Long list of food intolerances page

[Leora]

Hello all,

For the past 2 years I've been dealing with incredible bloating, my stomach would look like a beach ball almost chronically. After finding the primal blueprint (only a month ago) it's gotten much better and I've been able to sort out most of the trigger foods. I was never able to identify them before because I was eating them all the time! Despite my "healthy" wholegrain diet of course, ugh.

Anyways, these are:

- any grains
- any dairy products
- any legumes
- nuts
- fruit
- salmon (weird right?)
- spinach
- white potatoes
- alcohol
- chemical additives
- processed sugars
- sugar alcohols
- non organic eggs

And potentially more....

It's quite a list and the weird thing is that 3 years ago I could eat anything I wanted! No problems at all. I'm 22 now by the way, and female and a regular weight.

I love being primal but man would it be nice to have a fruit smoothie once in a while without puffing out, or maybe some almond butter, mmmm. It seems the reactions are even worse now when I do eat something on the list.

I've been to a doctor, all tests (extensive allergy tests included) came back normal. I'm thinking perhaps it's leaky gut? Although I know that's a controversial subject.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

[Kochin]

I don't have a similar experience but I do have some advice: if you are grain, legume and dairy intolerant, your gut flora may have been suffering quite badly. That means that some foods that are broken down mostly in your large intestine (like fruit) can't be processed, as you don't have the right bacteria (or the right amount of said bacteria) to break them down.

Spend another month eating Primally: lots of varied starches (to balance the fact you won't be having nuts or fruit), meat, shellfish, offal, green leafy veg and have your eggs raw-yolked, to ensure you get all the nutrients you need.
When you feel more comfortable, try yourself with starchier fruit, like slightly green bananas, and some less-allergenic nuts, like almonds and hazelnuts. Just small amounts, to feed the right bacteria and get it to start reproducting. You'll probably find that most fruit and many nuts are OK after a while, but, if you have a problem with legumes, be prepared to find some nuts still irritate your gut. On the other hand, you may actually find yourself less sensitized to some legumes also and be able to reintroduce them here and there. Just take it slow and introduce foods one at a time. If the discomfort of eating, say, apples goes after a week of having one a day, then keep them in. If you push your luck with black-eyed peas and give yourself awful pain that DOESN'T lessen next time you try them, keep them out.

Salmon is often fed chemicals in farms, to make them go "redder", so try some cheap Wild Pacific Salmon. It looks a bit grey for salmon, but that's just because it wasn't river-fished or fed chemicals. You probably won't have a problem with that.
You probably have the same problem with non-organic eggs: you're sensitized to some of the nasty chemical, lab-grown food that they feed the chickens and that invariably winds up in the yolk.

[Leora]

Thank you so much for your advice Kochin.

I had no idea there were some things mostly broken down in the large intestine! For whatever reason I thought everything was pretty much digested before that. Now it seems obvious, why else would most of our gut flora be in our large intestine? And it gives me hope that these intolerances are indeed reversible. Even if it takes a while.

I'll definitely stick to primal and include your recommendations. Crazy about salmon being fed chemicals to make them "redder"... I always choose the reddest looking one too -.-;

[Kochin]

Thank you so much for your advice Kochin.

I had no idea there were some things mostly broken down in the large intestine! For whatever reason I thought everything was pretty much digested before that. Now it seems obvious, why else would most of our gut flora be in our large intestine? And it gives me hope that these intolerances are indeed reversible. Even if it takes a while.

I'll definitely stick to primal and include your recommendations. Crazy about salmon being fed chemicals to make them "redder"... I always choose the reddest looking one too -.-;

I'm sure some of the intolerances are correctable, especially the ones like fruit, where it may be a gut flora imbalance. Otherwise they can just be replaced, like normal eggs swapped for organic (which are still a cheaper source of fat and protein than most meats ).

I know, the salmon thing is mad. Apparently, people expect red or pink salmon, but they only have that vivid colour during mating season, when they're preparing for swimming upstream. That means that farmed salmon NEVER have that colour naturally. But the famers and companies want to sell more "expensive" salmon, as pale salmon is cheap (you can get pale salmon any day of the year on a fishing trip), but red salmon is rarer and therefore expensive. So they dye the damn salmon.
Trust no-one who tries to sell you food. ¬¬ They probably want to convince you to pay premium prices for the rubbish stuff.

[Leora]

Trust no-one who tries to sell you food. ¬¬ They probably want to convince you to pay premium prices for the rubbish stuff.

So true! Like selling skim milk, which used to be a useless byproduct of making cream. It still is a useless product, but now a profitable one!

Thanks again for your tips and info