This past week I finally was able to start reintroducing foods into my diet! And it was glorious! The reintroduction phase, as I mentioned in my previous post, is long and laborious. Each individual food item has to be gently welcomed back into your diet, in four separate stages, starting with the easiest-to-digest, and ending with the most potentially problematic foods. And when I say gently, I’m referring to these slothly AIP rules: eat a half of a teaspoon in the morning. Wait 15 minutes. If you feel fine, proceed with another full teaspoon. Wait 15 minutes. If no negative symptoms arise, consume one and a half teaspoons. Then wait two to three hours, while carefully monitoring how you feel. If you feel no adverse reactions to the food, you can enjoy a full portion of that item. Then, you are to avoid that food completely for three to seven days, again keeping close attention to your symptoms, including anything from gastrointestinal distress to headaches to running nose to skin rashes and all else in between. Of course, if there are any foods within these four stages of reintroductions that are already known to cause an immune response or an allergic reaction in your body, these are not to be reintroduced.

The reasoning behind this madness of bird-pecking nibbles is to allow your body to gradually adapt to this “temporarily foreign” item. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to an entire week (seven days) for your body to produce an immune response to a particular food item, so a small taste as a reintroduction and then a complete avoidance again for several days enables you to pinpoint which food item caused your symptoms, should you develop any. At this point, your body has grown accustomed to the AIP diet. Your new normal is the control. When you add a new food, one at a time, as I described above, this item is the variable.

I will kindly assure you I did NOT follow these rules exactly. I did not take the time to taste a small bite here, wait 15 minutes, then take another bite, etc. Since the first item in Stage 1 I chose to reintroduce was green peas, I knew this food had never caused me any adverse reactions in the past, so I felt safe to just eat a full bowl…or two…right off the bat. I also waited no more than three days between my food reintroductions, because if I were to wait a week between each miniscule food or ingredient, it would take me an entire year to get through everything!

With all that said, you can infer that these reintroduced foods have to be relatively unadulterated – plain and simple, not much room for ingenuity. The first day I reintroduced peas, I ate them just as so, with a drizzle of olive oil. And while it might sound and look nothing more than a bland bowl of boring, I happen to be a lover of peas to begin with, and when deprived of a food you quite thoroughly enjoy, just a small morsel tastes like heaven. I’ll never forget the episode of Iron Chef America, where the secret ingredient was peas. My parents and I were watching the show intently, listening to the judges critique the chefs’ dishes. One of the judges was having a particularly difficult time verbalizing the wonderful tastes she was experiencing, ultimately resorting to the “pea-ness” of the dish. Needless to say, my parents and I were rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter, and “pea-ness” has become the crux of many of our family jokes. So, yes, all I could taste in my plain bowl of peas was the “pea-ness” and it was marvelous!

I seemed to tolerate the peas well, so I moved on to my next item: sesame oil. It was the only seed oil I already had at home, so I simply drizzled it over my steamed kabocha squash one evening. My digestive system seemed to not be offended by the sesame oil, so I chose to move on to my next food.

After the sesame oil, I was able to welcome cumin back into my life. Everyone needs a bit of cumin in their lives. It’s such a wonderfully aromatic spice. Prior to my AIP trial, I used cumin almost daily, grinding the seeds fresh in my mortar and pestle. I didn’t do anything fancy with the cumin; rather, I indulged in peas again and sprinkled some ground cumin over top.

The reintroduction of cumin was so insignificant to me, so I cheated. I didn’t wait the recommended minimum of three days before moving to my next item. The very next day, I prematurely moved into Stage 2 and went hog-wild with tahini. I adore tahini! My goal was to replicate my favorite lemon-herb tahini from Cava Grill, and I came pretty darn close. I blended up tahini, fresh lemon juice and lemon zest, garlic, scallion, salt, and a tad of water for a delicious dressing that I drowned my salad in and poured all over my kabocha squash.

Overall, my reintroductions seem to be going well. I hope to have more recipes as I am able to eat more foods, but for now, here is my lemon-herb tahini recipe.

Lemon-herb tahini

1/3 cup tahini

2 lemons, zest and juice

2 cloves garlic

1 scallion

1 large bunch of cilantro, washed and dried

¼ – ½ tsp. salt (to taste)

2-3 Tbsp. water, or as needed

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, starting with only 2 tablespoons of water. Blend everything together until a smooth consistency is achieved. Add more water as needed. The texture should be slightly runny, like a creamy salad dressing. Taste and season with more salt if needed.