Spring Cleansing - A pre birthday detox diet

For the past few years I've suffered from psoriasis. A fairly common skin condition that causes your body to over produce new skin cells at an accelerated rate. To the naked eye psoriasis looks like a red splotchy rash or patches of dry shiny skin. In the past I've seen Dermatologists and psoriasis specialist who always just prescribe me with gross sticky, oily, creams and ointments filled with nasty steroids that will probably lead to me growing a third eye or nipple or maybe even worse.  My amazing chiropractor Dr. Karen Zelinkovsky for months has been trying to convince me to get the food sensitivity test - she has a strong inkling that the psoriasis may be being triggered by an allergy. After kicking and screaming I finally agreed that it might just be a good idea to see what the Naturopath had to say. In the back of my mind I've always had a feeling I may be allergic to something but have always been too lazy, nervous, hesitant etc to look in to it further. Well now that I'm approaching 30 (shreek) I'm thinking it's the time to figure it all out. After seeing  Dr. Danielle Sinclaire I went ahead and booked an appointment to have a food sensitivity test. The Doc is 97% positive that I'm allergic to milk. Which is sad because I'm the kind of person that can't have any sort of baked good without a tall cold glass of 1%. I love milk, but it may just be my cryptonite.  My husband thinks it's the most hilarious thing, calling me a little baby every time I sit down to a cookie, or piece of cake with a glass of the white liquid devil. I think i'd take a crisp glass of organic milk over chardonnay any time. When I fist started to think about what my food allergy might be I was dreading the thought that it could possibly be tomatoes. Can you imagine The Tomato Snob being allergic to sweet succulent tomatoes. I'm really hoping it's milk and not tomatoes because the artichoke snob just doesn't have the same ring.  Anyhoo the test takes three to four weeks for the results to come in, so in the mean time my Doc has put me on a cleanse diet to clean out the pipes or something. So for the next three weeks I'm on the no dairy, no gluten, no anything fermented including balsamic, soy or any Asian condiments, no mushrooms, truffle salt, no beef or pork or shellfish and pretty much no fun. The positive side of all this is that I'm really being pushed to cook differently and I'm learning new things every day which for a self taught chef is wonderful. I'm taking lots of photos and mental notes of what I'm eating and doing, and will give you all some tips along the way if you're interested in a spring cleanse for yourself.  Sorry for the late in the week post, but business has been buzzing. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. 

- chow for now.