06/08/2021
Don’t get me wrong, improving my diet and eating as healthy as possible for ME helped me to feel better. But did it cure me? Absolutely not. I was born with a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
No amount of healthy food will ever change my connective tissue. I am also autistic. There’s tons of misinformation circling around that giving up dairy and gluten or this diet or that can “cure” autism.
I haven’t eaten gluten in years and in an attempt to feel better I have been vegan/dairy-free/ raw food, you name it throughout my life, guess what, I’m still autistic AF.
EDS comes along with a lot of co-conditions. One of them is something called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. This causes chronic allergic reactions that change from day to day. We have a lot of sensitivities to different foods and those triggers can also change daily.
Histamine is on of many enemies of MCAS. Let me share with you a few high histamine foods and foods that trigger histamine release:
* fermented foods and dairy products, such as yogurt and sauerkraut
* dried fruits
* avocados
* eggplant
* spinach
* processed or smoked meats
* shellfish
* aged cheese
* bananas
* tomatoes
* wheat germ
* beans
* papaya
* chocolate
* citrus fruits
* nuts, specifically walnuts, cashews, and peanuts
Just to name a few. Seems pretty healthy, right? Well not to me. If you want to send me into an MCAS flare from hell give me an avocado and see what happens.
The point is, you never know what someone’s going through. You don’t know what sensory sensitivities they may have because of food textures as an autistic person or what allergies or triggers they may have from chronic health conditions. So please be kind and compassionate and refrain from judging someone else’s food choices.
Image ID: [ A blue background with a pink and purple scale with the message in the center, Insisting that a “healthy diet” can cure any condition is ableist. For some of us, foods deemed “healthy” actually TRIGGER our conditions or sensory sensitivities. We eat what our bodies can tolerate. If You’ve reached the peak of health by changing your diet, good for you. That’s a privilege.]
