The boring food and health post

For the three-hundredth time in my life, I can't tell whether I'm crazy or not.

Gluten sensitivity! My obsession of the moment.

It's really ideal for crazy people like me, because it's not well defined at the moment and I've come across lists of associated symptoms that feel like a grab-bag for me. I think, "Headaches? Dizziness? Mouth sores? Depression? etc. IT'S THE ROOT OF MY PROBLEMS, CLEARLY.

I never even considered it before a couple months ago. The headaches I always explained with any of the following reasons: I'm dehydrated from all the grain; I haven't had enough protein; I ate too much food. Now I'm realizing that I haven't had a food-related headache from eating too much beans and rice, ever. Never a headache from eating too much tofu. So gluten? Could be!

But I'm crazy, because I can't tell cause from effect. I'm wondering if I like the idea of being gluten intolerant because I can pin all my problems on one thing and imagine it away. I bet a hundred bucks I could get rid of a headache by not believing in it; I could say, "but I haven't had any pasta today, so I shouldn't have a headache," and it would go away. It's all in what you believe.

I could believe that my major depressive episodes of the past few years have coincided with high gluten intake because the gluten caused the depression.

Or I could believe that my major depressive episodes of the past few years have coincided with high gluten intake because, in my depression, I turned to comfort food.

They are comfort foods: bread, cookies; I bake when I'm sad, eat pasta when I'm missing home. Which leads me to another possibility about this situation: I could be attracted to the idea of being gluten intolerant because it's yet another way for me to give up foods that I love.

And don't I just love the denial? Aren't I addicted to the self-pity that comes with not being able to have what I want?

So what should be a simple medical issue has blossomed into a question of whether a medical issue even exists outside the mind, and at what point it is deemed to do so.

Whether it's in my mind or my body, I have rarely felt so good and healthy as I have in the past month, eating a predominantly gluten-free diet. I think I'm going to stick with it.