I've noticed that my digestion isn't what it used to be.
I once prided myself on being able to eat almost anything - or indeed, drink almost anything - but that isn't true nowadays. My gut will protest if I consume highly spiced foods, or too much fat, or anything that's hard to digest. The result is a mild tummy-ache for a while, and I know that I should to stop eating - or drinking - whatever made that happen. Abstinence restores my postprandial comfort.
If I go back to eating the offending item regularly, the trouble will begin again. I've gone through such a cycle with wholemeal bread in particular, and have reluctantly concluded that I'd better avoid it permanently. I can still manage servings of pasta and French bread. I conclude that the more refined (or processed) my cereal intake is, the easier my small intestine can cope with it, even though it is of course useless as a good source of fibre. But then I get plenty of natural fibre from root vegetables and fruit - both of which I eat daily in quantity - and from my breakfast All-Bran. So avoiding unrefined cereal products isn't going to worsen my diet.
I don't think it's a case of being intolerant to certain foods, meaning that something in them triggers a bad reaction. Take cereals again: if I were intolerant of gluten, most grain-based foodstuffs would make me feel very uncomfortable, or even ill. But I'm still OK with many wheat-based foods: only some make my intestine work overtime. Still, I'm starting to be more careful with my cereal intake, just in case. It's a good job that I like potatoes so much.
No doubt taking care with what one eats and drinks is all part of getting older, the body no longer being happy with foodstuffs that younger people, with better digestion systems, can manage with ease.
It's only a small issue for me at the moment. I've been careful with my diet for some time. Most of my daily food intake consists of fresh meat, fresh fish, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit - lots of it all, as my appetite remains very good and I look forward to every meal. I enjoy my own cooking, and make a point of putting together tasty, attractive, well-filled plates. And I'm still adhering firmly to Slimming World principles.
It's the tempting (or convenient) processed-and-packaged stuff that gives me digestion problems. So I'm thinking that for the future, most of it will have to go, apart from standard kitchen-cupboard things like tea bags, mustard and tomato ketchup, and tins of baked beans.
Will this greater concentration on 'natural' foodstuffs cost me more? Well, it seems the answer is 'not necessarily'. My twice-weekly spend at Waitrose is actually less nowadays than it was a year ago. Despite any Brexit effect. And yet my diet is substantially the same. Curious, that.
