Discussion Board

Hi ..
i'm wondering if i can eat chilli, put balsamic vinegar on my food and drink wine ..
i've had pretty intense GI symptoms for over 10 years .. have been diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease .. i was a heroin addict for 25 years and came off all drugs 10 years ago .. maybe the GI symptoms were a result of the drug abuse and a 'weakness' in that area ..
in that 10 years i've tried a whole lot of things, mainly naturopathy, but nothing has worked .. i get extremely depressed because i cant live a 'normal' life .
i've been religiously following your diet for 10 days now but nothing has changed yet ..
i'm feeling i need to go on the more strict diet that i read about in your site but cant find now .. it excludes oranges and other foods .. i eat a lot of oranges !! .. also strawberries, kiwi fruit, apples, blueberries etc etc ..
i'm also wondering how ppl on this diet manage when they go to friends places for dinner or to a restaurant ..
anyway .. i'd love to hear back and thankyou for your time ..
roz ..

The link you are looking for is:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_allergic.html
I am currently following this diet to try and diagnose a food allergy that is causing inflammation to my esophagus. It isn't easy, but after a week I've gotten the hang of it. Good Luck.
Kate

thankyou kate and good luck to you ..

i'm not going on the elimination diet yet .. i'm going to see how i go for another week staying on the mcdougall diet .
i didnt realise that nuts were out ..
but i still want to know whether i can drink wine, put balsamic vinegar on my food, use chillis and another one is honey ..
please let me know whether i can include these things in the diet ..
thankyou once again for your time ..

All those things are perfectly fine in the McDougall plan . . . is that what you're asking??

They are fine, but it seemed as though your question concerned your GI symptoms--and any of those could irritate your stomach. So that's something you'd have to judge...

thankyou so much kate, cloudy and elizabeth ..
shame .. we had ppl over for dinner and i would have had a glass of wine if i'd known it was ok ..
i've been on the diet for 13 days now and am seeing some positive results .. if there isnt more improvement in another week or two i might have to go on the elimination diet .. reckon that would be very hard to do ..
can anyone tell me how they handle going out for dinner or visiting friends and still sticking to the diet ..
thankyou once again ..
from roz ..

Well, wine isn't great and not part of the McDougall plan for the most part. I missed that.

Here is Dr. McD on alcohol:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/alcohol.html

I have a glass of wine once in a blue moon.

There have been many discussions of this if you do a search . . . basically, I do one or more of the following:

(1) I try to make sure we go someplace that I know has good choices for me. Fortunately, I don't generally hang out w/ people who like tacky chain restaurants, so usually I can influence them to go to a sushi place or someplace that I know has a salad bar.

(2) If that's not possible, I eat well before I go. Arriving full and happy means that I'll be satisfied with a tiny side salad w/ no dressing if that's all they have.

(3) If it's a meal at someone's house I bring a dish--something everyone can have but I make sure I get a big helping of it first, LOL, since there may well be nothing else I can eat!

(4) Mostly, though, I just go to the meal with the attitude that I'm there to spend time with friends, NOT to eat--the eating should be secondary to the social time. If anyone makes the usual, "Oh, I feel so badly that you're just eating _________," I say, "I'm here to spend time with YOU, not to eat. I'm perfectly happy!"

I can't say it any better than Elizabeth just did--so I will simply second it! The most important part for me is making sure (by being prepared for the dining out) that I can just be with my friends/relatives and enjoy their company!