migranes was related to the amount of drinking. so drinking once a week would be minimal migranes, drinking a glass a night would be too many migranes.
I have come to the conclusion that I taste things differently to a large subset of the population. I have a very sweet tooth and am very sensitive to bitter flavours.
I don’t eat olives, most alcohol only tastes like the alcoholic aftertaste (which apparently some people don’t taste) - imagine the strongest burning taste of the purest alcohol you have tasted, some people never taste that, I taste it with nearly every alcoholic beverage. Beer is usually awfully bitter too.
The only wine I could ever bother to drink is desert wine (its very sweet) and only slowly. (or also a half shot of rum and maple syrup)
Having said all this—yes; some people love their alcoholic beverages for their flavours.
I’ve heard about the elimination diet a few times now, and I think I’ll get off my ass and do it. I would’ve thought though that I’d need to give it a bit longer than a week. Well, let’s see how it goes. And thanks for the advice, it’s definitely welcome.
Be warned: The elimination diet may remove joy and happiness from your life as you eliminate every single food you like. it may be worth it depending on how bad the migranes are.
I have rather unusual ability. That is, when I pull together the will power, I am able to make myself like a food. I usually don’t do this because 1) I am quite lazy by nature 2) I don’t like those types of foods in the first place. But if it turns out that I can only eat foods I dislike, I can just force myself to like them.
Even if I couldn’t it would definitely be worth it.
eventually as foods are eliminated you are left with very simple, very plain foods. i.e. plain rice. for a few weeks.
if you take out: spice alcohol chocolate sugar several oils some beans mushrooms, fungi wheat milk meat (I think) seafood and more that escapes my memory
you end up with not a whole lot left… Its been many years since I had exposure to the elimination diet but it is very hard work. I have seen someone graph their migranes in relation to succeeding at the elimination diet. The elimination program they were on involved eating plain food for 10 after their last migrane and then trying a sample from a set of (20?) pill-bottles which contained one of the eliminated substances. it looked like − 5 days after they had any foods they stopped having migranes.
But as one might begin to question—what is life without chocolate, wine, beer, sugar. Their migranes were not as bad as you describe yours, but when I met them they were gradually transitioning to the opinion of accepting the occasional migrane as long as they still had a glass of wine once a week.
Wow, your friend must really love wine. I don’t drink alcohol, but is it really all that? I just assumed that most people have alcoholic beverages for the ‘buzz’/intoxication.
That highly depends on who “most people” are. Most college students at a party drink alcohol for a very different reason than e.g. most people who go on tours of the Napa Valley.
So is the taste very different to other drinks? I mean, its such a staple in so many parts of the world, I can’t help but think its either: delicious, unique or just an easy to get intoxicant. Maybe all of the above.
Not only the taste is different to other drinks, there is a great variety of complex flavors available. Wines can be very very different from each other so that you can pick a region/style/vineyard/etc. that matches your individual taste and change it as often as you like.
A non-alcoholic comparison would probably be cheese—it also can be very different and have complex flavors. Some people don’t care and eat the yellow goo (aka American cheese, ugh), and some people do care very much.
But haven’t studies shown that wines are a lot more similar than people think? As in, very cheap, common wines are considered to be as good as high quality wines by wine testers when they don’t know what it is.
The cheese example is interesting though, That’s probably the best way I’ve heard it described.
No, studies have shown that people suck at placing empirical taste on a one-dimensional “cheap low-status wine—expensive high-status wine” axis. Different wines do taste very differently and it’s trivially easy to verify.
Oops, sorry, I was being stupid. For some reason, I equated quality and variety. My bad.
extra note, I believe the proportion of migranes was related to the amount of drinking. so drinking once a week would be minimal migranes, drinking a glass a night would be too many migranes.
I have come to the conclusion that I taste things differently to a large subset of the population. I have a very sweet tooth and am very sensitive to bitter flavours.
I don’t eat olives, most alcohol only tastes like the alcoholic aftertaste (which apparently some people don’t taste) - imagine the strongest burning taste of the purest alcohol you have tasted, some people never taste that, I taste it with nearly every alcoholic beverage. Beer is usually awfully bitter too.
The only wine I could ever bother to drink is desert wine (its very sweet) and only slowly. (or also a half shot of rum and maple syrup)
Having said all this—yes; some people love their alcoholic beverages for their flavours.
Maybe this is a worth a separate thread...
separate thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/m2r/lesswrong_experience_on_alcohol/