Food stuff

[purpletigron]

My friend N, who has been suffering from grumbling 'IBS'-like symptoms for months, is being put on an 'exclusion diet' to try to find out whether there is a particular food which is causing the symptoms. Step one is to cut out all likely culprits for two weeks, and look for any improvements. If there are improvements, step two is to re-introduce foods one at a time, and look for symptoms returning.

The foods which N must cut out include: all dairy (not just cows), almost all cereals (all wheat products etc.), legumes (lentils, peanuts etc.), tea, citrus fruits.

The foods which N may eat are: unprocessed meats (including fish), vegetables (excluding potatoes), fruits (excluding citrus fruits), and rice.

It occurs to me that there is a reasonable correlation between 'foods which are potential problems' and 'food which were introduced in the Neolithic through agriculture'. Ever since I learned about celiac disease - which is a gradually fatal auto-immune reaction to protein fragments in wheat, rye, barley and maybe oats - I've been perplexed as to why a staple food could cause such a serious disease. But in evolutionary terms, we're only an eye-blink away from the Neolithic, so wheat still counts as a 'novel food' to our genome...

Comments

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Yep. The two big culprits for that kind of reaction are wheat and dairy, both of which are relatively recent additions to the human diet.

(I think I could live without cereals and dairy but not tea...)

You eat what you were...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

The No 1 suspect at the moment for N is dairy, although N and partner are total tea addicts so that would be a biggie for them too!

Another one of those intriguing factoids is that ~75% of adults worldwide are unable to digest lactose, but only ~20% of European adults suffer that problem - and they are distant descendents of early cattle herders.

Re: You eat what you were...

[daphnis.livejournal.com]

A niggling almost-thought pops up from the furthest reaches of my (alleged) mind-pool ~ aren't the Masai cattleherders who utilise a diet containing cattle blood and milk shaken together over heat(?), but do not eat the flesh of their cattle?

Maybe one of our greatest difficulties is determining how many degrees of separation we each have from ancestral derivations. I wonder if the 'cropping' up of ailments of the auto-immune varieties could give clues to Neolithic diet needs, and if returning to least tampered-with natural foods might help check the ongoing damages?

This train of thought leads me to genetically modified foods, increases in diabetes, celiac disease, Crohn's disease, ingestion of pig whipworm eggs to treat IBBS-type attacks, how too much cleanliness can backfire by leaving the young with too few antibodies, etc., etc., and so on! Dangerous for me to get 'thinking' at 4:30 a.m. ~ need to go back to bed....... Zzzzz

Re: You eat what you were...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Apparently: "[Amongst] robustly healthy peoples like the Masai (http://obsidianmagazine.com/Pages/reviews/nativenutrition.html) ... we find daily consumption of meat, milk, blood and marrow: the Masai are nomadic cattle herders. They also run constantly, herding their flocks, and the flesh they consume is lean and free of hormones and drugs."

We can easily see that people vary in their natural 'external' physical make-up (super-models being a common example). It seems plausible that people should also vary in their 'internal' conditions - that each of us has a unique genetic inheritance, which could pre-dispose us toward individually specific dietary needs. I'm in the minority who can digest lactose, for example. However, almost everyone who makes nutritional recommendations seems to suggest that we all need to eat lots more vegetables 'as if our lives depended upon it': that would be a common nutritional inheritance.

It's extremely fascinating...

Re: You eat what you were...

[daphnis.livejournal.com]

Thanks for additional information! Lean (cooked?) meat, marrow (assorted disease antibodies, or auto-immune stimulating stem cell types?), milk and blood, eh. No veggies except through medium of cattle?

The human creature is endlessly fascinating ~ well, ALL of living creaturedom is worthy of intense study, if we can just manage to keep from extinctifying ourselves and the others before we understand the linkages!

Re: You eat what you were...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, the Masai only eat a little bit of plant food. I'm not sure if they kill their animals for meat, either, or if they wait for the animal to die through natural causes.

I fully expect us to extinctify ourselves first...

[muninnhuginn]

That's a truly fascinating thought. I'm going to leave it to lurk until I've digested (if you'll pardon the pun) its potential implications. But it makes a lot of sense.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Of course the main triggers for my IBS are vegetables and fruit and too much red meat... I hope N finds out what any triggers might be.

I'm confused on the wheat thing though, I know modern cultivated wheat is, er, modern, but didn't early man collect and use grain in its wild state to some extent?

On the same subject the so-called Paleolithic diet has been very helpful for a friend of mine with serious health problems, is about the only thing that's ever helped her.

Which vegetables, what meats?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you are the exception which tests (e.g. proves) the rule :-) Have you compared the effects of farmed grain-fed, farmed grass-fed and wild red meats on your IBS? The Paleo diet people would predict that game meat should be OK. Similarly, have you looked at different kinds of vegetables: do 'New World' vegetables such as the 'nightshade family' (potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, capiscum peppers) or 'squashes' (pumpkins, courgettes) or beans (runner beans, french beans) affect you differently to 'native European' vegetables (peas, broad beans, cabbage, leeks, parsnips...)? [Not sure what your genetic heritage is, of course :-)]

My understanding is that grass seeds must have been 'gathered' and eaten before they were 'domesticated'. Wild grass seed is too small and scattered to dominate any hunter-gatherer meal in the way that wheat dominates our diet, though.

Re: Which vegetables, what meats?

[muninnhuginn]

Also the nature of grains has changed with domestication (does one domesticate plants?) and selective breeding. So, if I remember correctly, spelt, which is similar to the flour the Romans used (so fwere centuries of human intervention), is lower in gluten than more modern varieties.

Re: Which vegetables, what meats?

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Its more a matter of whether they are cooked or not, as the fibres and cellulose are the problem; if I want to eat salad I have to eat bread or similar carb first or I get bad symptoms, the source of the vegetable or fruit seems to have little effect (heritage pretty much northern European as far as I can tell by family tree etc).

Yes, I suppose its the change in quanitites that has an effect, though someone with celiac (spelling?) is sensitive to the smallest quantities. I wonder if any research has been done into whether the older kinds of grain have the same effect, in terms of gluten amounts etc.

Re: Which vegetables, what meats?

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Oops, didn't finish this comment - on the matter of red meat I think its more that I don't eat it very often so its a surprise to my system; venison does seem to sit better than steak, but then ostrich is even better so it could be the relative fat content of the meats or something (I just have a weird stomach, more likely!)

Re: Which vegetables, what meats?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Celiacs are like highly sensitive gluten detectors: the autoimmune reaction occurs in the presence of a tiny quantity of the relevant protein fragments. But the same protein fragment is apparently present in 'ancient' wheats such as spelt, so they are also off the menu. Food intolerance is usually a lot less subtle, I think.

It seems strange that you react to the undigestible carbohydrates in fruits and vegetables, but not the ones in (wheat?) bread? I thought it was all basically cellulose? How unpleasant for you :-(

Ostrich is extremely lean meat, so if it is the fattiness of grain-fed domestic meat that makes you unwell, it'd be a great alternative. Apparently, grass-fed farmed meat has a different, more nutritious kind of fat - it's still good to trim off the obvious fat, of course, but the stuff thats part of the muscle structure is apparently a good source of those useful omega-3 essential fatty acid molecules!

[bumponalog.livejournal.com]

My brothers are both celiacs. It's cool though - but very surprising just how much food does have wheat in it - sweets of many kinds and sausages. God I hated the wheat free sausages the butcher made for our family when I was young - but much more stuff is avaliable for people nowadays.
Cant your friend get skin tests or blood tests done?

Love Bump

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

It's terrifying to see how many processed foods are 'padded out' with cheap wheat and milk by-products which shouldn't be there...

N doesn't have food allergies, which are tested for by those things AFAIK: she's suspected of food intolerances, which are much more difficult to detect, I think.

I was tested for celiac disease because I have autoimmune thyroid disease: the two have a slight tendency to be inherited together. I presume that you've tested negative yourself - undiagnosed celiac is thought to end in digestive tract cancer :-(

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I've adapted to tea without dairy - it can be done, so fear not!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, of the top three candidate causes, after dairy and wheat, we have ... black tea! Fortunately, we have large bushes of mint growing on our allotment, and N loves mint tea :-)

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Herbal teas are always good options. Does N react badly to green and white teas?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Yet another drawback to legacy equipment.

IBS

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

As a fellow sufferer I can relate. My main triggers are bell peppers and cucumbers, but tomatoes and whole corn can upset me too. I just have to be careful and gauge how I am feeling. The worst part about it is that you never know if you are going to have a "run to the bathroom day" or a "couldn't go if I wanted to day'. I'm a vegetarian so if I had to give up nuts and cereals I'd have some serious issues. Since it is a Syndrome everyone is different in their problems and solutions. I have a sister-in-law with Ciliac Sprue and it took them forever to diagnose it and she almost died in the process.

Re: IBS

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Hey, there. My friend N has been 'excluding' for 10 days now, but isn't feeling any significant improvements :-( Perhaps the culprit is something really obscure that's still allowed at the moment, or perhaps the inflamation is just going to take a long time to go down. N's peeling cucumbers at the moment, because N's mother gets indigestion from cucumber peel...

Vegetarian celiacs must have a divil of a job. I have a friend who was very ill with celiac for a long time before diagnosis, and after a few years on the gluten free diet also had to give up cheese because it unmasked that intolerance!

My friend mostly suffers from night pains, and consequent extreme tiredness, as far as I know. If there isn't any sign of improvement soon, I think N will try going to an even blander diet for a little while, because I'm not sure that the nutritionist has much else to suggest :-(

I'm glad to hear that it can be possible to track down the main culprits eventually, anyhow! Stay well!