Jenny and I got back from a short trip a couple of nights ago. I turned 50 on August 1st, so we flew out to California to have a little party with my family and a close friend. We stayed in Santa Cruz, in a small motel on Beach St., right across from the Boardwalk; when we lived in Ben Lomond and Santa Cruz, we used to go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk every year or two on my birthday, so it seemed like a fitting location for the big 5-0 this year.
I knew that staying on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet while traveling would be twice as difficult as it is at home, since we weren't going to be staying in a condo or other accommodations that have a kitchen. I wasn't disappointed.
The Tucson airport is relatively small, so the restaurant options in the gate area are limited. Our flight left at 11:15 and arrived in San Jose at 2:25, and with times like those the smart choice is to buy a portable lunch and eat it in the air (or on the ground in between, as there are no non-stop flights from Tucson to any of the three Bay Area airports). But as far as I could tell, there were no viable "traditional" lunch options available. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I'm not sure at this point), while Jenny looked for a sandwich, I found a cheese-and-fruit container at one shop; it had sharp cheddar and swiss cheeses and a bunch of grapes, and since all of those are permitted on the SCD (many hard cheeses have a negligible amount of lactose), I bought it. I ate it in the plane on the ground during our brief stop in Los Angeles.
Whether there was a problem with either of the cheeses or the grapes, or the fact that I'd started the SCD yogurt a few days earlier, or some other reason, it was a bad afternoon. Fortunately, the episode didn't last long, but it was unpleasant.
Feeling better that night, we walked out on the Santa Cruz wharf and found a restaurant where I figured I could ask for something grilled plain. I had a steak, which was good -- but I'm not sure it was completely plain: it tasted slightly like it had been marinated in soy sauce, and soy sauce is not SCD-legal due to the wheat and soy content. But that could have been my imagination, it might have just been salt. It came with vegetables, all of which were SCD-legal (I skipped the potato), but they weren't cooked nearly as thoroughly as I'm used to at this point. So the entire meal, while tasty, was minimally SCD-compliant, if that.
The next morning we went to a cafe on the beach and I got two eggs, over hard, with crispy bacon; I'm not sure why bacon is legal if it's crispy, maybe cooking it a long time breaks down the added sugars. In any case, it was not quite as crispy as I would have made it at home, so another iffy meal.
It was a late breakfast so we skipped lunch. I stopped in at a local market to get some kiwi fruit and blueberries, the two fruits that were still on my menu. They're both SCD-legal and on the low-FODMAP diet, so I'd been having one kiwi fruit in the morning and a handful of blueberries at night. Then, before leaving for dinner, another brief episode of diarrhea. Frustrating and aggravating.
For dinner, we went down to Carmel, another favorite destination. Fortunately, at nicer restaurants, ordering things made to order is usually not a problem: when I started describing what I was looking for, the waiter just smiled and said, "Just tell me what you need, I'll get it for you." So I asked for the swordfish, grilled plain with no sauces, and that's what I got. Skipped the potato and tomato (I asked if it was stuffed, and he just said, "Um... no, you can't have that," based on what I'd already told him), and just had steamed vegetables; again, not steamed as thoroughly as I would have, but pretty close. So far, the best meal, both in terms of taste and in terms of SCD compliance. I had some blueberries for dessert.
The next morning I went back down to the beachside cafe after my kiwi and had a couple more eggs, this time with some sliced tomato, so this meal was completely legal. Then for lunch I had grilled chicken with green beans. The waiter was also one of the cooks, so I felt confident that his description of the marinade was accurate, and since all of the ingredients were legal, I believe it was fine. Still, shortly after... another episode. By this point, I was getting pretty dejected, and had many thoughts about just bailing on the diet altogether. But I decided to keep at it. Dinner was a steak and enough broccoli to choke a horse. The steak tasted fine, so again, asking for something grilled plainly seemed to work; I only ate half the broccoli, if that. Blueberries for dessert in the room again.
Saturday was my birthday party! I had a kiwi in the morning, and my sister was kind enough to steam some carrots and zucchini for me to go along with the burger that my brother-in-law grilled for me -- I think it was the first hamburger, and not veggie burger, that he'd ever grilled for me! With some tomato slices and avocado, it made a fine burger, even if it didn't have a bun. I wasn't able to have any cake -- I figured any dessert at all would be a bad idea at this point, so I didn't try to do any SCD-legal cakes -- but everyone else enjoyed some. Yet again, that afternoon, boom.
I should note that the episodes I was having were brief, and in between there was some semi-normal activity. Still, those episodes were taking a mental toll. And while it seemed like SCD compliance was actually going pretty well, having to plan ahead for each and every meal was also taking a toll. It's one thing to know what you have to cook and how you have to cook it; it's another to have to throw that ball into someone else's court every meal.
For dinner I walked back down to the wharf and ordered salmon at a different restaurant, grilled plain, butter on the side. The waitress actually told me that's the way she gets it as well, which made me feel better about asking. That and some steamed vegetables, and again I think I got a fully legal meal, though again, the vegetables weren't steamed as fully as I would have. I really don't fault restaurants for that: mushy vegetables aren't all that popular! Some more blueberries back in the room later that night.
Sunday was travel day again. At this point, I was starting to suspect that the fruit might be a problem -- perhaps I moved from cooked fruit to raw fruit too quickly -- so I skipped my morning kiwi, went down to the beachside cafe, and had a couple of eggs, nothing extra. San Jose airport is quite a bit bigger and busier than the airport in Tucson, so there are more restaurants, and I found that Una Mas now does bowls made-to-order, so I got a bowl with nothing but chicken and quacamole. I don't know if this was legal or not: the chicken looked like it had spices on it, and I doubt if even the employees would know whether or not the spices they use have added anti-caking agents or other SCD-illegal substances, and while my homemade guacamole is legal, who knows what they put in theirs. Still, I figured it was the best I was going to do, short of ordering a steak at one of the slightly bigger restaurants, and I wasn't in the mood for that much food, especially since I didn't want to trigger any negative reaction just before getting on a plane -- although at that point, "just before" was a couple of hours, as our flight was delayed. Little did I know that it would end up being several hours, as our flight was eventually delayed almost four hours. So my Una Mas chicken ended up having to last me until we got home at 9:30 that night. I've never cooked pork chops and carrots as quickly as I did that night, I was starving!
The next day? Virtually perfect gastrointestinal activity. Go figure.
So traveling while on the Specific Carbohydrate diet is definitely challenging. You have to be very specific when making requests, and even then, it's difficult to know if you got what you were expecting. But for my first trip on this diet, I think this one went pretty well.
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