The second thing i read this morning which yanked my chain was YET ANOTHER report of how chocolate is good for us and contains SOOOO many good properties. Certain paleo/primal sites ring its praises constantly.
Unfortunately, it's also a very common allergen. So are wheat, dairy, citrus, tomatoes, and even eggs.
I wonder how many people try low-carb and/or paleo/primal, and give it up because they feel bad BECAUSE they've been told how good for them certain foods are, and they eat a lot of things they're actually intolerant of without even knowing it. I occasionally see people note that they love cream or chocolate or whatever, but after a whole-30 they reintroduce things only to find that what they love has betrayed them. ;-)
Then there is the question of sweet potatoes. And brassicas. And nightshades. A lot of "paleo darlings" have a dark side, especially to hypothyroids and the histamine-intolerant. It's a real pain in the ass to have to learn what foods are widely problematic THE HARD WAY.
We all know that "just because it's natural doesn't mean it's benign," and the converse as well. But it's truly shocking how many foods lurking in your friendly neighborhood grocery -- even your local farmers' market -- are downright health-damaging.
If you find, as a lot of people do who have Chronic Fatigue/ME, hypothyroidism, and most of the gastrointestinal problems, that you have whole strings of dietary intolerances, you probably start investigating the things you should avoid eating. The easy things are the ones which paleo proscribes: grains, legumes, industrial seed oils, and maybe dairy. Then you get into finer points -- hypothyroids also need to avoid goitrogens like cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard and turnip greens, collards, cabbages of all kinds, rutabagas and turnips, radishes, maca, and even condiments like mustard seeds and horseradish), AND cyanide-containing fruits and vegetables (including cassava/yucca, cabbage again, sorghum, flaxseed, peaches, apples, cherries, almonds...), AND glycosylflavones like millet, AND animal-fat sources of excessive omega-6 fats, AND ... and ... and ....
If you have Histamine/Tyramine/Salicylate Intolerance, there's a whole 'nother list of foods that cause trouble. This list includes more PDs (paleo darlings) like fermented vegetables, red wine, and avocados. Then there's the trouble with FODMAPs (the length of that list is jaw-dropping) ... and also when there are problem biota in the small intestine. Again -- and and and.
There are probably no foods which are 100% safe for everyone. According to Dr. Donaldson, fat meat and water SHOULD be, but i know people who swear they're allergic to beef or chicken or whatever. I rather suspect it has more to do with the feeding and health-maintaining practices of those raising the meat-animals, but that's just the way i think....
The point is, there are few foods which are almost entirely undamaging to modern humans. Part of it has to do with how things are raised these days, but a good deal is our tendency to want to eat the wrong things in the first place. We were conditioned by nature to enjoy sweet things, and this predilection has taken on a life of its own now. The fruits which were wholesome in their wildness have been cultured to deliver a STUNNING level of some of the most toxic micronutrients we can indulge in. Somehow, "eating the rainbow" has been turned into a big virtue, and why? Because the poisons in them are so dilute that they seem to put our immune systems on their mettle -- preposterous! :-D ...And don't get me started on our fondness for grains.
Damn right Tess, I do not know how many times my next day was fucked-up from those marvelous Liddell dark choc, sinus issues from nightshades, pounding headaches from red wine or kim chi
ReplyDeleteit's all a trade-off -- what we enjoy versus how much we have to suffer for it.... at least some of us know what we're doing. i feel bad for people who are seriously sick as a result of their diets, but aren't aware of it. the advice given to people with diabetes, heart disease or cancer is just plain CRIMINAL in my opinion.
DeleteIt is possible we read the same hymn to a chocolate , which also annoyed me quite enough. From my perspective - there are individual allergens like peanut butter and cats, and also foods that are not allergens, but make body more prone to allergic reactions like chocolate, hot and spicy food, citruses, concentrated tomato sauces, strawberries and some more . I wish I knew gluten was #1 allergies-promoting food earlier in my life. I used to have an eggs allergy, which is gone now on a LC diet. I can eat 2 and probably more eggs a day, but in a while I start to feel something like eggs saturation, and have to skip it for a day or to, but not longer.
ReplyDeleteThe practice to praise to the roof one food or another could do more harm than good in general. It create the attitude the more the better, which is usually wrong. As a person who is dealing with allergies all my life, I can tell that overeating on about anything could be a wrong thing to do, especially during the period when allergies are in a flare mode. I remember having problems in a past from eating too much nuts, mushrooms, cilantro, raspberries, smoked meat, pineapples.
i SO agree! ...actually i expressed myself sloppily -- a lot of what we call "allergy" is probably histamine/tyrosine/salicylate intolerance, but until recently i had no clue.
Deletethe sad thing, in my opinion, is that a lot of this information was known a long time ago by people like Donaldson, but unless you had the good fortune to be in his locale and treated by him, you'd never learn it. i owe so much to the internet!!!
Tess, the more I think about it, the more I doubt the general healthiness of foods promoting allergies. I will be reluctant to say it on most blogs because I am sure many blog readers will start to think about me as a paranoid ortorexic. Here how I perceive it - we really see is the crisis of the rise of autoimmune conditions which has more magnitude than diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular deceases because it is almost always part of the picture, and often exists just by itself. It is not seen like that only because it has different manifestations - asthma, adult acne and red face (Rosacea), Hashimodo thyroid, Diabetes 1 and LADA, seasonal allergies, RA .fibromialgia, MS. Most of the time, the longer a person lives, the higher probability he/she will get one of thous, and then another, and very often if somebody has food allergies in a childhood, it will be asthma at middle age and rheumatoid arthritis after 60.If you( not personally you Tess) have one allergy. I bet you have at least another one, and may acquire more in a future if you will not follow an anty-allergies protocol. It looks like atherosclerosis is the part of a general inflammation.
DeleteNow I read every day about healthy benefits of the foods promoting the higher alert in the immune system - chocolate, red whine, hot pepper, high-flavonoid foods.
My take on it - we should stop going wild on a flavor, to load on blueberries or other exotic berries regardless of a season , it is not necessary to cook every meal to be of a restaurant quality, save your palate the opportunity to be impressed . Boiled to the appropriate rightness freshly cooked chicken or meat (for meat it is approximately 3 hours) taste amazing ( it is required some mustard or horseradish sauce). Steamed broccoli tastes great with some salt and butter. Sliced cucumber with salt will fill your mouth with a wonderful freshness. We do not need to care about consuming huge amount of the anty-oxidants, we never know for sure how it affects our body. Putting "freshly ground" pepper on everything is not a good idea.
Oops, did I just ranted about moderation? At least it is the type of moderation I try to achieve in my life full of thoughts about keeping allergies under control. BTW, the diet restrictions I described are just the part of a wide-spread official medical advice in many countries, but not US and Canada. Here taking a medicine is the preferable option, less damaging for patient's moral health and happiness.
:-) again, i agree heartily! "moderation" as in "not too much of anything" is much different from "small quantities of poisons are okay"!
Deletediet and medicine in this country ARE messed up! dammit, i want to move to the Netherlands....
Ironic, since chocolate isn't paleo. Neither is wine. They're two of the most highly processed foods around.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's not likely that some particular food is going to be a silver bullet for what ails you. And I agree with Galina about not cooking according to fussy little meal plans that take an hour a meal and a dozen ingredients.
when J was working out of town, more often than not i cooked meat for meals and not much more. :-) of course, i also made things like coconut-milk ice cream....
DeleteSorry guys, I missed the record number of typos, I was time-pressed, but really wanted to communicate my point of view.
ReplyDeleteno problem -- typos happen! ;-) express yourself!
DeleteHi Tess
ReplyDeleteWell as you and your readers know Eddie and I live the low carb high fat lifestyle.
Of course some love it, others do not agree. With anything the individual must do what suits them. What I like is the exchange of ideas, news and personal experiences - so we can judge for ourselves - and consider what our next step may be, and what we as an individual, when taking other medical or lifestyle issues into account, choose to do.
Don't tell anyone but Eddie does eat a small chunk of the 85% or 90% dark chocolate occasionally, I don't, BUT we both enjoy a glass of red wine, or two every now and again !!. LOL
All the best Jan.
There is nothing wrong with some chocolate, hot spices and red vine. The problem starts when people uncritically assume that chocolate and vine are health and longevity promoting foods,while unaware that it increase susceptibility to allergies, and continue to do so when they the symptoms of an allergy is present, or unreasonably try to eat more chocolate or cayenne pepper just because some article said something about possible health benefits.
DeleteI noticed that animals and insects in my garden clearly think that aromatics are pesticides. They do not eat oregano, rosemary,thyme, even mint. Squirrels stay away from citrus tries and especially fruits itself. Insects also avoid fig tree leaves (contain some substance which is causing dermatitis) and a pomegranate (tannins?). I am sure spices are not poison, I like to cook with aromatics. I just think we should practice moderation here.
yes, if you can tolerate chocolate (or wine, coffee, etc), they're great things! :-) i use a lot of "sensitive foods" in small quantities ... BUT if i am suffering from allergies, set off by things i can't control like pollen season, i cut way back on anything i know is problematic.
Deletei get concerned (and sometimes downright angry) when i see popular health gurus promoting "superfoods" -- a lot of their audiences are NOT going to do any research for themselves. some will rush out and waste their money on junk like "raspberry ketones" and others will start downing huge quantities of things like cinnamon, which is great in trace amounts, but a histamine trigger in people who are inclined to histamine intolerance. they won't KNOW that the malaise they start feeling from an overdose of ... oh, say NIGHTSHADES is coming from the capsules of hot pepper. :-(
"Superfoods" worshiping makes me often angry too because it often has more harm potential than the potential to improve health, especially when so significant portion of our population has allergies in different forms.My personal least liked diets guru's advise is to drink some crazy concoction which consists of cayenne pepper, lemon juice and honey in order to stimulate metabolism and presumably loose weight. Ha! Many people (may be most) do not need any stimulation of their dis-regulated immune system,especially in our germs-free environment, and many superfoods do just that.I shuddered when I read the last "Daily Apple" about very potent pungent Asian fermented sauces. I am sure some fermented hot pepper paste is a valuable addition to a diet in a hot humid South East Asia - when consumed it mobilizees body to fight intestinal parasites and capsicum is sure makes such parasites uncomfortable. Some dietitians are going further "Frances Largeman-RD
DeleteHot red peppers have a chemical called capsicum that makes them hot; when we eat them, our bodies respond to that extreme heat by producing endorphins" . Sort of healthy reaction on stress, if you don't have enough of it. It is like a roller coaster ride - fan for one person , the most scariest experience for others. Could be that declared the super-activity. I bet it can. May be you can put enough of hot and spicy things on your/fish/chicken/meat, that no reasonable fly would risk its life to sit on it, and in some way it would be healthier as a result, but with some downside - it will stress your immune system, but it is a possibility , the only effect would be an adrenaline rush. So, pick your poison with a knowledge.
YES! yesterday we went to the grocery and the usual garbagey magazines were lined up to peruse while we waited in line.... one of them, as usual, talked about "revving your metabolism" and I thought, SOME people have low metabolisms because their bodies are trying to protect them. no wonder so many people give up on "healthy eating'' -- the things they TRY to do to improve their well-being are so damaging they end up feeling horrible. :-(
DeleteActually, I am a food affectionado. Some foods taste great when prepared simple, but for the right donnes. It saddens me that a lot of people nowadays think that only foods with very intense favor taste fit for their consumption. I think we should appreciate wider specter of flavors, not only loud ones.
ReplyDeleteme too! if your tastes have been overstimulated by strong flavors, you won't enjoy the subtle ones nearly so much!
DeleteFor me, I didn't get to appreciate the simplicity of spices/good fats like butter/ghee until being on a clean, keto diet for a good while. When I first started LC I ate tinned tuna for lunch, until one day I started detecting something "off" about the fish.
ReplyDeleteThe culprit in question? Sunflower oil.
The fish tasted metallic and there was something rancid about the oil. I don't touch canned tuna afterwards. I shudder to think of all the years I used to pack tuna sandwiches for lunch and never realizing what I was putting in my body.
when we once become sensitive to how our foods affect us, it's horrifying what we used to put in our bodies! I hate to think how sick i'd be now, if I hadn't "seen the light"!
Delete