Problem Situations You May Encounter in Elimination Dieting 197could hear, “Ah, You’re Mr. So-and-so who phoned up an hour ago to ask
for no wheat, milk and corn in your food!”
If you find a good place to eat, stick to it. And if all this sounds
rather extreme and oppressive to you, do remember we are talking about a
situation you would be better not to put yourself in.
Cafés are hopeless. Snacks in our modern, civilized world seem to
consist entirely of tea, coffee, sodas, milk shakes, cakes, pastry, sandwiches,
burgers, ice-cream and similar. These are useless to the dieter. If you must
travel, stock up with a bag of the things you need and take it with you. Stay
away from snack bars. If you are with people who want refreshment in one
of these places, have your spring water handy and ask for a glass. If you
explain you are on a special diet, not many proprietors would be offended.
Some patients are bold: they produce a bag of herb tea and ask for a cup of
boiling water. It is easier to pull this off without embarrassment if you are
with someone who makes purchases. If necessary, pay the cost of a cup of
tea and ask for hot water only.
To a large extent, your own attitude dictates your success in these
situations. If you can cope cheerfully through all the vicissitudes and come
up smiling, the chances are that things will go your way. If you have to make
compromises, then do so: that’s only being practical, and you shouldn’t feel
guilty. But don’t see that as a reason to abandon the program. Fortunately,
most people who have food incompatibilities will improve dramatically
even with mistakes in the diet. The chances are that you are such a one, so
stick with it. There is, naturally, a world of difference between being forced
into a violation through no fault of your own because of circumstances and
giving in because of your cravings. The chances are that you will justify the
latter to yourself, thinking up perfectly ‘valid’ reasons why you must do so,
but in your heart you will know it is wrong and that you shouldn’t be doing
it. Again I will stress a comment that appears often in these pages: those
foods you find most difficult to give up are the ones most likely to be making
you ill. When you know this to be the case, why cheat and perpetuate your
suffering?
Vegetarians
Food allergies affect vegetarians like anyone else, perhaps even more so.
Does this surprise you? The rule about allergies and intolerance is that
the more you eat a food, the more likely you are to develop a reaction
to it, so avoiding meat may lead you from one type of unhealthy eating
into another. As I said earlier, vegetarians rely heavily on grains and dairy