Jack Sprat

    OK, so I'm STILL an idiot. So! While adding two cans of coconut milk to Lowcountry shrimp boil results in an undoubtedly delightful dish, that there is a lot of fat. I've been feeling awful lately at the start of the week, but then better as the week wore on. Eventually, I worked out that this correlated pretty strongly with the start of putting coconut milk in my shrimp boil. It's just too much fat for my body to digest.
    However, it's a GREAT dish, assuming you only have one smallish bowl, and a lot of salad or other vegetables to go with. Sort of a Thai shrimp bisque; too rich to live on, but wonderful in small quantities. I could still open a restaurant on this; I just can't eat it three days running. I'm trying again today with one can (instead of two) of light (instead of regular) coconut milk. Won't be as good, probably, but ought to be a lot more digestible.
    I wonder if there's an actual condition (besides a rare one which really is called something like Jack Sprat Syndrome) where you have a particular difficulty digesting fats. Because my mom, though anything but thin, had the same thing: eat anything greasy, and run straight to the bathroom. I appreciate that we have miles (OK, feet, but the other way was more impressive) of intestines and the stuff I eat now isn't flushing out of my body ten minutes later. But it seems like the guts want to clear the decks to make ready for the greasy stuff. Or something. I guess it's what they call irritable bowel, but this has always seemed to me to be more like a description than a diagnosis. I'll just cut back on the fats and oils and not worry about it too much.