Quote from Alex on July 1, 2024, 3:48 am

Quote from Margo on July 28, 2023, 10:07 pm

3) Food: 26 month update

 

Base daily diet

*Everything on this list is organic except the animal crackers

This is what I eat every day. 95% of my diet does not change.

• 100% grass-fed ground beef, either 85/15 or 95/5, fat drained, rinsed, and discarded; beef juices saved and consumed
  • 1 lb. per day
  • I cook this in the microwave, drain off the fat and juices, rinse it, and soak it in the hot water. Soaking in the water actually makes a difference - draining is not enough to get enough of the fat out. I then put it in the fridge, let the fat harden, then scoop out the fat, save the juices, and dump them in my meals. They taste so good. Someone else on this forum pointed out that the juices apparently have a lot of the minerals in them.
• Beans - pinto and navy - soaked before cooking, pinto juice sometimes saved and consumed
  • 1 cup pinto, 0.5 cup navy per day
  • I used to eat the canned variety, but when I switched to soaking and home-cooking, I felt like they gave me more folate and I didn’t have as many weird reactions, which I used to think were “bile dumping” but now think it may have been something else entirely. I will say though that canned navy beans taste way better than the home-cooked ones, in my opinion, but vice versa for the pintos.
  • One time, I soaked them for only 3 hours as opposed to the usual 8-12, and that whole week I felt like i was low in folate. Not certain on that, and I didn’t test it out again.
  • I found black beans hard to digest and thought that cannelini beans/butter beans without actual butter, especially if organic, tasted really bad. Chickpeas were a disaster, as they are deceptively high in VA for a bean.
  • I tried sprouting the beans at one point to see if it made me feel different folate-wise, as they supposedly contain methylfolate after sprouting. No conclusion on those.
  • Pinto beans helped regulate bowel movements a lot - I assume from the insoluble fiber.
  • I save the water that I cooked the pinto beans in and dump that in my meals too (the ones where I didn’t dump the beef drippings), because supposedly a lot of the folate leaches out into this water. The navy bean water is disgusting, so that goes down the drain.
• Peeled, white potatoes
  • About 3-4 palm-sized potatoes per day
  • I can get away with skipping 1 meal with these, but not 2 consecutive meals. Vitamin C is said to activate folate and protect it once it’s activated, and I get a low folate-type depression when I do not eat these (see the Symptoms section for more)
  • I get them at Publix, because they are the only retailer in my area that carries organic Russet/Idaho potatoes that are consistently whitish.
• Frozen white corn
  • 1.5 cups per day
  • I don’t know if this is essential for me to keep in, but it’s been in my lineup for so long that I am hesitant to remove it for fear that it has some unknown benefit to me.
  • I like the frozen packs at Whole Foods.
• White button mushrooms
  • 8 oz. per day
  • I initially added these for the B2, but that didn’t put a dent in my deficiency. Maybe these are left out on the shelves at the store for too long, destroying their B2 and rendering them useless in that regard. I don’t know. 
  • I don’t notice any obvious effects if I skip these, except for possible constipation. On paper, I think I might run into a B5 deficiency without them. I keep them in for their beta glucan, also.
• Wheat bran
  • Brand
  • 10 TBSP per day. I still need this much. 12 TBSP didn’t seem to benefit any more than 10.
  • It is very important.
  • See the Symptoms section for more information.
  • It definitely gives me minor lutein side effects - not enough to make me take it out right now, but eventually I would like to cut this down.
• Refined coconut oil
  • The Happy Belly brand is so buttery, soft, and good
  • To hunger/taste. This ends up being about 2-3 tablespoons a day
  • I do refined since the virgin coconut oil has more polyphenols which may slow ALDH. The polyphenol content isn’t excessively high in the virgin kind, but online sources say the polyphenols are “potent”.
  • I don’t think this leads to weight gain. In fact I may have lost some because of it.
  • Absolutely revved my hunger for a few days when I started it. Not “snacky” but just like I needed more food. 
  • Did not appear to block detox 
  • Definitely made my bowels churn when I ate it - more so than beef fat
  • May have led to more liquid bowel movements - not in a bad way. And lighter a little bit? Not for sure on this one.
  • I tried eating this away from meals like just at night to make sure that it didn’t aid in carotenoid absorption or interfere with B1 absorption via the remaining polyphenols in the refined variety, but I just kept craving coconut oil throughout the day when I did that, so I put it into my regular meals and moved on.
  • Felt like it might have made my other nutrient deficiencies better in the beginning. 
  • Also just a conjecture - but it may have helped my sugar sensitivity. Not sure on this one, but it was only B2 and coconut oil that were upped/added, respectively, during a period when my sugar sensitivity got better.
• Animal crackers
  • 3-5 per day
  • These are just a treat.
• White rice
  • To appetite -  some days I don’t have any; other days, it is a cup or two
  • I also always feel calm after eating white rice. Maybe not calm as much as happy. It’s basically the feeling that things are going to be okay. 
  • Seems to work even better when paired with coconut oil in the rice, not just in the same meal. No idea why, but this has happened multiple times over the span of multiple months.
• White flour
  • Brand
  • ~500 calories worth a day; I’m not eating it for the calories but for the selenium
  • When I had a B1 deficiency, this made me feel bad B1-wise. This was actually what tipped me off to my B1 deficiency. I’m not sure if it really depletes me of nutrients at this point. I suspect that it might, but not enough for me to cut it out.
  • The Arrowhead Mills’ Organic White Flour linked above is made without barley flour and is very white, which I found to be hard to find.
  • I mix 1 cup of flour with 1/3 cup water and some salt to make bread. Add a little more water if you want it to be soft.
  • I am pretty sure that when I eat the bread all at once and feel a little worse VA-wise (this happens sometimes), it is due to selenium kicking up VA.

 

Occasional additions

*I have maybe 1 serving of 1 of the things on this list every 2-3 weeks, on average.

• Go Macro Peanut Butter Bars
  • Whether or not I react to these negatively depends on the day. I assume it’s because of the sugar, or possibly the cocoa butter. These are very low VA (if you believe that cocoa butter is zero VA - there have been questions about that on this forum before), are great for emergencies, and taste pretty good.
• Snyder’s of Hanover Sourdough Nibblers
  • These do not contain malted barley flour.
  • They are the most reliable snack that can be found at most gas stations, airports, etc. which does not cause much of a reaction for me.
• Coconut water
  • 100 Coconuts’ is so good.
  • This used to make me feel slightly bad, like I overdid the sugar, but this didn’t happen the last time I had it. It was helpful for potassium when I was on B12 injections.
  • The brand I linked is heavenly. Some Publix stores in the southern U.S. carry it. You can find brands with less sugar, but this one is just so much better tasting, in my opinion.
• Almond milk/almond milk cream cheese 
  • No reaction, good or bad.
  • Mooala carries an organic and VA-free variety of almond milk
  • Kite Hill has a really convincing replacement for dairy cream cheese. Target carries it.
• Almonds/almond butter
  • These used to make me a little depressed, but not anymore.
  • I feel like I do put on some weight when eating these, though. It feels like I always gain weight on nuts- not for sure but something to look out for. 
  • May help with pre-shower hair loss, and possibly, just maybe, a little relief from depression. Those are the only things to report, and they’re light maybes.
• Scallops
  • I react very slightly to the VA in them. I was reacting very obviously to them ~6 months ago.
  • Helpful: 
    • Always makes my bowel movements more liquid
    • Sometimes makes me feel less indebted to negative thoughts
    • I don’t know why
  • I don’t know why exactly the good effects happen. I tried supplemental iodine, taurine, glycine, and choline, and those didn’t have the BM nor the mental health effects. I suspect that the mental health effect is from EPA/DHA, but I haven’t tested out fish oil or other ideas to try to confirm that. 
• Tilapia
  • No bad reaction.
  • May have had the same mental health effects as scallops, but not as strong. 
• Black coffee, decaf or regular
  • When I have this, it's just a few sips, so not enough to make me feel much either way. I have it for social purposes, not for health reasons or because I like it (I don't).
  • I am less sensitive to caffeine than I was before detox.
• Added sugar
  • Such as the GoMacro Bars above, 
  • Or this cake recipe with refined coconut oil subbed for the vegetable oil + this frosting recipe with almond milk cream cheese subbed for the regular cream cheese. Note that both the cake and the frosting are very high in sugar. If you make it, I would recommend you cut the sugar back - it was so sweet as to be detrimental to the flavor, and it also made me feel bad. Was well worth it on my last birthday, though - this tasted incredible.
  • I am not positive about this one, but I do think this causes me issues. Basically feels like my detox is being blocked. Or maybe that’s what I tell myself since that’s a theory I’ve heard. Regardless, the feeling is different from ingesting VA and different from when I have psyllium husk or oats and VA is presumably pulled out.
  • I don’t think it’s so much that I am so toxic that my body cannot handle any sugar at all like the 12 g or whatever is in the bars. I think it’s that my body hasn’t been used to dealing with the sugar. It’s been able to devote all of its ALDH resources consistently to detoxing the VA. So when it, all of the sudden, is hit by sugar that it hasn’t had to deal with in a while, the sugar becomes the priority. However,  the body doesn’t immediately respond by pushing out less VA from the tissues, so now you’ve got extra VA floating around in the blood that can’t be detoxed because the sugar is taking up the enzyme space and your body hasn’t had time to decrease VA pump-out or increase enzyme production.
• Oats
  • I tried these for the B1. They didn’t help like supplemental B1 did.
  • After I eat oats, I can nearly immediately feel my intestines churning, like it did with psyllium husk. This has happened multiple times on oats now.
• Pineberries
  • They taste great and seem to only be available in the summer. I had no negative reaction to them. They may have helped with my Vitamin C issues at the time. I would eat more of them if I could find them in an organic variety.
• White popcorn, white corn grits, and white corn polenta
  • No reaction, good or bad
• Macadamia nuts
  • I sometimes react to these, sometimes not. The reaction feels like it is blocked detox, not ingested VA. Maybe it’s the PUFAs doing that. But it’s not a consistent reaction.
  • When I wasn’t eating enough fat, these made me feel more sane.
  • Again, I always feel like I gain some weight on nuts.
  • Other than that, not much to report here either way.
• Brown rice/brown rice cakes
  • I got a few Mees’ lines from the cakes and the rice (even though it was soaked in charcoal beforehand) at one point, so I use for emergencies only. These arsenic reactions started cropping up in Stage 3 that I talk about above. Based on experiments, I think soaking the rice and/or cooking it in a lot of water really helps. Arsenic symptoms were a fluttering heartbeat, Mees’ lines, anxiety, difficulty falling asleep
• Egg whites
  • I tried them for the glycine. No reaction, good or bad.
• Gelatin
  • I tried it for the glycine. No reaction, good or bad.
• Blue Powerade Zero
  • Not much rhyme or reason to this. I just always loved these and drank one a few months ago when I had a stomach bug. I remembered what I had been missing 🙂 
• Dark chocolate made w/ coconut milk
  • I threw away the package on the brand that worked, so I don’t remember the brand. It was made with coconut milk, cocoa beans, cane sugar, and 1 more ingredient (don’t remember what it was). Not much to say about it since I ate so little of it per sitting.
  • The first brand I had was fine VA-wise; the second one did not seem to be. So it’s hit or miss on the chocolate 
• Peanut butter
  • The last time I tried it, I had the non-organic kind. I felt the same way I do when I eat non-organic potatoes, like blocked VA metabolism almost. But, I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t the peanut butter itself, and not the glyphosate.
• Parsnips
  • I did not have a problem with the parsnips themselves. However, the Whole Foods I was buying them at moved them to be on the bottom shelf below the leafy greens, where they sit in water that has dripped over all the vegetables, as well as collected a few specks of the greens themselves. After a few days of eating the parsnips after the move, I started feeling weird. So, I stopped eating them, and the symptoms went away. I can’t find them organic anywhere in my area besides Whole Foods. If I decide that I need to increase Vitamin C or Vitamin E, I might try again with these and just be more diligent to cut out the likely affected areas. 

 

Noteworthy food that has not worked for me:

• Beef fat drained off the 100% grass fed beef
  • I did react to the VA, almost for sure. It built up over time. I do not think it was the saturated fat kicking up detox that made me react, because I didn’t get these same reactions from coconut oil, and it was the distinctly “I ate VA” reaction.
  • It still tasted really good though, and it continued to sound good for a while after I had stopped it. Not sure why (don’t think it was choline since it’s only 6 mg in 1 TBSP).
  • The fat from the Aldi variety did look less yellow than the fat from the beef from another store that I got, for what it’s worth.
  • I don’t get a VA reaction to the beef when the fat is drained and rinsed.
  • Might have some calming benefits for paranoia that coconut oil does not
  • Makes my upper eyelids puffer than any other kind of VA
• Strawberries
  • This reaction has happened consistently each time I’ve tried it - maybe 5 or so. It’s an intense VA reaction. I don’t know why. Anthocyanins?
• Lemon juice
  • This should have, in theory, been okay based on the level of beta carotene and lutein I was consuming in other foods at the time. It was not. I have no clue why.
• Camu Camu powder
  • The dose I took was supposedly very low carotenoid. This did not work for me.
• Chickpeas
  • These were a disaster. They are so much higher in VA than I had realized.
• White quinoa
  • Gave me a bad ingested VA reaction. Maybe just too high in beta-carotene for me at the time - it was pretty yellow once cooked. I don’t think it was the lutein, because I was eating comparable amounts of lutein from the wheat bran at the time and was not having issues. I really don’t know why this was so bad. I don’t appear to have an oxalate problem.
• A green banana
  • This was early on (July 2021, right after I had COVID), 
  • I think the resistant starch wrecked me. This was the worst depression of my life for about 15 minutes, and then it was gone as suddenly as it came.

 

Nutrients of Concern

Per the list of nutrients in Chronometer, the only nutrients that this does not meet the RDA for are:

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Calcium
• Fat
• Omega 3
• Omega 6

I probably have deficiencies of Vitamin E, Vitamin K, and Vitamin D. I’m not sure about omega 3 and 6. I have no evidence of general fat, Vitamin C, or calcium deficiency at this point.

 

Food I want to add in eventually: 

Just for fun here - I would eventually like to be able to add back in:

• Maybe eggs for the biotin so that I can stop the biotin supplements. Then again, biotin seems like one of the lowest-risk supplements out there, so maybe I won’t do this.
• Maybe bone broth or gelatin
• Strawberries, bananas, more sugar, a low-ish VA meal at a restaurant, and the occasional cow’s milk cheese for enjoyment

Chickpeas are usually contaminated with glyphosate even the organic ones, so I believe this is why you had the reaction as the lutein/carotenoid amount in them is negligible. I have had issues with organic chickpeas myself in the past but then these glass jar organic ones from Spain I have no issues with. Likewise with organic tomato  sauce if I buy certain brands I don't feel good from them but if I buy this Organic "real foods brand which is from italy then I have no issues with it and have been having it most days for months and months with no issue. So I do think some of the time people are reacting to some contaminant in the food rather than the Vit A itself, or the contaminant is suddenly making them not tolerate the Vit A compounds in the food.