Bye Bye Allergies, Hello Mercury Poisoning

The next few blogs will most likely be about my trip to Scotland.  I have a lot of observations and stories from my trip, and I don't want you to have to slog through one giant blog to read them.

I've been a vegetarian for twelve years, but I've started eating fish again in the last few weeks.  I'm starting to pay more attention to my intuition and to what my body is telling me that it needs to be healthy.  When I was working with the nutritionist, I would often know the foods that I should or shouldn't be eating before she would even tell me.  This wasn't through research, but through signals I was getting from my body.  For example, when I would pick something up that I shouldn't be eating (and I don't mean a doughnut or ice cream or something obvious like that), I would have the urge to put it back down.  It was like a little alarm bell going off in my head, "Danger Will Robinson, Danger."

On the flip side, I kept feeling like I should start eating fish again, but I just couldn't get my head around the thought.  After my nutritionist, acupuncturist and husband all suggested I eat fish, I figured I'd stop ignoring the signs and try it.  I tried it a few times before we left home, but I ate quite a bit of it in Scotland.  It helped that there was an abundance of fresh seafood along the coast of Scotland, and I must say the fish was delicious.

I have a few rules for myself about consuming seafood.  The first rule is to eat only one animal at a time, although I have had shrimp sushi twice so that one might be going out the window.  The other is for the lump of meat on my plate to be indistinguishable from the animal it came from.  For example, I ordered a  half lobster salad, thinking it would come out as a lump of meat on a salad.  Oh no, it came out as a lobster chopped in half on top of some lettuce.  Even though my husband pulled the meat out for me while I turned my head, I quickly lost my appetite and could only eat a few bites.

I know this sounds hypocritical.  If I can't stand to think about where the meat comes from or how it arrived on my plate then I shouldn't be eating it.  But an amazing thing has happened since I've started eating fish again - I haven't had a single day of allergies.  The reason this is so amazing is because I have been eating all kinds of things I was previously supposed to stay away from.  I mentioned I had coffee for breakfast every day on vacation, well I had wheat toast too.  I never understood why my husband complained about the bread in this country until I went to the UK.  You can actually spread butter on the toast without the bread falling apart.  Ah heaven.  I had a few glasses of wine, and just two nights ago I had two margaritas.  These are things that previously would have made me wake up in the morning with gummy, sticky eyes, but that hasn't happened.

My theory about why this is happening is that there was something missing from my diet that the fish is now providing.  That must be the case, because I now find myself craving fish all the time.  I had mahi mahi tacos the other night in Lauderdale that I was absolutely salivating over.  This doesn't make me feel better about myself mentally, as I'd still rather be a vegetarian.  And I had to sit with my back to the fish tank in the restaurant, because if I had spent too long watching the fish swim around I would not have been able to eat their cousin for dinner.

Hopefully, I haven't just traded one medical problem for another.  My allergies seem to have abated, but now I'm worried about all the mercury I'm consuming with the fish.  I'm sure there's a fine balance somewhere, I just have to find it.  I've made myself hungry writing this, so I'm off to cook breakfast.  If only I could find a good piece of toast.