Allergic to Plants

#21

I have been reading about it on this forum since years and I still don’t have any idea if it matters significantly… But I pretty much avoid such super carby things so it’s not like it matters for me. My SO eats a lot of white rice though (brown rice is fun but soft white rice is more pleasant for most dishes if you ask him, cheaper anyway and I don’t think it matters a thing for someone like him), a pot lasts for days. But carbs are good fuel for him and he eats a ton of (natural) sugar anyway, that works very well for him too. (It would just make me hungry and maybe sugar poisoned after a while… Chilled brown rice or freshly made Jasmine? Doesn’t really matter, it’s high-carb and not good food to me. Of course, if someone doesn’t eat starches, it’s not important what resistant starch may do…)

And if resistant starch means we can’t digest it (does it?), it sounds bad. We want to digest most of our food, it’s food, it’s its job. (IDK if he needs fiber, he always eats a lot of it. my body couldn’t care less about the amount of fiber so it’s good I usually eat close to none).
If we overeat anything, we should stop that somehow (even if I am bad at it myself. I do try to and do change, there is hope for everyone).
But I still can understand some think differently and try to mitigate the problems. It’s just not my way.

#22

Resistant starches don’t get digested in your small intestine. Instead, they ferment in your large intestine and feed “good” gut bacteria. Whereas foods that are digested in your small intestines provide energy and turn into glucose. So resistant starches are better than digested carbohydrates, and obviously preferred. No argument there.

But for the starchier foods that we try to convert into resistance starches, it’s hard to know just how much of those carbohydrates truly are being diverted to the large intestines.

#23

I too wondered how the other food was prepared. What is a standard omelette to them and how did they cook it? Were seed oils involved? How could they know another ingredient wasn’t behind the results? I agree with you, nothing but rice should have been fed to the subjects.

The more I read these studies the more I worry our scientists aren’t being very scientific and can’t find their own blind spots.

I read a study a couple months ago where they were trying to prove (already not a good starting point for a study, trying to prove one outcome - you always can if you try hard enough,) whether or not erythritol causes heart problems. Never mind the conflicts of interest by the testers, which were clear and plenty that they would want to spin one result, but they stupidly fed the erythritol to the test subjects in cookies, soft drinks, and packaged foods. Really? Reading it made me so mad. There were definitely other ingredients at play. Many. The study was orchestrated to promote the idea of fear of erythritol (and the media ran with it,) for two reasons: interests of those who are being financially hurt by the sale of erythritol, and the interest of the tester himself who was developing a machime that could measure a specific level of something in the blood that he attributed to being solely caused by erythritol when there was no clear scientific evidence that the erythritol is to blame for that increase.

I’m saddened by how bad these studies are becoming.

#24

Oh I didn’t know that, thanks!
(I am happy with my gut flora without starches. Lucky me as I managed to get sugar poisoned from some rice before… It wasn’t even much. I suspect my body does some training by itself occasionally, it’s not always my conscious act.)

Digested carbs are precious too though, it’s energy for the body! Precious for the ones who handle a lot of energy from carbs quite well, at least. But who doesn’t, they shouldn’t eat much digestible carbs to begin with.

Indeed, there are a lot of things to be considered and the result would be more clear without it. There are individual factors involved anyway, whenever it’s about food eaten, don’t complicate it with other things or it should be very simple and clear. Of course people don’t want to eat only rice but if it’s not many times, some surely would do it for science.

I don’t really trust studies for various reasons and one is that it’s hard to focus on a single factor, impossible actually but many studies don’t even try!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #25

All carbohydrates are simply glucose molecules, bonded together in various ways. Some of those ways produce fibre (such as cellulose), which is indigestible by definition. Other ways produce digestible carbs, which our body has the enzymes to break down into their constituent glucose molecules. Carbohydrates have names ending in -ose, and the enzyme that breaks them down is given a similar name ending in -ase; a couple of examples would be cellulose/cellulase, and lactose/lactase.

I gave up on the idea of home-made resistant starch after reading studies showing that you might be able to increase the amount of resistant starch (also known as “artificial fibre”) in a food by possibly as much as a gram, tops. You have to cool, reheat, and cool the food precisely correctly to get any resistant starch at all. And to use the example you gave, the 3.3 g of fibre could possibly be increased to as much as 4.3 g, if you do it just right, but that still leaves 29.7 g of digestible starch. So is there a point to all that finical processing?

The other complication is that you either have to eat the food cold or reheat it precisely correctly, because otherwise the resistant starch will stop being resistant and become digestible again.

So this notion of home-made “resistant” starch really seems like a non-starter, from my point of view.

There are more-reliable industrial methods of producing resistant starch (fibre substitute), which is cheaper for industry than natural fibre, so it is a common ingredient in processed foods, listed under the “Fibre/Fiber” category on the nutrition label.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #26

There is statistical significance (low p-value or high statistical deviation), and then there is clinical significance (effect size and number needed to treat).

They are not the same thing. An effect can be robustly significant in statistical terms and yet clinically meaningless, because the effect size is so small, and the number needed to be treated in order to see any effect is so large.

For example, statins have a large clinical effect on LDL that is also statistically significant. Unfortunately, the effect on all-cause mortality is neither. In fact, when the data from one study were independently analysed, the the claimed life-extension was validated statistically. But the average benefit? Four or five days. So significant, but not significant.

#27

Not calling you a liar or anything, but seems very unrealistic. So if you were actually allergic (IgG) whats happening when you eat them? I’m assuming no anaphylaxis.

Also, this wasn’t hair testing was it? Also, have you done any gut / stool testing or healing protocols?. Almost EVERYBODY will show an IgG response to cows milk, eggs, chicken, turkey etc. Doesn’t mean you can’t eat them.

(B Creighton) #28

Hi Une,
I echo the feeling of many others that you have a lot of symptoms of leaky gut. It seems very common these days. I blame it mostly on prophylactic antibiotics, but even perhaps moreso, glyphosate, which has worked its way into many foods - many of which I used to consider healthy - like lentils. I really doubt your issues are related to your accident - unless you got antibiotics.

You said you are getting professional help, but you may want to consider the GAPS Diet. It uses things like bone broth to heal the gut. Bone broth IMHO does not need to be organic, but any future vegetable foods pretty much need to be - esp grains and legumes - just basically stay away from seed oils.

My wife is in a similar boat. She took an antibiotic for a long time, and is very reactive to many foods. She has Hashimoto’s, and we found out recently is very sensitive to foods high in histamines as well. All these things seem to add up to leaky gut. She did GAPS for a little while, but I dare say she is not “cured.”

I know you said you have sought professional help, but I ran across this online doctor who specializes in autoimmune conditions and gut healing. He has a youtube channel called Dr Osborne’s Zone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRFIG54UB34&t=2s He has a lot of videos which may be helpful. I would really like to find what works best in this realm - basically I would love to help my wife as well.

(UneTomate) #29

I’m not really sure how to reply to this comment.

The tests I took were blood tests.

I feel chronically unwell, so I suppose it’s hard to gauge exactly what symptoms come from food sensitivities. It has become incredibly painful to eat, I throw up regularly and I realized I something was really wrong when it became a regular concern that I was going to asphyxiate on my vomit while I slept. Sometimes when I eat I get heart palpitations and struggle to breathe. But, no true anaphylaxis as of yet. My throat does completely close up sometimes, but that’s probably because my hyoid bone has been displaced and not due to food. But who knows?

(UneTomate) #30

Thanks for the advice. I’ll take a look at the link you sent. Would you like me to let you know if I find anything that helps?

Apart from getting advice on diet/supplements, I plan on using a therapy called Frequency Specific Microcurrent. Very low level electric currents that target the resonating frequencies of tissues in the body. I responded well to it in the past, and there is a protocol for leaky gut, which may help repair any damaged tissue.

(Bean) #31

You are not crazy. I also react to most/ many plants. I carried an epipen for a while until I got through testing because some of my reactions are very severe. Nothing turned up on IgE testing, so my allergist says that I won’t die. Which is good, lol.

I suspect sulfites and a sensitivity of some sort to lipid transfer proteins. Those lists track pretty closely anyhow. I also can’t eat pork or eggs. Pork is a pork-cat cross reaction. I suspect my three autoimmune diseases are a factor.

I eat carnivore but can tolerate olive and refined coconut oil (but not coconuts). I am very focused on healing my gut right now, and hope that will help. I try to stay in therapeutic keto levels to manage my diseases. It does help. I do IM fasting, but want to try a longer one. Good luck!

(Cathy Canen) #32

Just want to tell you that I’m the same way! Allergic to all foods grown in the ground. I have massive allergic reactions to veggies, fruit, grains, starches,all of it, and I have listened to all the advice and ended up on the Lion Diet. Friend, this diet is hard, but it’s easier than being sick and watching your life pass you by as you lay there in pain. Our culture is OBSESSED with food, and that’s the main obstacle. It’s everywhere. I had to get off social media to survive it bc people talk about it and take pictures of it all the time.

It took me a few years to get past the food grief. It’s real, and you’ll go through all the stages of grief. Give yourself time. I still battle denial, though getting violently sick helps you come to terms with reality in an unmerciful,
effective way.

#33

That’s the problem with mainstream docs, they only care about IgE, too bad most of us aren’t actually “allergic” to much, but IgG would be a more real life view of foods that just piss off our systems, and then stockpile and build up on us as we go.

(Bean) #34

Yes. The lab accidentally ran a few things as IgG tests, and my numbers were off the charts. Not all of the things that I was positive for were foods I had consumed recently- a couple of them were ones I had avoided for years. At that point my system was just pissy in general- in the previous six months, I had had covid twice and influenza picked up in the hospital waiting room once. The end of 2022 was rough.

The allergy doctor did concur that I shouldn’t eat the IgG positive foods and should probably do an elimination diet. I’m still pretty much high fat carnivore/ lion diet.

After finally removing “manufactured” citric acid, I have been able to do some small reintroductions. I think I can see some patterns emerging in what I may be able to add back (or not).

(Bob M) #35

Can you folks eat things like nuts, coconut, and other similar plants? Or are you allergic to all plants?

Can you eat any fermented plants?

(Bean) #36

I’m much better than I was two years ago. Persistence is paying off.

No to nuts, coconuts, and definitely no fermented stuff. Coconut might be something I can reintroduce. Flax and oils are the worst. Celery makes my feet itch. I haven’t had fruit in years, although blueberries are something I might challenge.

I can occasionally (maybe once every week or two so far) eat around .5 oz of cooked cabbage, asparagus, haricot vert, carrot, or a cooked thin slice of onion. That is the extent of my plant foods. But, it is progress.

I also cannot do eggs. I don’t think I will get eggs back. They cause RA flares.

I suspect manufactured citric acid plays a part in some of my problems because it’s based on a mold. That might account for some of my reactions in things like purchased fermented foods, and my inconsistent challenges with cheeses and wine, which went much better in Europe than it has in the US. Even meat and vegetables are sometimes “washed” with citric acid.

We have citric acid in our rust-removing softener salt, which I have stopped drinking. Hubby ran a hard water line for drinking water into the kitchen and we’re using that for cooking and drinking now. ETA: My office mate pointed out that I was actually reacting to water. Which is really sad state of things, lol.

I really miss sour and fermented stuff. I’m thinking of challenging white vinegar since it’s distilled. That might give me a new ingredient to play with.

(Bean) #37

That’s not the only reason I got off of social media, it was a factor!