So... over the past couple years, since I first hit my mid-20's, I've
stopped being able to eat anything.

A lactose intolerance I had as a kid came back, rather severely: even
the small amount of milk in margarine or many cheeses is a problem.  I
do keep lactaid with me, but it takes a lot of pills to fix things for
me, and they're not cheap.

Additionally, I was diagnosed with something like pre-diabetes,
although the doctor in question insisted that it wasn't hypoglycemia. 
At any rate I feel weak, exhausted, and very drunk after consuming
simple carbohydrates, for instance: a plate of spaghetti, a large
serving of fruit, or a cup of white rice.  So I'm supposed to maintain
something like a mild atkins diet.  From experience, I know that
anything with more than 20 grams of non-fiber carbs had better also
contain some protein to balance it out, and less than that is
perferable.

Finally, recently I've had symptoms of a gluten allergy.  I'm not in
the habit of self-diagnosis, and I won't have good medical insurance
until I start grad school this fall, so at the moment this is all very
vague.  But products which mention 'gluten' on the ingredients (bread,
vegitarian meat-substitutes), make me sick.   Products which include
wheat but presumably less gluten (cookies, cracker-style thin crust
pizza, spaghetti) don't seem to bother me.  Anyway, until I get this
figured out, I'm trying to go the safe route and avoid gluten too.

Also, processed soy products (soy milk, soy-protein bars) give me gas,
very unpleasant.  For whatever reason, the unprocessed beans
themselves--edamame, are fine.

I'm hungry.  I'm going to be a grad student and I can't reasonably
cook all my meals myself.  Could you please find me some
easy/nutritious things I can eat safely?  I miss my mac n' cheese,
slimfast, and breakfast bars...

---

Clarification of Question by cmtoh-ga on 15 Jun 2005 06:28 PDT

Here's websites for three different brands of nutrition bars with no
wheat, no soy, no dairy, low carbs, only natural sweetners, plenty of
vitamins, and high protien. The nutrition facts, ingredients list, and
purchasing instructions are on the websites.  Flavors range from
double chocolate mint to honey raisen:

Budda Bars: http://www.deliciousorganics.com/Products/BuddhaBar.htm

Organic Food Bars: http://www.naturalzing.com/nzfoodfo.htm

Thin For Life Gluco Support Bars:
http://www.aplaceofhope.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=thecenter&Product_Code=tflgscr

The following is a free comment:

You don't mention eating any meat.  Are you vegetarian?  If you can't
eat dairy or soy, it may be very hard to find other sources of protein
besides meats.

I really feel for you.  My father is violently allergic to dairy and
several meats, besides being pre-diabetic, and I know how much that
limits what he can eat.  I don't want to steal the thunder of a real
researcher, so here are a few disorganized ideas, unsupported by web
research, based on what I eat.

Grains:  Brown rice is better for your blood sugar than white rice. 
Check whether it'll work for you.  Wild rice is good.  (It's a
completely different grain, not really a rice.)  I think that there
exist pastas made from brown rice (available in whole foods stores). 
Incidentally, rice plus beans (any beans, not necessarily soy) will
give you a complete protein.  There are lots of other grains besides
rice and wheat, and people make pastas from some of them (e.g.,
spelt).  Find a book on the glycemic index to see which are best for
your blood sugar.  Some of the weirder grains can be purchased in
health food stores.  I've seen some weird types of flour in health
food stores too (e.g., flour made from ground up almonds).

You can do a lot with lean meats.  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
are easy to prepare in a variety of ways.  Grill, bake, or sautee them
with seasonings and serve with a side of vegetables.  Learn how to
cook fish (buy frozen filets and thaw them--easy to broil, but you
have to scrub the broiling pan afterwards; easy to bake).  If you can
afford pre-peeled or easy-peel shrimp, sprinkle on Old Bay seasoning
and steam them--extremely easy (though you'll need to get a steamer).

Find some recipes for soups and stews.  You can make them on the
weekend and microwave them for dinner during the week.  Also, I'm sure
there are some canned soups that would meet your requirements.  Go to
the grocery stores and start reading the labels on everything in the
soup aisle.

For breakfast, you could eat eggs.  Or get some breakfast sausages
(made from ground turkey is healthier)--cook them on the weekend, then
heat a couple every morning in the microwave.  Perhaps you could make
those flavored instant oatmeals if you like them made with water
rather than milk.  (Kind of high in sugar and carbs, though.)

For lunches, maybe you could eat a wrap made with a gluten-free
tortilla and with no cheese on it.  You said you can't reasonably cook
all your meals, but I managed to bring a lunch to my office 90% of the
time during grad school.  You should be able to have pretty good
control over your lunches.

Snacks:  nuts (especialy almonds) are good.  Can you eat whole wheat
crackers like triscuits?  You can snack on veggies like carrots and
celery sticks.  If you desperately need something sweet, dark
chocolate with nuts is (marginally) better for blood sugar than milk
chocolate with sugary fillings.  Some dark chocolate bars are
milk-free--read the ingredients.

Where could you eat out?  I'm not sure.  Most East Asian foods are
lactose-free (since many Asians are lactose intolerant), but the kind
of rice they use is really bad for your blood sugar.  Indian food is
much better for blood sugar (basmati rice is better than sticky rice).
 Some of it contains yogurt, but a lot of Indians are vegan.  You can
probably find yogurt-free dishes without too much difficulty.  You
could eat a lot of Mexican dishes if you get them to leave the cheese
and sour cream off.  I assume you'd want a corn tortilla because of
possible gluten in the wheat tortilla, but don't eat too much of
either type of tortilla--bad for blood sugar.

Look into the South Beach diet.  It seems to be based on glycemic
index and maintaining a good blood sugar level.  (It isn't extreme
like the Atkins diet.)  I found some good recipes in the South Beach
Diet Cookbook, which I borrowed from my local library.

I appreciate the time and thought that went into such a long and
thorough comment... especially since it seems my question may have
fallen beneath the pay/interest threshold of the researchers. Thank
you for responding so sympathetically and for attempting to address
all of my issues.

But I guess I disagree with you on one fundamental piece of
philosophy, an opinion that I've run into repeatedly ever since I was
the only 4-year-old at daycare who couldn't have ice cream... and that
is that people with special health restrictions should voluntarily
concede their god-given american consumer right to be lazy, and to get
what they want anyway (smiles).

When I was 4, the teacher had granola bars to give me when the other
kids got ice cream.  That sucked, miserably so.  Then my mother
started leaving lactose pills and instructions with the teachers, and
I swear my overall quality of life improved.  Turns out there was a
fix to the problem that didn't involve giving up anything important.

I know there exists breakfast bars, and instant meals, and nutrition
drinks that meet my needs.  Here's websites for three different brands
of nutrition bars with no wheat, no soy, no dairy, low carbs, only
natural sweetners, plenty of vitamins, and high protien:

Budda Bars: <A href="http://www.deliciousorganics.com/Products/BuddhaBar.htm">http://www.deliciousorganics.com/Products/BuddhaBar.htm
</A>
Organic Food Bars: <A
href="http://www.naturalzing.com/nzfoodfo.htm">http://www.naturalzing.com/nzfoodfo.htm</A>
Thin For Life Gluco Support Bars: <A
href="http://www.aplaceofhope.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=thecenter&Product_Code=tflgscr">http://www.aplaceofhope.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=thecenter&Product_Code=tflgscr</A>

So... yeah, I'm pitiful.  I could obviously, to at least this extent,
answer my own question.  But I'd ideally like to know about as many
options as possible.  If I don't have to give up having a variety of
options, I don't want to.  I don't want to give up a single thing that
I don't absolutely have to.

So I was hoping that the google answer team might be able to do a more
complete seach of the available possibilties than I could.  But...
I've also noticed that questions which are left unaswered for over a
week often expire unanswered, so looks like i may be out of luck.

So... I guess since I'm doing the research myself anyway, I might as
well be useful about it.  I'll post as clarifications to my question
all the qualifying products I find as I'm randomly searching... until
the question expires.  If a researcher can top my list, I'd be very
grateful and wouldn't mind paying the 20$... but at least this way
*some* answer will be out there.

I just happened to check this question today and saw your comment.  I
understand you want convenient prepared foods, esp. since you'll be
busy with school soon, but I encourage you to consider other options
as well.  Less highly processed foods are probably better for you,
plus they taste better.  Also, you might have to pay a lot more for
the prepared foods, if they're rare and you have to order them from
somewhere.  Still, convenience is important too.

I found this site just now:
http://www.glutenfreemall.com/
Looks like you can set their search criteria to rule out soy and
lactose as well.  Then you'll have to check manually whether the items
are low-carb.

I stumbled across this site on gluten:
http://www.sprouts.com/_images/_media/Gluten_Guide.pdf
Turns out that some of the weird non-wheat grains also contain gluten,
so this might help you see what to rule out.

I made this soup last night (adding a small sliced zucchini to make it
heartier, using ground turkey instead of beef, and adding 2 boullion
cubes).  It was extremely quick to make and doesn't contain any of
your allergens (unless small amounts of soy sauce cause problems for
you!).  Tasted fine.
http://www.recipezaar.com/119783

some search criteria:
gluten-free lactose-free soy-free

Another idea, probably unhelpful...  I don't know much about
pre-diabetes, but my understanding is that it's controlled by both
diet and exercise (plus moderate weight loss).  Are there tradeoffs
there, such as if you exercise more you won't have to cut carbs as
much?  If that were true, maybe you could widen the range of foods you
could eat?  Anyway, I'm sure the doctor who diagnosed you has given
you some instructions.

actually, it seems like by the time you cut out all that stuff you're
usually shopping in the vegan/organic area and it's not too
processed... it's mostly just a blend of natural products.  Not as
good as home-cooked, granted.  But useful, anyway.  Thanks for the
sites... I'll check them out too.

As far as the exercise goes... yeah, that's a good point.  The doctor,
despite being a researcher in the field of diabetes, was very
irritatingly vague.  Apparently 'pre-diabetes' (apparent sensitivity
to sugar without noticiable changes in blood sugar) hasn't been
officially, scientifically, explained yet.  I was told that the
phenomena had been recognized, and they're working on it... but he
wasn't willing to advise me on anything more specific than that I
should cut down on carbs.

However, trial and error, watching other members of my family, and
general medical folklore on the topic all point to exercise doing a
lot of good.  I definitely need to exercise more, and I'm planning to
once I start school.  ...right now resources and schedule make it very
difficult.

Greetings!

As a Dietitian I couldn't help but 'hear' and understand your
confusion. I've been down this track myself with food intolerances but
thanks to colleagues and my training I've worked things out.

Your sensitivity to bread (high gluten) and not pasta which is also
made from wheat is perplexing. However it is wise to get this
situation nutted out.

That you are so sensitive to lactose probably means that something
else (not sinister) is happening to the absorptive area in your small
bowel.  This may be due to fructose malbsorption.

Fructose is found in fruit and in long chains of fructose in wheat,
onions, inulin and other foods. The diet does not cut out all fruit. 
I'm not sure where you are but I'm in Australia and fructose
malabsorption (FM)is a relatively newly recognised condition and a
Dietitian here in Melbourne is doing ground breaking research into
formulating the diet. Many doctors here are unfamiliar with FM which
is supposedly the cause of 40% of irritable bowel symptoms.

I have the condition and the diet has made a huge difference to my
discomfort.   It is easily diagnosed with a Breath Hydrogen Fructose
Test.  The test is not invasive and involves drinking 50 gm fructose
drink and then breathing into a machine every 15 mins so that the
hydrogen excreted via the breath is measured over about 2hrs. The
hydrogen is the result of bacterial breakdown of fructose in the large
bowel causing hydrogen to be given off. Symptoms of this include
bloating, wind, constipation or diarrhoea or both.  Not everyone is a
hydrogen breath exceter so you need to do a lactose hydrogen breath
test 1st to check outthis, otherewise you may get a false negative
result

 
From your linking of items that you seem sensitive to and the Dr.'s
diagnosis of pre-diabetes, another possibility is coeliac disease as
there is a strong correlation between diabetes and coeliac disease.
Incidentally, I  also have a a niece in this situation.

I suggest that you go to a trusted Dr.-your current one is not helpful
already re pre-diabetes, something every Dr. should be familiar with-
and ask to get blood tests for coeliac disease.  If it's suspected
then get a bowel biopsy done as sometimes the tests come up negative
when the biopsy is positive.

Because of your confusion about what is affecting you and what you
need to eat be healthy, I strongly recommend you see a Dietitan as you
sound like you could easily end up with malnutrition as well as your
current problems. You'll waste less food too!   Should you have a
problem related to food and your bowels, I suggest the Dietitian has a
special interest in Gastroenterology, as others may not have the
specific knowledge needed to assist you.

I urge you not to check out fad diets but get a book on GI written by
Jenny Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell called The New Glucose
Revolution.  Do a Googe search and you'll find Jenny has written may
books and had pocket versions on sale too. She is a world leading
researcher on GI and professor human Nutrition here in Aust.with a
great deal of credibility.

Best of luck.  Hope this of assistance