• Health,  Personal,  Thoughts,  travel,  Writing

    Silent scream | Mumbai Diaries

    The silent crack between my teeth after I had just bitten into a peanut that was inside a Punjabi Samosa, was sounding louder in my head than to anyone else. I knew what was wrong. The apparently nut-free samosa had deadly peanuts inside of them. I was sitting by the palm trees along the beach near Marine Drive at a café. So far away from any hospital and so far away from knowing what I would do if anything severe happened. Million thoughts always run through my head in these moments, and it might sound like a cliche but it’s very true. I believe I am not the only nut allergic person who have these near-death aha moments.
    – What if this is it? This is the moment when I die.
    – Do the people I love know that I love them? Near, far and everyone in between. I’m not even close to being good at expressing my love for certain people in my life and what they mean to me.
    After such an experience I become very emotional and mellow, as if I don’t know anymore what really matters. The core values and the core most important life ingredients are being questioned and once again reevaluated. These short moments of fear become eye-openers and make me wake up.

    To be continued…

    Peace and Love,
    Kimmi Sandhu

  • Cooking,  Health,  Personal,  Vlog/YouTube

    Allergies and Diet Choices (YouTube)

    One of the biggest topics of my life has been allergies and dealing with them in the best way. All the way from checking the ingredients list on all food packages to learning how to cook allergy friendly. During my whole childhood, throughout my teenage years and now into my adult life, I’m finally starting to come to terms with my allergies and learning to cope with them. I want to share my experience with you all and bring you my best tips and recipes of allergy friendly food.
    I made a first video in a series of many more to come, that only touches the subject on the surface, to give you a gimpse of what I will be creating in the coming months.

    Excuse the bouncy video, it was made with my selfie stick and smartphone due to main camera not working.

    Hope you enjoy this video, and if you have any suggestions, comments or questions, please leave them in the comments here or over at YouTube. You can always find me on Facebook, Instagram and on YouTube. 🙂 Hope to talk to you there!

    Peace and Love,
    signature

  • Cooking,  Health,  Personal,  Thoughts

    Allergic to everything

    I’ve never really written about something that consumes all my daily life, and it has for the past 20 years. I’m 25 and I’ve always had allergies for as long as I can remember. I’ve always cheated with what I can allow myself to eat because I thought I could get away with it, by telling myself – it’s not that bad, the reactions could be worse. The result of that has always been endless nights of constant itching attacks and not being able to hinder myself even in public, and it just gets worse if I eat more of the food I’m allergic to. The scratching turns into the skin bleeding and then it becomes rashes and it’s out of control already…

    Recent months I’ve become more interested in becoming more fit and training at the gym properly to gain muscles and weight. To be able to accomplish that I needed to exceed my intake of protein, which had never earlier crossed my mind. I actually ate way too little protein before so I needed to take extra by drinking some protein shakes after the exercises. Then I realised that the most popular protein shake is usually made out of milk protein, which is also one of those ingredients I’ve been neglecting that the doctors told me that I’m allergic to (or at least according to the tests)

    These realisations made me more aware of what I put into my body so I decided to make a clean start when I moved to Stockholm. I contacted the doctor to start a new investigation so they’re able to take new allergy tests. I’ve started the process but I’m far from getting the tests done or getting the results of those. But what counts is that I’ve taken the steps that are necessary to understand my body a bit more.
    This realisation also made me more determined to avoid everything that came up in the tests back in 2007. I started writing a list,  a list that was long overdue, a list I’ve been avoiding to make for the longest time, because I thought I could cheat and still feel okay. It’s not okay, it’s my body and I want to feel good and be healthy. If that means I need to cut down on some of the good stuff, then I need to find other good stuff. I love cooking food, especially with all ingredients I’m allergic to. I can still do that, but to feed others. When it comes to me, things have got to change.

    I’m happy to hear some of your stories if you have anything similar to share. Do you have many allergies and how do you cope in your daily life? Please share your story with me in the comments below.

    Peace and Love,
    Kimmi