Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Lord said to Moses: “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord by deceiving a neighbor about something entrusted to them or left in their care or about something stolen, or if they cheat their neighbor, or if they find lost property and lie about it, or if they swear falsely about any such sin that people may commit—when they sin in any of these ways and realize their guilt, they must return what they have stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to them, or the lost property they found, or whatever it was they swore falsely about. They must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day they present their guilt offering.

• Leviticus 6:1-5

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

• Romans 7:15

But what if you cheat on yourself?  What if you cheat on a diet?

I was put on a Low-FODMAP diet late in 2019.  My wife laughed at the doctor and at me all the way home.  FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols.  This basically represents the major types of carbohydrates in our food.  Being “low” FODMAP does not mean no FODMAP.

To define further, Oligosaccharides are complex carbohydrates that break down in your gut to form less complex carbohydrates.  The largest actors in this group are beans, onion and garlic.  Disaccharides are lactose related for the most part.  Monosaccharides include fruits and sweet vegetables.  Wheat is strange.  It is kind of like the oligosaccharides, complex breaking down into simpler carbohydrates.  And polyols include most preservatives and possible ingredients in sausages, but definitely all prepackaged foods.

The odd thing is that many chip type snacks are considered low FODMAP.  So, you could gain weight on this diet.

My wife laughed because she refused to cook like that.  She laughed because I love onion and garlic in my food.  To see the ingredients list on foods, you would think everyone does.  My wife knew that I did not go a day without some kind of milk product.  I love ice cream and what passes as yogurt.  The milk products help with my GERD.

But within a week or so, I drove her to Tennessee to babysit the children.  Our daughter-in-law lacked one semester in finishing her school, and our youngest grandchild had not started school yet.

There was so much irony in that last paragraph, it is not funny.  My daughter-in-law never used her paralegal degree, and now most lawyers have artificial intelligence to do their research.  And of all the things my daughter-in-law loved, the research was her favorite.  The babysitting became moot in that the COVID lockdown happened and both parents were at home with the three children and various animals.  The youngest grandchild was treated as children are “supposed” to be treated.  Do nothing that will harm his self-esteem, but the little kid is so arrogant, he needs that self-esteem whittled down.  Smart as a whip, but he listens to his teacher when he wants to.  So, now that he is in school, is he learning?  And I went to Tennessee to retrieve my wife in the May-June timeframe, dealing with various differences in lockdown rules along the way.  She was showing signs of something being wrong.  We found a couple of months later that she had kidney failure.

But back home alone, I tried out the diet.  This diet is not meant to be the end of the journey.  You stay on it long enough to cleanse the gut.  Then you “cheat” with one thing or another.  When you get a little sick, you have found what your gut cannot handle.  I learned that a lot of wheat causes a minor problem, but practically any onion and garlic and I am in bad shape.

But in the five years since then, I have learned that is onion powder or garlic powder is less than 2%, I can eat a reasonable portion on rare occasions.

I think I was getting inflammation from any portion, but not enough to get a noticeable reaction.  For five years, I never buy any food without looking on the ingredients list.

Until…

I bought some potato chips, the fancy flavored kinds.  My mind was somewhere else.  I never checked the label.  I guess those words should be on my tombstone.

I opened one container, and the chips were delicious.  I ate quite a few.

The next morning, about mid-morning, I got the classic IBS pain.  My gut hurt, and there was extreme pressure against everything in the lower abdomen.  Think having to urinate, but you do not have to.  Feeling like you have diarrhea, but you do not.  All at the same time.  I went back to bed.  I knew what the problem was.  I drank water to flush out the “poison” inside me.  NOW, I checked the label.  Onion powder and garlic powder were in the less than two percent range, but because the chips tasted so good, I had eaten two or three servings, not one serving.

So, I lost nearly a day of what I had thought would be prime writing time.  I did all that I could to get the pain level down since trash and recycling had to be put out on the street.

And as I write this, I am functional, but there is still a significant amount of pain.

All because I did not do what had become habitual.

Doing the right thing for me is habitual.  I know the result.  I am living the result of doing what I hate.

But I get very angry when someone reduces my problem down to “He hates onion and garlic.”  No, I love them.  The food tastes great, but the next morning I hate myself for cheating on my diet.

And this was my first major IBS attack in five years.

Who is to blame?  Me.

I guess that is true with any sin in our lives.  But back to the Leviticus Scripture, I need to provide restitution for the injured party.  Myself.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.