Diets to Consider With Digestive Issues

There are a number of diets out there that could partially alleviate your symptoms. Who knows, you may even be lucky enough to find a diet that will alleviate all of your symptoms!

When one specific diet does not work though, you just may need to tweak one of these diets:

1. The Low-FODMAP Diet
– FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols, which are short chain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols that are poorly absorbed by the body, resulting in abdominal pain and bloating.
– FODMAP’S occur in some foods naturally or as additives
– More info here: https://www.dietvsdisease.org/low-fodmaps-food-list/

You can also check out this book: The Complete Low-FODMAP Diet: A Revolutionary Plan for Managing IBS and Other Digestive Disorders   (not an affiliate link)

2. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet
– The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) is a restrictive diet made for individuals with Crohn’s Disease, Celiac Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Cystic Fibrosis, Chronic Diarrhea, or Diverticulitis.
– To find out more information about SCD, check out the web site ‘Breaking The Vicious Cycle’ at: http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/home/

3. The GAPS Protocol
– The gut and psychology syndrome protocol comes from the idea that an unhealthy gut may lead to mental health issues.
– The GAPS Diet removes foods that can be difficult to digest and damaging to gut flora by replacing them with nutrient-dense foods to give the intestinal lining a chance to heal.
– To find out more information about the Gaps Diet, check out this web site. http://www.gapsdiet.com/

4. The Gluten-free Diet
– If you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, this diet is the best place to start.
– To find out more information, check out The Celiac Disease Foundation. https://celiac.org/

5. The Grain-free Diet
– When the gluten-free diet isn’t enough the next step may just be grain-free.
– For more information see this article: https://draxe.com/grain-free-diet/

6. The Paleo Diet
– The Paleo diet includes foods a cavemen would of ate, such as grass-fed meat, seafood, fruits, and vegetables.
– For more information see this article: https://draxe.com/paleo-diet-plan/

7. The Autoimmune Paleo Protocol
– The autoimmune paleo diet is similar to the paleo diet but more restrictive by removing eggs, nuts, seeds, nightshades, alcohol, and artificial sweeteners.
– This diet may be for you if your gut symptoms come from an autoimmune disease like Crohn’s, Celiac’s, or Ulcerative Colitis.
– To find out more information about the autoimmune protocol and diet check out Autoimmune Wellness at: https://autoimmunewellness.com/

Everyone’s journey to better health needs to start somewhere, and any of the above philosophies are a good starting point and will open a wealth of information to you. Try not to get overwhelmed and take one day at a time. Put your ideas to pen and paper so you can keep track of your progress. If you slip up and eat something that you shouldn’t have, whether it be accidentally or intentionally, do not beat yourself up or dwell on it. Just commit to doing your best each day. Make sure you are patient with your body and the process, and understand that this process can take some time. Keep a detailed food diary of what you eat and how it makes you feel (physically and emotionally as well) Once you have identified foods/additives that affect you negatively, do your very best to avoid them, at least in the short term.

Good luck!

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Foods That May Cause Problems With Digestion

If you have digestive issues when you eat certain foods, what should you do? Should you cut them out of your diet completely?

Perhaps it may serve you better to embark on an elimination diet. This is done by removing all of the foods that you believe are the cause of your problems, then adding them back in a few weeks later, slowly and one at a time, to monitor your reaction to them.

The foods that I eliminated were nuts, seeds, corn, green peas, coconut, legumes, grains, and diary.

I found that I could tolerate some forms of these foods. Instead of eating the food unprocessed or whole, which can cause digestive issues in some people, I found that I could tolerate nut butter, seed butter, coconut milk, lactose free milk, tofu, and hummus. I also seemed able to tolerate a small amounts of gluten-free oats and white rice. However, I could not tolerate whole nuts, whole seeds, corn, green peas, shredded coconut, coconut flour, whole beans, whole lentils, whole grains, and regular milk.

Someone else may have some of the same issues as I do, but they may find that they are not able to tolerate one or more of these following foods as well: Soy, nightshades (a type of vegetable group including tomatoes and potatoes among others), eggs, beef, pork, lamb, fish, and shellfish.

No two people are alike in their ability to tolerate different kinds of foods, so talk to your health care provider to find out how best to proceed in your case. They may recommend certain medications to help with your symptoms, may want to perform diagnostic tests, etc. They may suggest keeping a food diary (what you eat and how you react to it) and may even suggest looking into elimination diets such as low FODMAP diet.

Gluten and Gluten-Free Sensitivity and/or Intolerance

Everywhere I look on the internet and in books, all I see is that all whole grains are good for you and that they are “super healthy.”

…But are they really good for everyone?

You may have an intolerance to gluten grains or you just may be sensitive to them, or you could have Celiacs Disease. In that case, it is best to steer clear of all gluten grains.

So what about Gluten-free grains?

If your reaction to gluten-free grains is the same as the reaction you get from gluten grains, do you remove them as well?

I would say yes. For how long though? 3 months? 6 months? 1 or 2 years? Forever? Only you can be the judge of the duration.

I have, in the past, removed all grains for 6 months then started to add them back in, only to have my symptoms come back with a vengeance. It seems that I can tolerate a small amount of gluten-free oats ground into flour. However, when I tried to add a small amount of whole brown rice back into my diet, I started having severe abdominal pain again. I waited a week and then tried a gluten-free bread with brown rice flour, gluten free oat flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch, only to have the pain come back. This time it has been a month since I have had any grains, and I am still getting abdominal pain. I have now removed them again, but this time I am not sure if I will ever add them back.

To me, I would rather not eat any grains at all. The “super healthy” potential benefits of these grains do not outweigh the risks for me. If grains cause me this much abdominal pain, they are clearly not “super healthy” for me.

Perhaps you can relate? How do different grains make you feel?

How to Remove Pesticides from Fresh Produce

The use of chemicals on the fruit and vegetables we buy at the super market today can have an adverse effect on our health.

One common mistake is that by washing our fruits and vegetables with water we will help to remove most of the pesticides.

Washing can help remove surface dirt, but the pesticides still remain on the fruit and vegetables. To clean the pesticides from our fruit and vegetables requires us to go one step further by making up a fruit and vegetable washing solution.

Solutions for Citrus Fruit:
Vinegar Solution:
Mix 3 cups of water with 1 cup of vinegar. This mix will remove chemicals and wax from fruit. Soak the fruit for 15 to 20 minutes, then rinse under running water.

Lemon Juice Solution:
You can make a cleaner for fruits and vegetables by making a solution of
1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp baking soda and 1 cup water. Or 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp white vinegar and 1 cup water. Or even a 10 % salt solution can be helpful to remove pesticide residue from fruits and vegetables.

To read more about removing chemicals from fruit and vegetables check out these articles.

http://www.naturalhealingmagazine.com/heres-how-to-easily-remove-pesticides-from-your-lemons-and-grapefruits/

https://foodrevolution.org/blog/how-to-wash-vegetables-fruits/

The Journey Begins

The choices that we make aren’t always perfect but it’s ok… It’s part of the journey.
Hayley Williams

Welcome to Beyond Food and Diet. If you’re looking for help on your healing journey, you can check out the recipe section for some inspiration.

I believe we make choices in life that can profoundly effect our health either positively or negatively by what we eat and the kind of life we live. As someone with more than one autoimmune disease I have become very motivated to take care of myself. The internet can be a wonderful source of information and a way to share our own experiences with healing.

I have learned in the process that results will vary from person to person, and nothing I write here is a replacement for medical advice, as I’m not a health care professional.

I will be bringing together articles from different sources on the internet that I found helpful for my long road back to health.

May we all find our way back to health and wellness.