You may have food allergies along with Lupus (I do). It might be a good idea to get tested. But, a cheaper way of doing it is this:

Keep a food diary and symptom diary. If you notice flarish behavior from the body after eating certain foods (some take up to 3 days to trigger) then you know not to eat that food. Alfalfa is a grass...so you may have an allergy to that.

Hello Miranda,
I have also found that alfalfa gives an allergic reaction to Lupus/SLE/MCTD patients and so do many other foods. Because of "my" SLE/MCTD, I am also completely allergic to garlic and have to avoid it at all costs on each and every occassion. I also could never touch any meat/sausages because my body could never again take and digest it, because it would be too difficult to digest and my SLE/MCTD-riddled-body has become over the years much too sensitive. Because of all these reasons, for me there is is only a strictly vegetarian diet possible...
Apart from that, I am completely happy with a vegetarian diet and so is my body. My vegetarian diet has helped me through many SLE/MCTD-flare-ups and my easy digestable vegetarian diet has also helped me a lot to keep my body as calm as possible through every flare-up so far(touch wood it continues like that!).
It is at first very difficult to learn about it and find out what suits our particular body best, but it works out very well in the long run...
Good luck in your research about your own body-set-up from Kristina.

Hi According to the John Hopkins report it is wise for people with Lupus to avoid alfalfa (one of many things on the list) Here is what they say.

Alfalfa Sprouts

Alfalfa sprouts contain an amino acid called L-canavanine that can increase inflammation in people with lupus by stimulating the immune system. As a result, people with lupus and similar autoimmune conditions should avoid alfalfa sprouts completely.

Actually alfalfa is a legume, not a grass. Historically it has been used as livestock food, not human food. It can produce lupus-like symptoms in susceptible humans, according to an article in Wikipedia. So avoiding it sounds like a good idea if you already have lupus.

I have trouble with garlic too. I like Asian and Italian cuisine, but I often get indigestion from it...both of those utilize lots of garlic. I'm pretty sure that both garlic and tomato are foods that make me ill. I stubbornly keep eating garlic because it has really good anti-infection properties, but maybe I shouldn't be doing that. I only use one small clove or a half-clove when I do use it, any more than that and I wake up in the middle of the night with acid reflux.

I do have food allergies. They come in groups, I've read. Grass allergies cause sensitivity to corn, allergy to ragweed will cause sensitivity to things like sunflower seeds and Jerusalem artichoke, which is the root of the sunflower plant. Ragweed and sunflower are in the Compositae, a very large family of plants which includes dandelion, endive, daisy, zinnia, and many others.

I seem to do much better on a vegan diet too...assuming I'm avoiding my allergens like sunflower seeds. It' can be difficult to determine what our allergens really are, because the bad effects often don't happen until the food reaches the small intestine where the digestible parts are broken down fully and absorbed into the bloodstream.

Journals definitely help with that, I've kept a journal for years and years. It helps me identify what's making me sick and what's beneficial...and it's a great crutch for my damaged memory. I like to read the entries from the previous year, I learn a lot that way.

Well, I'm allergic to the planet, basically - so I have to "pick my poison".

Gluten, artificial sweeteners, sometimes corn, and (I think) dairy. A food diary is definitely helpful. Also, take a look at environmental toxins (i.e., chemicals). I now clean with things such as vinegar and baking soda. I even make my own deodorant. A few years ago I had read that phosphates can hurt people with autoimmune diseases, so I now use phosphate-free dishwasher detergent.

I had my best luck tracking down food allergies with radical elimination diets. The first one, I believe I fasted for four days, but that was too radical, because I started new foods too quickly. The second one was something like rice and lamb, but then I found out I was allergic to citrus and it cause pain all over my body. I now eat oranges once a week and that's OK. A doctor told me to take chamomile at night. Then I started to get abdominal pain. Later I realized I was also allergic to echinachea (same group, also abdominal pain). I'm afraid if I find more allergies, I won't be able to eat at this point. I found also aspartame was a migraine trigger.

I read that most chamomile is contaminated with ragweed. It grows among the chamomile plants and it's hard to see. So when the chamomile is harvested, ragweed gets scooped up too. It's not really toxic or anything like that, but if you're allergic to the Compositae, it will give you a stomach ache.

Echinacea is also in the family Compositae.

Hello RichieD,
I am sorry that garlic does not work for you either because these days everything "outside our homes" seems to be cooked with lots of garlic and that makes it very difficult for people like us to meat friends at a Restaurant to enjoy a meal together. I have researched and asked many Restaurants and unfortunately these days most Restaurants prepare their food early in the mornings (with lots of garlic which also acts often as a food-preservative) and then they cook it very "fresh" in the evenings.

I have found a way to "arrange myself with this problem" and I buy all my vegetables/fruits very fresh and then I prepare and cook them very fresh the same day and it does me lots of good and also keeps by body well in shape... and it also helps me to avoid aggravation to my body which could act as a potential flare-up-trigger...
Best wishes and good luck from Kristina.

Thank you for the good wishes Kristina.

I've given up entirely on restaurants...too many things that make me sick. Haven't eaten restaurant food in years and years. I just cook my vegan meals with things from my garden. It can be a challenge to harvest 365 days a year, but I always find enough to make a meal.

I make all my own bread too, and I never buy prepared food of any kind. That way I don't have to read all those ingredient lists, I just buy bulk grains, potatoes, and things like that.

I was really turned off to restaurant food when I found out that Burger King was secretly frying their potatoes in beef fat because it's really cheap...then claiming it was "vegetable oil". Religious vegetarians like Sikhs were horrified to learn this. So was I in fact, here I was eating beef when I bought all those fries while I was taking classes at the local community college. I've been a vegetarian since the 1960's...at least I thought I was.

"Trust no one"...The X-Files.

Yes, and then you hear about things like the fact that they are changing the way our wheat is made and manufactured, so they can make more of it faster to sell. They now call it frankenwheat! It's disgusting to think how much they are manipulating the food that we eat. The hormones they stuff into the meats we eat. If you do eat meat. I mean it's like Russian roulette just trying to eat a meal! Top that off with having lupus and having triggers from certain foods and chemicals, and it's a mine field just eating dinner!! Sorry, but I hate this disease and what it does to me. I have been sitting here for the past several hours in a lot of pain. Apparently from something I ate, or ingested. And all I want is some relief. My one ray of sunshine, is that I have been having this same pain for several days now. So I'm guessing whatever it is that I have been eating or taking, is the same thing everyday. My dermatologist put me on some new vitamin mineral pills. And after I get done writing this, you can bet I am going to check the ingredients on the bottles. That may be what is causing this pain. Blessings to you all. I hope no one is suffering to badly. I know how that feels. I'd love to wake up tomorrow and find out they have found a cure for this disease. Until then, I am with you all in spirit and send prayers out your way.

When they were pushing nuclear power in the Eisenhower presidency, they said it would make electricity too cheap to meter. Then came Frankenfood, which was supposed to drastically cut food prices.

Well, it's been around for years now, and since it was introduced into American grocery stores on the Q T, prices for food have risen steadily...just like the price of electricity...actually more so.

Sounds like it's those vitamineral pills all right, they tend to give me indigestion too. I stopped taking them after years of being on them, and haven't seen the tiniest bit of difference in energy levels or anything else.

Sometimes being sick all the time just wears you down, I know the feeling well. Hope you're feeling better soon, AutumnQueen. Try some candied ginger if you have any, it's good for any kind of stomach problem.

Thanks again Richie,
... it is very nice "talking" to you and it looks as if we both have come to similar conclusions about how to avoid damage to our SLE/MCTD-riddled-body through the wrong food ...
I recently had to give up drinking milk, because it had a bad effect on my health and when I researched, I found out, that these days milk contains growth-hormons ... This information made me think about the huge increase of cancer these days ... Cancer-research claims, that we all have cancer in us: the unlucky one's get it and the lucky one's avoid it...I wonder whether the unlucky one's "assist" cancer to come to the fore by eating/drinking food which contains growth-hormons? Makes me wonder...
Thanks for telling me about the fries... I better avoid eating fries in the future as well, because as a vegetarian I would not like to eat fries which are containing meat somewhere...
I completely agree with you on the "Trust no one" because the food industry has become so huge and we are not always told everything about the food which is offered to us ... Better to keep our food as simple and as vegetarian as possible and create a good chance for us to survive despite SLE/MCTD ... The fewer flare-ups the better... I have noticed that my simple vegetarian diet keeps "my" flare-ups very much at bay these days and I am very grateful for that.
I very much like our "talks" here and I send you my kind regards
from Kristina.
Take care.

Well, I love meat but if it's high in fat it does bad things to me along with milk can't got there and ice cream its so sad. I do cheese just fine, and I love my veggies so I get a lot of those. Fried food it horrible for me I always want it but after I eat it I pay big time. I do think the steroids there putting in our food is affecting us but not so much as making cancer more aggressive, cancer has been huge for a long time its just more people are surviving so you here more about before they just died very quickly, I know this because I saw the cancer charts when I made a very similar comment to a cancer nurse that in turn felt the need to educate me and I tell you what that was kind of embarrassing. I have recently been to the doctors and it looks like I may be coming down with chrohn's disease which surprise is a auto immune disease. Does it seem to anyone else every time you go to the doctors they want to put a new DX on you. I am having a really hard time being a lab rat.

@Miranda
Meat used to bother me a lot also, especially beef. But once I started eating grass-fed beef and some fermented foods, I stopped having those problems. I figured that it was the grain-fed beef causing me problems, because the grain consumed by the cows probably passed on to me. I also buy fresh eggs from someone in my area who has lots of chickens that are free to roam and eat bugs, etc.