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A Best Practices Diet
Hi @armin,
Yes the microbiome is important but it's complex and diverse and I don't believe that consuming probiotics or prebiotics can do much to improve gut flora balance. I think in many cases they make gut issues worse. My perspective is that the underlying causes for gut issues need to be treated to allow the microbiome to normalize rather than trying to use probiotics to influence the composition of the microbiome. My SIBO was exacerbated by taking probiotics and was greatly diminished by taking herbs that kill off the SIBO. Over the years of following a low vit A diet my gut health has kept improving.
Lactose and its breakdown product galactose is often problematic for gut health. Fructose can be if it is malabsorbed. Complex carbohydrates and soluble fibre can be very problematic if gut health is impaired. Basically any carb apart from glucose can be an issue when SIBO is present. When gut health is normal consuming moderate amounts of fructose, complex non starch carbohydrates and soluble fiber should be fine.
I always recommend against consuming to many high pectin foods due to methanol production. Fruit, legumes and vegetables contain pectin. Whole grains and mushrooms do not contain pectin, instead they contain beta glucan. Beta glucan has been well studied and is associated with significant health benefits. Beta glucan helps to absorb bile acids and reduce enterohepatic recirculation. I recommend including oats and mushrooms in the diet. Most of the starch in my diet comes from refined wheat flour, I also eat noodles made from refined rice and legume starch.
With fat it's best to cook with lard or beef tallow. These fats contain similar fatty acids to the fatty acids our body chooses to create from carbohydrates. In addition to providing your body with the fatty acids it prefers these fats contain vit K2 and lard contains vit D. All plant oils are inferior however one benefit of refined deodorized palm oil is that it doesn't contain any oxysterols, it does however contain oxyphytosterols. It's essential to make sure that any lard purchased is not hydrogenated.
Quote from grapes on January 8, 2023, 10:28 amQuote from Andrew B on January 7, 2023, 12:54 pm@grapes Beetroot isn't high in carotenoids. It's actually very good for liver health. It's good for betaine as well.
Recently I've been eating "burgers" and noticed a flare in some symptoms. After looking at the label it says only 75% meet, and one of the main ingredients is beet powder. Sure maybe it was something else contributing to symptoms, but I suspect beet.
On the topic of eggs I eat it by periods with cantonese rice. As it comes prepared it's hard to tell the quantity of eggs inside. It's a bit annoying though as there is a lot of peas with it, I try not to eat them.
@grapes I would check the other ingredients in the burgers. I always had difficulty digesting beetroot unless well cooked or fermented. It caused heartburn which I now wonder whether it was stimulating bile too much. Make your own burgers with beef mince, onions, salt and optional: egg, flour and pepper. There's going to be processed stuff in the burgers if they've got beet powder.
I woke up deciding to stop the daily lacto-fermented beets, and felt bad about "advertising" them last night here in this thread, so here I am. FWIW.
I agree moreso with @tim-2 overall than with @jessica2 on the refined sugars and startches thing, but I do think Jessica makes some important points, too, particularly about thiamine and listening to your own body--everyone should do what makes them feel best, and I don't doubt limiting, or even avoiding, refined foods is the right approach for many. It is for Jessica, and it was for for Dr. Schwarzbein (author of one of the more "balanced" diet books I read back in the day).
But it wasn't for me. I don't think I would've been able to recover from anorexia if I hadn't "gotten fat" and slept for four solid months. And I couldn't have accomplished either of those things without consuming large amounts of refined starch (particularly white rice and white bread with butter), sugar, and other "unhealthy" foods (some containing PUFAs). At that time, I had no appetite whatsoever, and for whatever reason sugar was pretty much the only thing I found could increase it even a little.
This "junk food" approach to anorexia recovery healed my mental illness--completely--in 2014. For most of my life prior to that year, I hadn't eaten any significant amount of refined sugar (as a child raised by a crunchy mama, and then as a teenager in 2005 I developed an orthorexic level of avoidance for PUFAs and refined sugars and starches). In 2006, all my health problems started... (There were other contributing factors, obviously, but still.)
So what Tim is saying aligns with my experience of refined starch, sugars, and PUFAs --ultimately "anti-nutrient free" calories--contributing to healing my body. 😁
But that doesn't mean there aren't downsides with over-doing it, or that everyone can tolerate these foods, particularly if your overall diet has been low in thiamine and minerals for a long time, or that my approach to anorexia recovery was the "best" way to do it (even for me). Years after my anorexia recovery, thiamine and zinc supplementation led to even greater consistency of my appetite...and perhaps it's likely they could've made recovery easier back in 2014!
As Thomas Sowell said (about economics, but I think it applies to healing with nutrition in the 21st century, too):
“There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs; and you try to get the best trade-off you can get, that’s all you can hope for."
At this stage of my healing process, I still find I feel best when I eat white rice every day! Sugar though? Ehh, I could take it or leave it, but like @lil-chick I much prefer muffins over cookies or other sweet desserts at this point. Gluten-free cornbread muffins are my favourite.
Quote from tim on January 8, 2023, 10:15 pmHi @armin,
Yes the microbiome is important but it's complex and diverse and I don't believe that consuming probiotics or prebiotics can do much to improve gut flora balance. I think in many cases they make gut issues worse. My perspective is that the underlying causes for gut issues need to be treated to allow the microbiome to normalize rather than trying to use probiotics to influence the composition of the microbiome. My SIBO was exacerbated by taking probiotics and was greatly diminished by taking herbs that kill off the SIBO. Over the years of following a low vit A diet my gut health has kept improving.
Lactose and its breakdown product galactose is often problematic for gut health. Fructose can be if it is malabsorbed. Complex carbohydrates and soluble fibre can be very problematic if gut health is impaired. Basically any carb apart from glucose can be an issue when SIBO is present. When gut health is normal consuming moderate amounts of fructose, complex non starch carbohydrates and soluble fiber should be fine.
I always recommend against consuming to many high pectin foods due to methanol production. Fruit, legumes and vegetables contain pectin. Whole grains and mushrooms do not contain pectin, instead they contain beta glucan. Beta glucan has been well studied and is associated with significant health benefits. Beta glucan helps to absorb bile acids and reduce enterohepatic recirculation. I recommend including oats and mushrooms in the diet. Most of the starch in my diet comes from refined wheat flour, I also eat noodles made from refined rice and legume starch.
With fat it's best to cook with lard or beef tallow. These fats contain similar fatty acids to the fatty acids our body chooses to create from carbohydrates. In addition to providing your body with the fatty acids it prefers these fats contain vit K2 and lard contains vit D. All plant oils are inferior however one benefit of refined deodorized palm oil is that it doesn't contain any oxysterols, it does however contain oxyphytosterols. It's essential to make sure that any lard purchased is not hydrogenated.
Thanks for the reply.
When it comes to SIBO, what ultimately got you to that diagnosis? Was it symptom related? Tests? Resolution of symptoms from trial and error?
I'm always curious if I had SIBO but I don't really have most of the symptoms laid out that I see online. The main symptom I have is inability to tolerate soluble fiber. Sunfiber, too much fiber causes me to feel like I'm in a blender, mentally. Like I am on some bad dissociative drug. Whenever I feel this coming on, not shortly after that I realize that have to take a shit and upon elimination, the negative sensations subside. Not sure what is going on but very debilitating and panic inducing.
Other than that, all of my daily eliminations are mostly like taking food and water and mixing it up in a blender. Not painful, just like soup or baby food. Any plant material comes out just as it went in.
Are these symptoms of SIBO and if so, when ultimately helped you?
Once I posted about not being able to tolerate effervescence. I don't think I got many replies. I still have issues with it and it is kind of bizarre and I wonder what is up with it. It's been my whole life. My mother also. Here is the original thread, not that there is much there https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/bubbles-effervescence/
Quote from Jessica2 on January 9, 2023, 3:36 amI did horrible when I tried to eat white rice and flours in my detox program, and gained weight, an additional 10 pounds on top of the 20-30 I gained on CLO and VA supplements, while eating those things.
Sorry if you said it earlier somewhere, but what do you eat besides meat / animal protein then?
I was reading a scientific article on it and realized that it was exactly what I was suffering from. Then I ordered the herbal products that were used in a SIBO study to effectively treat it and they cured me of the worst symptoms.
It's been a while since I looked into it but from memory SIBO can have a wide range of symptoms and express itself in different ways. My impression was that SIBO plays a role in differently named gut disorders. What else normally causes flatulence and diarrhea other than fermentation in the small intestine?
@jessica2
It seems like lard promotes vitality and health. I guess it's just that it contains exactly what the body needs, the right fatty acids, K2, D and choline. The only downside of it is its oxysterol and linoleic acid content which is why it's best not to do heavy frying with it. I've maintained since day one that lard is NOT high in vitamin A or retinoic acid.
Sounds like you have some good understanding around SIBO. Chronic SIBO promotes chronic disease including heart disease so I do believe that it makes sense to take either herbs or antibiotics for it. Herbs or antibiotics are often needed to get it under control and allow the body to establish the conditions that help prevent it.
Thiamin deficiency is not normally caused by including balanced amounts of refined grain and sugar in the diet. If someone has a health condition where they have impaired biochemistry and are not metabolizing and retaining thiamin effectively then refined carbs could exacerbate the thiamin deficiency. Impaired biochemistry can cause thiamin, B12, folate and magnesium deficiencies. Some people will obtain benefit from taking supplemental thiamin, methylcobalamin, folate or magnesium in these situations. Taking supplemental thiamin is probably a better option than avoidance of calorie supplying foods for most of these people.
One of the best sources of thiamin is pork. Many of the areas of the world with the longest lived people eat a lot of pork. White rice eaters in asia often eat significant amounts of pork and legumes, two of the best sources of thiamin. Beef was not commonly eaten by most of the population in medieval Europe, pork was. Including pork, oats and legumes in the diet will supply significant amounts of thiamin.
Hi @puddleduck,
I think that irrespective of health conditions people vary somewhat in their ability to digest and metabolize fructose as well as starch so yeah it's important to listen to one's instincts.
@jessica2 Thank you, interesting. I have tried boiled potatoes, but as a staple food that didn't go well. I eat occasional fries outside. There is a book where a mother describes healing his autistic son, and initially the only food he could tolerate was fries.
Gluten foods seem problematic to me (maybe because of glyphosate), but rice is ok. In my case I have trouble gaining weight. When I put an additional weight it's a sign that I am in a rather good state of health.
@jessica2
Potatoes are high in oxalates, solanine, copper and pectin. I'm not saying they should be avoided but this is why I think that conservative consumption of whole plant foods is healthy.
Tuna is high in mercury.