Bad food vs nasty food II - the food poisoning review

Last week I got the dreaded foodie donkey punch to the stomach - food poisoning. I did learn quite a bit, and have decided to wrap up this saga with a review of the foods that helped.

I am currently pretty much back to normal strength, although I haven't fully transitioned back to my regular diet. I have actually stuck to the overly-healthy bland food diet by choice, and have not yet returned to the mountains of butter, meat, cheese and chocolate I normally consume.

I hesitate as last week was absolutely horrendous, a complete write off, both at work and at home, as literally I could do nothing but curl up into a ball in between my frequent visits to the porcelin throne. I went back to work after day 3, and lasted 2 hours. I ended up losing about 4kgs last week over the first four days, hardly eating anything, with even the BRAT food wanting to come back up. While the BRAT diet was gentle and helped me ween back onto solids, it still occasionally didn't sit right in my stomach.

After feeling worse than the bottom remnants in my toilet bowl, feeling dizzy, lifeless and with no energy, I decided I needed to get serious and eat my way back to strength and health. Struggling, I went on my quest to get back to the road to recovery.

Three hours later, I returned home with my treasures:
I planned on making a beef stock and a white chicken stock, purchasing beef bones from the butcher, chicken carcasses, and various stock vegetables and aromatics. I also bought some premium brown chicken stock to use to cook while my stocks were bubbling away - it was $13 a litre, but worth every cent, as it became a magical wonder-elixir that helped me gain my strength back. Other items included, Mizone, miso powder, organic chicken, and pasta.

Things that I felt worked really well:
- The incredible Essential Cuisine chicken stock. I used it as a base to cook rice and I found it made bland rice taste relatively nice, and at one stage it actually tasted quite creamy as though I mixed in an egg yolk. It contained no added salt, sugar, msg, preservatives, artifical flavouring or colouring, which was important to a poisoned individual such as myself, and was made using a "traditional chef's recipe". The ingredients are listed as "Chicken stock derived from roasted chicken and chicken bones 50%, water". Essential Cuisine chicken stock has become a good friend, although potentially it was the warm bland food byproduct that made me feel better.
- my homemade stocks turned out great - and I also used it as a food base once I finished the Essential Cuisine chicken stock. I gradually infused half with a bulb of garlic and used it to make rice with chicken and peas.
- Mizone and ginger tea always made me feel good - better than powerade in my books.
- Toast with plain Vegemite
- Miso soup - went to the most authentic Japanese shop I could find and tried to find the best miso on offer ($9 for a pack of 6). The owner was Japanese without fantastic English, and the miso I got didn't even have English instructions (can someone please help translate - see below). I just added hot water, and it made me feel better, even if I wasn't sure I was drinking it right

Things that I felt didn't work particular well:
- 7up/sprite didn't sit that great
- Salt and vinegar potato chips. Started off well, but was a bad idea. I think it was a bit too oily and upset my stomach. Resist the temptation
- Starchy bananas - let them ripen

The week that was:
Monday - clear fluids
Tuesday - clear fluids, potato chips
Wednesday - clear fluids, BRAT diet
Thursday - Plain toast, chicken stock and rice. Added small slices of chicken and peas to it for dinner
Friday - Baked beans and toast. Chicken and pea rice. Ate out at a Korean restaurant - their beef casserole was amazingly tasty and made me feel fantastic
Saturday - Baked beans and toast. Terikayi chicken udon. Ate out for dinner at reknowned Auckland seafood restaurant Hammerheads. Once in the restaurant, I felt magically transformed back into my food-loving self, so I went all out and decided to test the stomach. At the same time, I was being conservative after having flashbacks of the food poisoning effects.
My selections:
- Seared scallops, crab and snowpea salad, pea puree, fried shallots - $23.00
- Seared game fish, tempura prawn cutlets, orange slices, julienne cucumber, mint, sprouts, shoots, and a honey mustard dressing - $36.00 (tuna)

Side note: Hammerheads is fantastic for seafood, just as everyone says! The tuna looked undercooked but was in fact cooked skilfully as the fish tore tenderly and beautifully. I also thought my mate's Kingfish looked underdone, and as a result expected a chewy texture, but again, it was indeed skilfully cooked, and tasted as a game fish should - delicious and meaty.
Sunday - The stomach was not very happy on Sunday morning, and grumbled in revenge. I proceeded to have a very light breakfast of Vegemite toast. For lunch I had a beautifully fresh vegetarian muffin, which has since then inspired me to recreate it. For afternoon tea, I stopped over for a pie at Angelo's (of the on-sold "The Fridge" and "The Chiller" fame) latest venture, The Food Room in Ponsonby. In my opinion, Angelo maintains his crown of arguably some of Auckland's best pies, and has even started the trend of reversing rising coffee prices, by dropping all of his coffee (which in my humble Melbourne-coffee-snob opinion is fantastic) to $3. Dinner was a variation to Top Chef's Broccoli Coucous, using chicken instead of duck.

I have since eaten chicken and vegetable pasta, vegetarian couscous, along with the standard baked beans/vegemite toast combination. Today marked a milestone with my first coffee since the incident, and after feeling confident of no consequences, I had a full milk protein shake after hitting the gym for the first time in two weeks.

I'm back baby! Happy eating.

Bad food vs nasty food

I feel like I've been beaten up. My back aches, I'm sore all over, exhausted and I can't eat or drink. Most importantly, my former best mate, Mr Stomach has been recently misbehaving.

A new milestone. Not a good milestone, but a memorable one nonetheless. Last night (and all of today as a matter of fact), I suffered from my first severe bout of food poisoning.

I have been hung over many times this year, and the worst hang over I've ever had doesn't come close to the experience I had last night. I won't go into the gruesome specifics too much, but I will say the culprit was a well known franchise in the Newmarket area.

Sunday night - A dozen pork ribs, a Jack Daniels chocolate pudding and two or so hours later, my stomach complains, and I am disappointed that once again my eyes have been bigger than my stomach.

11pm - About three hours later, I think "I'm never going to be able to go to sleep with this full of a stomach... do some exercise." So I focused my attention on productive domestics, cleaning my kitchen, taking the garbage out and doing some washing. Anything to get myself moving and digesting this heavy load of food cement in my stomach.

12am - Four hours later, I am being entertained by a blog detailing some humourous adventures of cooking every recipe from the The French Laundry Cookbook, the book by three michelin starred Thomas Keller, who’s restaurant now sits at #32 in the best 50 restaurants in the world. The post was about lobster jelly, and half way through it, I felt the urge to throw up. Lucky I made it to the bathroom, as when it came up, it did so with some impressive force.

Over the next 7 hours, I saw my entire dinner come up, to the point where the vomiting was so strong, my stomach muscles were contracting the hardest they've ever worked. I felt like an almost empty toothpaste tube, and my body was trying to squeeze out every last ounce of toothpaste out until there was absolutely nothing left.

I tried every trick I knew of to get myself right. Cold water, warm water, salted coke, manuka 20+ honey, green and ginger tea, aloe vera drink, Mizone sports drink, preserved plums. The problem was I couldn't keep any fluids down - everything that went down, came back up. I was even trying to watch Russell Brand’s Scandalous to make myself laugh and trick my body into forgetting. But I was fighting a losing battle. I just had to simply strap myself in for the bumpy ride.

I will leave out any other details, and paint the picture another way. Through the torturous experience, I did some research and self diagnosis through the reliable Dr Google, and have found others have aptly described their food poisoning experience, so I will quote them verbatim:

• - I got food poisoning a few months ago from my favorite local sub shop. I puked, I shat, I cried
• - I got some eggs, bacon and a chicken sandwich at a Waffle House last night, and about an hour after I got home I started getting cramps like I had omfg horrible gas. I spent the next hour and a half or so on the toilet feeling like I was going to shit and puke at the same time.
• - I had steak and crab legs at some mom and pop shop last night and have been having the worst day ever today.... I WANNA SUE
• - Last night I bought some chicken and rice from a local food stall. Around 3:00AM I woke up and was violently sick, vomiting like crazy. Today I feel slightly nauseous, I've got the chills and my whole body is sore.

Now the point of my post - what I learnt from this experience. As foodies, I think it is inevitable to get food poisoning at least once as part of our quest to taste the amazing food this planet has to offer, so hopefully this post can help you survive the horrible experience, although I do not wish it on my worst enemies. It was interesting to know, similar to the "RICE" (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) method to treat an injury, there is a "BRAT" diet to recover from food poisoning.

Note: This is not a medically proven assessment – it is purely based on internet research and going through FP – please consult a doctor if you need medical fact. Also, this only refers to natural foods, rather than medications

Food poisoning - The road to recovery

by TP Big Bro

Basically with food poisoning, there is not much you can do but let it pass. But there is an accepted method of recovery.

The recovery procedure appears to be 24 hours of clear liquids to prevent dehydration and replace electrolytes (eg sodium, potassium, and calcium), that are being depleted through the diarrhea and vomiting. Clear liquids include apple juice, 7up/sprite, Gatorade and ginger drinks to soothe the stomach (flat ginger ale, ginger tea). Avoid caffeinated beverages which are too dehydrating, dairy, carbonated drinks and citrus juices.

You can then progress to the BRAT diet for a couple of days, followed by bland, low fat, non-dairy, easy-to-digest foods like plain chicken, as tolerable. If you advance too quickly, you may aggravate your symptoms, so take it easy. You can then slowly transition back to your normal diet if things are going well, reintroducing spicy or fatty/oily foods with caution.

Recovery food notes:

• - Small portions, more often
• - BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Apples/Applesauce, Tea/Toast) - these foods are tolerated by the tender gastrointestinal system. No butter
• - Some medical researchers recommend a diet that includes complex carbohydrates (e.g rice, wheat, potatoes, bread, and cereal), lean meats, fruit, and vegetables
• - Another argument says that fiber is also a complex carbohydrate, and it should be avoided if you have gastroenteritis. So, putting some noodles in your broth will be okay, but avoid cooked vegetables at an early stage, and raw crunchy fruits and vegetables should be avoided at the start
• - Chicken broth with noodles/rice/couscous/pasta
• - Chinese rice porridge (jook) - Season with soy sauce or salt
• - Plain crackers
• - Plain baked potato (no sour cream)
• - Ginger, garlic
• - Miso soup
• - Low sodium tomato juice apparently has as many electrolytes as Gatorade
• - Avoid fish, milk products, fatty foods and foods with a lot of sugar
• - One poster said doctors in India advised them to eat plenty of fresh curd and pineapples

Everyone is different, so we will react differently to different foods. I think the main thing is to listen to your body, be patient and let your body recover. All the best and safe eating!