While this post is ostensibly about the recipe for Soba Noodle Salad with Chicken and Scallions from November Everyday Food, it is also about my frustration with food.

Let’s start with the recipe. It’s actually sobas, chicken, scallions and red cabbage with an oriental dressing. Very easy to put together and very tasty. I added some carrots to get another veg in there. I enjoyed it and will be eating leftovers for lunch. This is a nice quick meal – particularly if you already have some leftover chicken you can just shred.

This was a good recipe for me to make the night that I did. I’ve mentioned that I’ve been struggling with an ongoing infection for months (UTI) and then what we believe are kidney stones (lab report not back yet). On the day in question, I returned from the Dr’s office struggling to process the latest info. Although we have no verified proof yet of stones, that’s what they believe I have. And it turns out I’ve probably given them to myself via my weight loss.

Here’s the deal – as I’ve blogged about here, I’ve lost about 20 lbs eating Martha’s food and thinking about food as Martha does.  It was really eye-opening for me and I drastically changed what I eat, encompassing lots and lots and lots of greens and eating nuts for afternoon snacks.  As a cruel joke, those foods are high in oxalates, which can cause kidney stones.  I came home with a little pamphlet listing foods high in oxalate. On the list is pretty much everything I have been eating.  In fact, the only things it seems that are not high in oxalates are foods I’ve learned to avoid  – things like white bread!  I’m sure I am simply in shock and will figure this out, but right now I’m mad at the world that spinach, swiss chard, chocolate (yes, chocolate), nuts, sweet potatoes, wheat germ, berries and much more are on the list. I (jokingly) told Mr. MarthaAndMe that I’m just going to eat cake and ice cream since they are the only things that are safe.

I’m supposed to cut way back on oxalates for now then try to find a balance. Snort. Turns out the buckwheat in the soba noodles is even on the list. I looked in the cereal cupboard this morning and of the 6-7 boxes in there, the only things I could eat were Special K or Frosted Flakes. Blech. Maybe I’ll eat oatmeal for breakfast from now on. They also told me to drink lemonade – something I used to drink a lot of but learned to cut out of my diet because of the sugar content. Yes, I know I could just put some lemon juice in my water, but I really hate that!

Yes, I’m crabby about this. I finally found a way to eat that allowed me to first lose, then keep off the weight I had lost (quite an achievement for me) and now I learn it was all wrong, wrong, wrong.  Let me be clear that I will not cut out chocolate. I’d rather be dead. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating, but small amounts of chocolate must remain in my diet.

I have an entire bunch of Swiss chard in the fridge I was going to use to make a recipe in November Everyday Food. I’ll have to give that away. No more spinach and mushroom omelets, spinach salad, wilted spinach, creamed spinach (are you seeing how much I like spinach?). Sigh. Goodbye honey roasted cashews. Goodbye peanut butter.  I’ll pull myself up by my bootstraps and handle this dietary challenge, if not with grace, then at least with determination!

Update: Thanks for all your comments and support on this. Test results now say it was not kidney stones but “sediment” (I can’t find much on Google about this, so if you can point me to something, I would appreciate it). Back to the drawing board, but I’m still supposed to stick to the non-oxalate plan in case I have stones too small to see. I’ve got appts set up for 2nd opinions in the coming weeks.

While this post is ostensibly about the recipe for Soba Noodle Salad with Chicken and Scallions from November Everyday Food, it is also about my frustration with food. Let’s start with the recipe. It’s actually sobas, chicken, scallions and red cabbage with an oriental dressing. Very easy to put together and very tasty. I added … Read more →