Instead of playing with DNA you should have found a cure for allergies!

Back when I was in college hoping to become a landscaper and make the world a more beautiful place to live in (seriously, some of the landscapes around here? shit. ty.), I was in plant propagation class. In that class, I was trying to figure out how the hell ferns reproduce. In the end, I decided I would never ever try to propagate them because they were evil (complicated might be the more accurate word, but I’m sticking with evil) and not really that pretty.

Well, I have found another evil in the world. It is called The Soy Allergy.

(To be fair, I haven’t been officially diagnosed by a practicing allergist, but mayoclinic.com AND webmd.com can’t possibly be wrong, right?)

It all started with me trying to eat less meat, which turned out to be not such a hard thing to do because I actually love the Boca and Morningstar soy products. Sure, it’s not exactly like eating a burger, but I still liked the flavor anyway. I was doing really well with the meatless thing, too. But after awhile, I started noticing that I was just feeling miserable all the time. For one thing, I was even more lethargic than I usually am (which I blamed on my depression over not losing any weight), and for another, my sinuses were being serious pains in the ass. So to speak. But I chalked that up to a hellacious allergy season (it was all over the news, y’know).

And then my face went berserk. Which is not unusual as I have psoriasis, which can break out anywhere for any reason. But this stuff itched a LOT. And hurt. And because Donna had gone through the soy allergy hell before, I finally put two and two together. Thank the heavens!

Alas, upon further investigation into the soy allergy world, I discovered that 99.9% of all food contains some kind of soy (I’m guesstimating). This includes some of my faaaaavorite things; white cheddar rice cakes, bread, peanut butter chip brownies, some meat, my faux butter, some ice creams, salad dressings (oh cucumber ranch, how I miss thee *sniffle*), most mayonnaise, and CHOCOLATE. ALL THE CHOCOLATE EVER CREATED, in fact. Apparently, soy lecithin makes a good emulsifier or something. I dunno. I just know it means I can’t eat it. And y’all know what happens when you’re told you can’t have something, right? You want it more than you want to BREATHE (or so I’ve heard).

But, with some hard work, patience, and a lot of time spent in the grocery store, I am finally coming to terms with my affliction. I can actually have chocolate, so long as I make the cake or brownies from scratch. Hellman’s makes a canola mayonnaise that I can use. Real butter isn’t mush worse than faux butter, points-wise. And Panera has four different types of soy-free bread I can buy that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg, and also doesn’t taste like cardboard. The other stuff, as much as I love it, wasn’t really the best stuff for me anyway. And because they were low in points, I would just eat more, which costs more money, and takes its toll on my body as well.

Someday, maybe, I’ll get to have a mounds bar again…

*sigh*