Yesterday things finally clicked in my mind. Red, yellow, and orange peppers are against AIP protocol. I never liked green peppers so I never ate them. They look so pretty sautéed in butter with onions!
I've learned to sauté them in olive oil and often leave out the onions.
But guess what? I've been eating them lately and I am waking in the 2 o'clock hour and can't get back to sleep.
My skin itches.
My Gamin watch tells me that my body battery is climbing slowly. Very slowly. I'm exhausted.
Oddly, the skin on my left hip itches so badly I'll leave red scratches if I mindlessly itch.
My lips are dry and chapped.
I've learned that my skin doesn't naturally itch or get dry and chapped except when I'm eating foods I can't process well. That's an allergic reaction.
I finally got curious enough about lectins to start researching them. I checked out The Plant Paradox Cookbook by Dr. Stephen Grundy from the local library.
I don't like books with shiny pages and grey print. With opposing astigmatisms in each eye, reading has become hard work, and shiny pages and grey print make it so much worse! I might buy the Kindle version or perhaps the Audible.
I was stunned to realize the peppers have some rather dangerous lectins. Dangerous because they harm the gut, mess with the body's insulin, and basically cause leaky gut. I was convinced decades ago that the source of all disease lay in the gut so it was a quick jump to realize Hashimoto's issues stemmed from the gut.
Back to peppers. The seeds taste disgusting so I've never eaten them except accidentally when I didn't clean them out good enough. But the skins? Lectins hide there.
Roast them. Don't eat them raw. Then peel the skins off before eating them. Don't eat even a slice until they're roasted (yup, I'm guilty of eating some as I slice them!)
My sinuses at the base of my nose feel full.
My voice sounds scratchy but black seed oil didn't seem to burn at all. I use black seed oil when it feels like nodules are forming on my thyroid, and it's harder to swallow. I've been using it these last few days since I've realized my thyroid was inflamed again. I'm taking my thyroid tea from traditional Chinese medicine called Thyroforte twice a day again.
And now I'm connecting the dots to specific foods.
Peppers. It doesn't have to be hot peppers to cause issues.
Can I go back to sleep now? Sleepnessness and fatigue are my worst symptoms and I'm back to that again.
