Asking for my partner: he enjoys Ethiopian food, but always experiences severe gastrointestinal distress shortly after a meal (or even a couple bites!). This seems to be unique to Ethiopian food, which he has had at restaurants in various parts of the US for at least the past 4 years. What could be the cause?
Some more, possibly relevant, details:
- The “distress” in his own words: about 8 hours after eating (i.e. in the evening after lunch, or in the middle of the night after dinner), a bad stomachache and need to go to the bathroom 3-4 times over the course of the next 6-8 hours.
- He has injera with every meal, but otherwise eats a variety of different things in each meal with no difference in outcome.
- He does enjoy raw kitfo, but has also experimented with having it cooked/eating vegetarian-only with no difference.
- Other people dining with him do not get sick.
- He does not have any other food intolerances that we’ve observed.
Does anyone have any ideas on what might be going on here, and how might we test it/mitigate it? He actually gets quite bummed about this because he really likes Ethiopian food, it’s just that it doesn’t seem to like him back :( Thanks in advance from both of us!
posted by btfreek to (10 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
Most obvious suggestion is that he might be allergic to or intolerant of teff, which, it looks like, is not common but not impossible. It's not otherwise well-represented in the standard Western diet, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if Ethiopian food was the only time he encountered it.
posted by praemunire at 11:41 PM on January 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
(Sorry, teff is the grain from which injera is usually made.)
posted by praemunire at 11:43 PM on January 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Injera usually has teff in it, which is a type of grain.
Maybe it's a reaction to that?
posted by spinifex23 at 11:43 PM on January 8, 2023
If you want to test this out, you could buy teff flour, and make something out of it, like pancakes, and see what happens.
If teff is indeed the culprit, this will eliminate the injera. However, you can still get Ethopian dishes to go, without the injera, and eat them with another bread/grain substitute.
Another thought is that injera is made with a fermented batter; maybe it's a reaction to the fermentation process, if it turns out that they can tolerate teff. How do they do with other fermented foods, like kimchi?
posted by spinifex23 at 11:47 PM on January 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
So, your friend has had the same symptom after eating different dishes, at different restaurants - and the one thing that you know these meals have in common is injera. It seems to me that the obvious next step would be to have some Ethiopian food without having any injera. A bit awkward, maybe, but you could do delivery.
One thing that occurred to me is that these meals might be much higher in fiber than his usual fare (teff, for example, is very high fiber, and so are many common dishes), so even absent a sensitivity it could be causing some upset that way.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:47 PM on January 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Another potential direction to look at might be the spice mix berbere - it was almost certainly used in all those meals, and contains several ingredients that he likely otherwise isn't much exposed to.
posted by kickingtheground at 11:53 PM on January 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I, and nearly everyone in my family, experience the same thing. and honestly it doesn't stop us. We just go in knowing that the price of deliciousness will be paid the next day, and hopefully we won't be flying internationally.
HOwEVEr, I recently tried Eritrean food for the first time... nearly the same flavor profile, same injera, etc but with no ill effects. This is speculative, but I found that the Eritrean preparations were much lighter, and probably used much less butter (nitter kibbeh), which may explain the difference.
Obviously a discovery of this magnitude requires extensive followup research. So if your partner would commit to sampling Eritrean food whenever possible, this would help clarify, perhaps, the GI difference between the two cuisines.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 3:30 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
these meals might be much higher in fiber
probably used much less butter
The “even a couple bites” part would seem to make it unlikely that the amount of anything is a culprit.
posted by staggernation at 6:49 AM on January 9, 2023
Agreeing with the injera/teff comments here, but be aware that in the US Ethiopian restaurants often make injera with wheat because it is cheaper.
posted by falsedmitri at 9:11 AM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Okay, this is interesting. So to clarify: are you saying that this happens consistently when he eats Ethiopian food, including at different restaurants, and no matter how much he eats? A few ideas:
First, he could tackle this by keeping a journal for just when he eats Ethiopian food, including the restaurant name and what he ate each time, and how much, before he has any intestinal distress, and then he can note when he does have the distress. Because there may be times he doesn't have the distress and doesn't think about it. So that's step one.
Next, does he find he eats a bit too much when he eats Ethiopian food? Because I think it can be tricky to estimate how much you're eating, and it is so tasty, it can be easy to overdue it. (I'm asking this in part because I used to eat too much when I ate Ethiopian and then would end up having some similar GI distress.) You said this happens even when he has a few bites, but how often would he only have few bites?
What kinds of foods does he usually eat? Could it be that the lentils (which are very common in Ethiopian food) and vegetables are just a lot more fiber than he's usually eating, and it's scraping out his intestines?
Or, does he usually eat more bland food, and the spices are upsetting his GI tract?
Does he usually have coffee when he eats Ethiopian? It can be very strong, so perhaps it's stimulating his intestinal tract in a different way?
He could have an allergy to teff or fenugreek or besobela (sometimes called holy basil) or another spice in berbere. You might try getting some take out Ethiopian and eating it without injera, like with a fork.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:58 PM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
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