You ate only three things due to rare disease. Now he tries real food (exclusive)

For most of his life, 24-year-old leg sutter Never knew what it was like to eat a real meal.

Diagnosed at just 15 months old with eosinophilic gastroenterit (EGE) – a rare, chronic disease where the body attacks certain foods as if they were harmful intruders – he relied entirely on Neocate splashA medically worded drink that came packed in practical juice boxes.

When he was 20, only three foods were considered – potatoes, rice and corn – safe, and even they were just appealing to him with the right preparation. Testing something new meant undergoing an upper endoscopy, an invasive and uncomfortable process that made attempts to feel more like a job than a pleasure.

But everything changed when Sutter was approved for Dupixent in 2021, a prescription medicine aimed at inflammation and allows him to eat freely without constant testing. One month after he started using the drug, his endoscopy was clear for the first time in almost 16 years.

Now, with almost every food finally on its plate, Sutter dives to eat for the first time – and Document each bite on TikTok.

“You somehow realize how much society is built around food … birthday parties and events,” Sutter tells people exclusively. “There is always some aspect involving food and I think you don’t really realize it until you can’t participate in it.”

From the ages 3 to 16, Sutter used a feeding tube daily. For several years he wore the feed pump, which contained two formal boxes, everywhere. It fed him for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the speed he put it on, and that’s how he got his nourishment for 13 years.

Being homeschooling, he made it easier to manage his condition. Once a week, Sutter participated in a collaboration, who allowed him to get in touch with others as an in -house social person. It gave him the best from both worlds: flexibility and society.

Although his dietary restrictions did not interfere with him first, about 12, he began to fight with the idea of ​​wanting to be “normal” as other children.

Fortunately, he says that his “parents and family were really stuck at dinner every night was not about the food.”

“It was about spending time with the family,” he says. “It was about learning each other’s days.”

With three older brothers in the house, his mother tried to include Sutter in as many activities as possible – always find creative ways to make him feel “normal” in his own way, especially on vacation that revolved around food, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving.

For a birthday, his parents contacted a company that made cotton candy and explained his son’s extreme dietary restrictions. Since ordinary sugar was safe, gifted company his very own machine so he could enjoy a worried cotton candy – one of the few goodies he could actually eat – anytime he wanted.

“My mom went to the effort to shape it into a birthday cake,” he says. “And somewhere there is a photo of me with a fork, and it’s just this white cake that is just cotton candy.”

Sutter’s parents always reminded him of not feeling sorry for himself And that he could still enjoy life, even without experiencing food like most of his peers.

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“In high school, I switched to drinking the juice boxes on the formula full time,” says Sutter. “And so I would only wear this little like the black bag, and it just has a whole lot of juice boxes in it. And it was just my food.”

When it came to attending college, Sutter found that people were generally much understanding of his condition. “I mean, if you walk past me on the street you wouldn’t know anything,” admits Sutter. “I look like a normal person.”

Now that he can introduce more to his diet, the suggestions – especially from men – are almost always the same: he has to try beer or steak.

“But I based all the foods I could try, every food that exists, of two things: what does it look like? Does it look a bit crispy and do it smell good?” He reveals. “So toasted bread was the perfect symbol and the cross of both of these things. Rosted bread was as good as it got, and I couldn’t wait to try toasted bread.”

Sutter’s obsession with crunchy structures originated from his early eating habits. When he grew up, apart from sugar, the only foods he could eat were all starch, and he liked them only in chip form. Crunch was the only structure ever felt right to him.

“So to be, okay, you can go and eat anything and eat something that is softly structured? It was very uncomfortable for me,” admits Sutter. “Not a good time.”

Trying new foods has opened a whole new world for him. Before dupixent, Sutter would have to try food by eating an article consistently, every day, for a month, not changing anything else about his diet. He would then need an upper endoscopy at the end of the trial to check for inflammation.

“It’s really hard to eat one thing consistently every day, for a month or two. I don’t like to have upper endoscopies. They’re not very fun,” he shares. “So it was always this deterrent to trying food that adds another layer.”

After being at Dupixent for three months, his last endoscopy returned. As a result was sutter Approved to try all the fruitsvegetables and meat – excluding seafood and large allergens like Milk and eggs.

“I will never forget to come home from the scope, and I’m sitting in my apartment. My wife puts a baby carrot in front of me, and I think a piece of celery, because they were both crunchy things,” remembers Sutter.

“And I’m not a worried person. I’m not usually nervous – anxiety is not something I have had to deal with – but I sweated, just stared at the food. I was so nervous, so scared,” he adds.

He finally managed to take a bit – one so small that his wife still laughs about it and joking that she couldn’t even see what he had eaten. Hating the taste threw sutter the food in the trash and passed away. At that moment, he realized that the process would be much more difficult than expected.

“I spent my whole life not having to plan when I would sit down for meals and not have to worry about the trouble of making food,” he explains. Recently he has had Madegood Granola bars because they are a simple, available alternative, almost like a replacement for his juice boxes.

“I still work with volume, for one thing I didn’t realize is that I have never extended my stomach,” says Sutter. He used to drink about a juice box every hour, but with a very small stomach even two boxes could leave him to feel uncomfortably full, sometimes to the point where it felt difficult to breathe.

Each box was only 237 milliliters, less than a can of soda, but it was enough to maximize his capacity. It got to eat food to feel physically overwhelming, which has been one of the strangers of his experience.

“When I sit down with actual food in front of me, as if I put a sandwich and it has two pieces of salad and a piece of ham on it, when it’s done, I’m basically full,” he shares. “And it takes me half an hour to eat it.”

Since deciding to try new foods, Sutter has documented his reactions online. A food did he think he would love but not? Apples. Crunch seemed like a perfect fit, but when he finally tried one it was juicy and stickier than expected. He realizes that there is much more for food than just texture.

Another of the biggest surprises has been spices. Have never had pepper or something spicy, even mild flavors feel overwhelming. Pepper actually sticks his tongue, and spicy food has much more kick than he ever imagined.

“I haven’t even built the habit of sitting down to eat food. I haven’t built the habit of cooking. I don’t know how to cook,” he admits. “This is much more than I expected it would be.”

Still, Sutter feels he has lived an incredible full life – He has traveled, graduating college, married and is surrounded by love and support.

He has seen comments online from people who say they could not imagine life without food – but for him it was never about what he could not eat, rather what he could do regardless of condition.

“So I definitely think I just made a perspective on: just keep going,” he tells people. “There is a lot of life to enjoy, and it doesn’t have to be around food.”