00:00My name is Ben Sutter and I can't eat food.
00:07I got a feeding tube when I was three years old and had it all the way up until
00:11I turned 18. In high school I transitioned to drinking the juice boxes with the formula
00:16full-time and so I would just carry around this little black bag and it just had a whole bunch
00:21of juice boxes in it and that was just my food. You sort of realize how much society is built
00:29around food like kind of you know birthday parties and every event and everything that's like oh
00:36food will be provided or you know a pizza or something there's always some aspect that involves
00:41food and I think you don't really realize that until you aren't able to participate in it. I have
00:46met so many people like I don't know how to eat food well what's the other option you know like
00:52I used to be allergic to milk eggs wheat peanuts soy and red dye so the foods I could have from a very
00:58young age were potato rice and corn. Prior to Dupixen if I wanted to try all the food it would be I had
01:03to eat one food consistently per month changing nothing else about my diet. With Dupixen they said
01:09you're good to try all meat all fruits and all vegetables excluding seafood. I expected to go
01:14into this and like all right I'm making a lot of progress six months eight months I'll be like fully
01:19normal diet and then like I haven't even built the habit of sitting down eating food I haven't built
01:24the habit of preparing food I don't know how to cook I don't even know what spices are like this
01:28is a lot more than I expected it to be. Like there are some days I don't eat anything new there are
01:32some days I just drink the juice boxes and you know there's some days I try and do only food and
01:38part way through I end up bringing a juice box or I have to stop for whatever reason and you know one
01:43there's hope there are other people who are going through it with you but even if you're making
01:49progress and you feel like it's you know two steps forward one step back like a slip doesn't have
01:54to turn into a slide you know you can fall down and still get up like that's okay. I've lived an
01:58incredibly blessed life and I've traveled a whole bunch I've played a whole bunch of different sports
02:02I've gone skiing there's not a lot that I haven't done and I'm incredibly thankful for that but you know
02:08yes I can't eat food but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy life.
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