Thursday, July 19, 2012

Ice Cream: Our Love - Hate Relationship

Do you ever get extremely hungry for one particular food? Ok, I thought so. Just checking. Well, anyway, I always have a craving for ice cream at night.

The problem is this: ice cream is a dairy food; I'm not supposed to eat dairy products. To be honest, I'm not supposed to eat anything at night, let alone ice cream.

Every now and then, I succumb to the temptation before me and eat a bowl of wonderful, deliciously soft ice cream. However, ice cream doesn't always cause me problems. Sometimes I venture to say that it actually helps me feel better.

I know this goes against everything I say, but is there a fascinating nexus linking dairy products to better health and less heartburn? This is exactly what I have been pondering over the past couple of days. Maybe ice cream really does soothe the stomach.

So, as I usually do, I began to experiment and test my hypothesis. Yogurt and milkshakes never gave me heartburn and/or stomach pain while milk did.

"Why is this?" I thought. "Maybe I've developed an allergy to the type of milk?" I wasn't about to start making conclusions, but this seemed like the most logical.

I then, after much thought, realized that eating ice cream would be a great test in determining if I have, in fact, developed an intolerance to lactose.

Eating the Ice Cream

This was my favorite part of the experimentation. I could finally sit down and relax with a large bowl of ice cream. Plus, I could always use the "I'm just testing" excuse when anyone asked why I was eating dairy.

I consumed the ice cream, with rapid speed (my first mistake), and immediately felt better. Better? This seems to contradict all logic standards. Is this a paradox?

Let's not celebrate just yet. A mere twenty minutes of ingestion, I began to get a horrendous cramp in my upper stomach region. "Why did I just eat ice cream?" I said regretfully.

Of course, acid reflux and indigestion followed which kept me up half the night. I vowed never to have ice cream again!

Then a day later came. I was so hungry for some ice cream! Despite knowing it would cause me pain and agony with a side of defeat, I started to eat it.

If you're like me, once you start you can't stop. However, I managed to actually portion my treat instead of aggressively killing it like last time.

I began to feel worse. Once again I wondered why I had eaten the ice cream. What a brute!

Just as I was about to cross ice cream off the list of foods I could eat, I began having this weird sensation. My belly rumbled, gargled, and soon felt completely better.

"This is a miracle!" I exclaimed. "I feel completely better!"

Conclusion

Since then I have constructed many experiments. No matter how little, how much, how slowly, or how quickly I ate, sometimes I would get pain, and other times I wouldn't.

This is why I have a love-hate relationship with ice cream. Sometimes it is my friend, and other times it stabs my in the back.

Through all of this, I still can't resist the lure of ice cream. It is just too tempting and enticing for me.

After all, you know what they say. I dream of ice cream, and I want some right away.

BM Chart: 

July 18: None
July 19: None

No "magic moments" in the past couple of days. Hopefully my prune diet will change that!
 

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