Hi just wanted to introduce myself! I have a self-diagnosed sensitivity to sulfites, I love cooking (which is now a necessity as well as a hobby), playing piano, home and yard improvements, and being a general computer nerd.
My voyage of discovery began a year ago: One day out of the blue I started getting extremely bloated after every meal with enough intestinal pain to confine me to the couch. The family doctor told me IBS and prescribed some neurological drug that gave me heart palpitations
and when he wanted to try anti-depressants next I told him in so many words to get lost LOL. So he referred me to the gastroenterology department. I got an gastric emptying study (swallowed radioactive eggs and lay under a big scanner for 1.5 hours) to confirm that my stomach was moving food at the proper speeds. Then an upper endoscopy (swallowed a camera on a 2-foot-long tube, thankfully I zonked out for that one) found some gastritis but still didn't explain my bloating and pain. Lastly a celiac panel came back with 5 negatives and 1 borderline, and I was advised to try going gluten free anyway. So I switched to gluten free specialty breads and cookies, and saw only marginal improvement in my symptoms. I started a food diary and at first didn't notice a pattern. Then one day when two sips of canned coconut water had me feeling like a bomb had gone off in my stomach, I said "that's it, something in this can is the culprit," and turned to the back of the can and read the word "potassium metabisulfite".... and a lightbulb went off!!
The first lesson I learned is that it's not as simple as checking the ingredient list for the word "sulfite," because there are natural sulfites in many foods, as well as undeclared traces of sulfites in many processed foods. I started researching the topic online, becoming quite knowledgeable about the sources of my food, and along the way learning to be conscious about other things like the presence of GMO and pesticides and antibiotics in the US food supply, my food's carbon footprint, and the vast list of chemicals that other countries have banned but the FDA has approved. So now I'm a raging organic sustainable local foods nut to boot.
Anyway now I cook almost all of my meals at home, much of it from scratch with whole foods. I enjoy finding ways to make a variety of food that is healthy, tasty, not boring, works around my sulfite sensitivity, doesn't break the bank, and doesn't require me to spend all my spare time in the kitchen. A tall order but I'm up to the challenge! I hope to find some folks on this site who are interested in swapping a few recipes.