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Food trials
I'm starting this thread as a sort of food journal of my experimentation.
I have started a low A diet a few weeks ago. My staples which are my baseline:
Breakfast, one of the following with one fruit:
Oatmeal: Regular quick oats, 2/3 cup of milk, brown sugar, a pinch of wheat bran and a bit of salt.
Pancakes: Regular refined enriched white flour mixed with either rice krispies or oats, baking soda, vinegar, 2/3 cup of milk, pan fried with lard or vegetable oil, not set yet. Served with maple syrup.
Toasts: White regular bread made with part oat flour with a Nutella-type spread.
Cereals: Rice krispies with plain yogourt and honey
Lunch is dinner leftovers
Dinner:
Proteins: Any meat, sometimes a bit of cheese
Starches: Bread, pasta, rice (brown or basmati), potatoes, sometimes beans
Vegetables: Peeled cucumber, onions, garlic, tomatoes
Flavors:
Maple syrup, honey, vinegars, salt, pepper, paprika, parsley
Snacks:
Fruit: pears, apples, bananas, golden raisins
Salty, crunchy: sunflower seeds, almonds, various wheat crackers
Sugary: oat cookies, marshmallow
Yesterday during the day, I felt like I had not recovered from my bell pepper trial: more hungry, less energy, a bit nauseous, blurry/bad peripheral vision.
Last evening, I trialed fennel as a vegetable and also indulged in some chocolate cake which contained some eggs.
I felt warm all evening, my hands were especially warm while sitting in the living room. I usually need some blanket to keep warm late in the evening.
I did wake up at night and needed to eat and had some joint pains in my knees this morning. I'm under the impression that animal sources of A don't affect me in the same way as vegetable sources.
I usually can tell I ate too much carotenoids because I get a weird sensation of inflammation in my brain (a bit like overstimulation and start to feel more anxious). With the cake I ate yesterday, I got joint pains which I hadn't suffered from in a short while. I'm attributing this symptoms to eggs for now.
Wouldn't you be better off cutting the milk, cheese and other dairy product ?
Eggs are definitely a problem. Based on my experience of eating a carnivore primal diet almost devoid of plant food for almost a year: you willget toxicity from animal sources of VA. I used to eat plenty of eggs, raw milk, liver, fish and cod liver oil. Result: skin issues, joint pain, anxiety, brain fog.
Something I had questioned is that the farmers I buy raw milk from (I am in Canada and its very hard to find) did not look healthy at all. Their skin was saggy, some were fat in a bad way and their kid needed a of kidney transplant. Now these people all they eat is the raw dairy product. That was a serious red flag but I was more worried about bacteria never thought of VA contributing to all those issues.
-ron
Well, I know milk/dairy is not recommended. I have reduced my intake greatly and if I felt I was not making progress, it would probably be the first thing I eliminate. I keep it because I enjoy it greatly and oatmeal without milk is not satisfying to me (I have tried). I am in no hurry and going overboard trying to eliminate all sources would just make me feel orthorexic.
I only have a series of low grade symptoms that are manageable: knee joint pain, insomnia (waking once, most nights), some acne, dry skin on hands, dark circles under eyes, lowering vision, brain fog, pain during menstruation, mild constipation.
I have been dealing with them for years and want to enjoy life still without depraving myself too much.
BTW, I'm using full fat since it's not fortified with A.
Hi Somuch4food,
Please be aware that some of the spices have huge amounts of vitamin A.
Paprika/Vitamin A ~ 49,254 IU /100 gm
Parsley/Vitamin A ~ 8,424 IU /100 gm
Rice Krispies in the USA might also be supplemented with vitamin A??
Milk and tomato are suspect too, IMO
I'm a fellow Canadian, so less worries about vitamin A fortification.
I am aware that many spices are full of A, I'm using them in smaller quantities than before. As I said before, I am gradually lowering A and monitoring my reactions to various foods and my healing progress.
I am individualizing this process since following advice from other people and the Internet did not do much for me.
Since I seem to be fine with tomatoes, I'm guessing my body handles lycopene better than other carotenoids. I also seem quite sensitive to lutein. A few green olives were enough to greatly disturb my sleep.
My knees were hurting more today. I'm attributing this to the chocolate cake I ate 2 days ago.
I remembered today that as a kid I never ate bell peppers, raw tomatoes or whole eggs. I had a clear disliked for those. I don't know if I had noticed they made me feel bad or I simply disliked the taste.
Re: Tomatoes - Peel & de-seed them to reduce the lectin content (it also reduces the carotenoids). Pressure cooking would further reduce the lectins.
Roma tomatoes have more flesh so they are better for this. Blanch them and the peel comes off easier (or use a paring knife if they are firm) and then sieve out the seeds. Also tomato sauce from Italy is peeled & de-seeded (it comes in a glass jar & doesn't have any additives other than salt & water).
According to Dr. Gundry, traditional Italian cultures peel & de-seed all of their tomatoes. Also its pretty common for traditional cultures to peel & de-seed cucumbers, zucchinis etc. He attributes the negative affects purely to lectins but its interesting that the peels are high in carotenoids as well.
Also Tomatoes are pretty high in Lutein, so your might be reacting to something else in the olives.
I have discovered that the new brand of bread I bought because my usual one was out of stock has vitamin D on it 25% RDA for 2 slices. Since my knee pain is not going away and worsening, I think it's the real culprit. I will buy another bread today to use instead and we'll see.
Dr. G Smith mentions D being only second to A in terms of doing damage.