Moral Reasoning and the Great Acne Adventure

I've just now finished writing my lesson plan on moral reasoning for Monday. I'm tired and shouldn't be blogging. I should be in bed reading the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. But I feel like discussing my ridiculous travels through the limited diet world, because food is weighing on my mind.

For at least two months now I have abstained from eating dairy because I was beginning to get rheumatoid arthritis in my little finger, and dairy can aggravate arthritis. Cutting out the dairy has really helped, and I don't miss it that much. I eat lots of dark leafy greens and fortified rice milk to get my calcium.

Then T told me that wheat can aggravate acne, which I have in spades lately, the really lovely kind that sits in huge lumps under the skin looking and acting for all the world like underwater volcanoes. So I decided to abstain from wheat as well, and have been getting progressively better at baking with gluten-free flours. Unfortunately, my gluten orthodoxy has yielded nothing but a longing for my baking stone and a taste for brown rice flour scones; the acne remains, uglier by the day.

I think I can deduce that neither dairy nor wheat cause my acne. I'm still abstaining just in case, and because--to be honest--I feel more energetic with less wheat in my system. But I'll probably reintegrate some bread after seeing my naturopath.

So I'm down to the remaining dietary culprits for acne: soy, sugar, corn, caffeine.

I can live without milk, cheese and yogurt.

I can live without corn.

I can even live without wheat.

And I don't drink a lot of coffee.

But no sugar?

Do you know all of the delicious dishes made possible by a dash of brown sugar or honey?

Sauteed greens with tamari and sugar; Thai peanut sauce; tomato sauce; coleslaw; vinaigrette; every conceivable baked good, including bread and gluten-free goodies; dark chocolate; orange chicken; Vietnamese chicken and beef salads. Coconut curry.

I like sugar. Sugar is delicious. And it's not as though I can replace the maple syrup on my oatmeal with something savory like Parmesan cheese, because cheese is off limits.

I'm an epicurean trapped in the frustrated, pimply, arthritic body of a 28-year old book clerk. Yuck! I sound like an unlikeable character in one of Dostoevsky's short stories.

I don't know. There's really no point to this blog, other than catharsis. I will get to the bottom of my skin troubles one way or another, and I intend to enlist my naturopath in the hunt for a solution. Until then, though, I'm a little bit hungry and a lot bit zitty.

And I don't like either condition one bit.