TOChristmas is coming and… our glycemic index soars. No matter how many diets we have done to prepare ourselves for binges, nothing will take away the sense of guilt that grips us by abusing excessively forbidden foods.
For those who, like me, have been experiencing the deprivations resulting from some intolerance for years, the state of mind, however, is different. For us the holidays, from a strictly nutritional point of view, are a double sacrifice: everything that is ordinarily forbidden to us, when the holidays arrive, overflows from every visual angle.
The tables overflowing with sweets, in particular, are a Via Crucis. Each of us has our own strategy: mine, over time, has become that of not seeing. Literally. Everything I cannot eat is invisible to me.
Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Paradoxically, what brings me out of this state of dissolution are those guests who, thinking of alleviating my pain, point out every time: “Uh, you, poor thing, you can’t eat this!”. So, a first piece of advice to our table companions: «Pretend nothing happened, like we do». And yet another: avoid underlining how much God’s grace we are missing.
Up to this point you can help us. Those who produce dietary food products could take another step. The theme is this: why if I can’t eat gluten, is food now almost always lactose-free? Obvious answer: because it is economically more convenient to do one diet line rather than two. Correct. But wrong from a health point of view, because those who can take lactose become unaccustomed to doing so. And especially for us intolerant people it is a terrible joke.
The Christmas dinner (photo by Federico Miletto, lifestyle Sergio Colantuoni, food stylist Gino Fantini).
The other day, on a train I was served a box advertised as “for celiacs”. The surprise was finding the “celiac/vegan” label on it. But can one be so approximate? Putting together a pathology and a voluntary food choice means not understanding the difference between having to deprive yourself of something and wanting to deprive yourself of something.
It’s like putting someone who can’t swim on the same level as someone who doesn’t want to because he just put on some sunscreen. Or how to wish you a Merry Christmas but also a Happy Easter because sooner or later it will arrive…
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Antonella Baccaro’s articles on I Woman and on Corriere della Sera.