The right diet strategy to heal

[Gabes-Apg]

rosie
i boil up organic hormone free chicken legs and get close to set jelly from the stock

i also sear and simmer lamb shanks - the meat is what i take for lunches, i keep the stock and again ithis is pretty gelatanous

I use the stock to boil rice, slow cook my veges, use it when i make my savoury muffins, both for flavour and for the natural gelatine.

[Rosie]

Gabes, I've been meaning to ask you how to make "savory" muffins. I assume you probably use chicken or beef stock instead of water, milk or juice. I've never even seen one of those in the US, nor a recipe. They just aren't a menu item, but sound good and more nutritious than the regular ones.

The chicken feet soup that I remember from my youth was pretty solid when it got cold.......you could probably build with it in the winter!

Rosie

[takef586]

This is to give you a little update on how I am doing, and try to understand better how to go ahead.

I have started my Gf DF YF SF diet three and a half months ago. I am taking some vitamins and supplements, and I have observed some general improvement in the frequency and intensity of abdominal pain that I experiece ( I never had any persistent D, even if I have a biopsy based diagnosis of LC).
I am obviously impatient to enrich my diet and to heal.

I cannot take Entocort or similar drugs, so diet is my only hope to get well. I am obviously eagerly searching the internet for information on how best to handle this situation. So far, the most convincing advice I have assimilated, is that of eliminating all potentially allergenic foods, hence my extensive NO list, even if I have not resulted intollerant to gluten or diary in the EnteroLab test.

However, here the easy path ends, as I frequently find conflicting information as to what I should eat of the food categories that have survived the initial screening.

There seem to be two ways of thinking, the first is absolutely negative towards most carbohydrates, and promotes a high fat and protein diet - the theory is extensively presented here:

http://www.biblelife.org/bowel.htm

The second, is esentially absolutely negative towards fat and protein, and absolutely apologetic towards the carbohydrates - the theory is laid out here:

http://www.colitis-crohns.com/facts.html

About the only point they agree on, is that starchy carbohydrates should be avoided, while rice, some potatoes, corn pasta and millet flakes constitute a substantial part of what I eat now.

The negative reactions to food that I observe, are so far primarily linked to the presence of fiber. Any source of fiber, even in small quantities causes me pain and creates some problems with gas and bloating. The same reaction regards any non cooked fruit or vegetable, with a posible exception of small quantities of mature avocado. Coffee causes some pain, so I only indulge twice a month or so. I tried once a couple of glasses of red wine, and the next day the burning pain was very evident as well. I would like to get to the point, where my intestine is healed enough to let me eat raw fruit and vegetables, and at that point I intend to do some sensitivity testing. Doing it now would probably have no value, as any irritating food is causing virtually the same painful reaction.

My question essentially is: given my extensive NO list, what would be the the diet you would recommend to accelerate the remission from inflammation of the intestine? Do you have some illuminating first hand experiences from this phase of your healing process? Has anybody got a convincing case against the starchy carbohydrates, even if well tollerated?

Thanks for your help.

Marek

[tex]

Hi Marek,

It's difficult to predict what foods might work best for you, because we are all different, but most of us here would have problems with some of the foods recommended by both of those authors. If you look at the meals suggested by the author of the first article, for example, he recommends cheese, tomato juice, tomatoes, whey protein powder, eggplant, red peppers, and butter. Tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are all nightshades, and they cause problems for many of us. Cheese, whey protein powder, and butter, of course, are all dairy products, and most of us cannot eat them without having a reaction.

In the second article, the author is simply advocating the vegan diet, together with "food combining", (food combining is simply eating combinations of food which tend to digest well, together). The problem with the vegan diet, is that it doesn't work very well for someone with an IBD. Many of us cannot tolerate the legumes that are necessary to provide the protein in a vegan diet. Without adequate protein, the gut cannot heal, and the body will become rundown, and weak, in general. Muscle maintenance requires protein, and the gut uses muscles for it's digestive processes, (peristalsis, etc.).

There's a lot of BS in both articles, but in the second one, these statements especially, caught my eye:

Medical people mistakenly believe that the body's inflammation response is an "auto-immune" phenomena - - this theory is incorrect and illogical; the body only works to heal itself and never creates any physiological process that would harm itself.

While I tend to agree that there is no such thing as an autoimmune response, that's only an opinion. That theory has never been proven, so it can't be presented as though it were a fact.

Cooked high-protein foods inevitably putrefy in the gut because we simply cannot digestive such a heavy toxic load.

That's pure

When the incompletely digested starches and high-protein foods hang around in our warm gut for hours and even days, fermentive bacteria decompose the digesta causing toxic, irritating chemicals to evolve which cause pain, distress, inflammation and toxemia. This is the major cause of colitis and Crohn’s disease.

In that quote, the first sentence is true, of course, but the second sentence is pure speculation on the part of the author, and since he presents it as though it were a fact, that makes it No one knows the cause of Crohn's disease.

Neither of those diets will work for someone with MC, as recommended by their authors. We have to follow a diet that's low in fiber, with adequate to high protein, and a reasonable amount of carbohydrates. Most of us have to avoid gluten and all dairy products, and about half of us have to avoid soy. Many of us have to avoid other foods, in order to fine tune our diet to suit our own situation. The fewer grains we eat, the better off we are, usually. Your body is the best judge of what you should be eating - it will tell you when something doesn't digest well.

Tex

[takef586]

Thank you Tex... I was hoping that someone might put some sanity into the topic... I must say, since I have read many recommendations here about home made broth on meat, bones, chicken, vegs, etc, I do a huge pot of this once a week, divide into portions and freeze for the whole week, and I sort of noticed that a sound daily helping of this with rice sets me up ok.

At this point, I think I should simply observe attentively what I ate on the days that I get some problems, and try to stick to foods that are "proven", without getting overly concerned with internet theories...

I imagine, that if the healing process goes on, it should become evident through lack of pain, and at this point I will start experimenting with adding some fiber to my diet.

[tex]

Your plan sounds good. It's always best to eat simply, until the gut has enough time to heal, and then you can experiment, and add foods to your diet, after you're in remission.

The problem with most internet sites, is that they are selling something, and so they usually shape their discussions in order to tempt the reader to buy from them. It's much more difficult to be truly objective, when you're selling something. That's one of the reasons why we don't have any ads on this site. (Of course, the main reason is because they're so distracting.)

Tex

[randyh]

Here is a good source of low sulfite organic wine.

I have ordered and tried some of the wines and they good and I tolerate the pretty well. I have rosacea and high sulfite wines make me break out pretty bad, these do not, but I only drink about couple glasses a week.

http://www.freywine.com/

[MBombardier]

While I tend to agree that there is no such thing as an autoimmune response

Tex, I was wondering if you could expand on what you mean here? Thanks!

[tex]

Marliss,

Well, the theory behind a true autoimmune reaction, is that the the body, (the immune system), attacks itself, (the body's own tissue). I happen to believe that the immune system is far more complex, (and more sophisticated), than we give it credit for, and it would never make such a dumb mistake.

Many researchers, (including Polly and myself), believe that an undiscovered bacterium, (probably related to the mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis, (MAP), group of bacteria, (which cause Johnne's disease in cattle and certain other livestock), and which may be somehow connected with food sensitivity issues, is responsible for causing inflammatory bowel disease, and other autoimmune "diseases". Of course, that implies that autoimmune diseases don't really exist - they are actually only symptoms of a bacterial infection, and/or food sensitivities. IOW, I see "autoimmune diseases" as symptoms, not as diseases.

MAP can be found in at least 92% of Crohn's patients, for example, but no one has been able to prove that they cause the disease:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3130173.stm

"Autoimmune diseases" almost certainly have to have a common cause, because otherwise, why would they tend to appear in groups, (once you develop one, then others soon appear)? Gluten sensitivity seems to be a common thread in all "autoimmune diseases", but gluten sensitivity doesn't initiate the process - something triggers the food sensitivities, when it triggers the first "autoimmune disease", and that something may well be a bacterium, (or, the other "autoimmune diseases" may be triggered by food sensitivities connected with the bacterial infection). Dr. Fine believes that a bacterium is probably responsible for MC, also, though he doesn't specify a type, (at least, not to my knowledge).

This is just our opinion, of course, and none of it has been proven.

Tex