You asked for it, dear readers, so here it is. Â My personal food log from Monday- Thursday this week. Â Â Â All comments welcome on my choice of fare – both positive and negative (as long as you are courteous). Â Please remember that I am off all grains (disaccharides) at the moment and have been for the past month. Â I don’t usually eat many grains anyway, but have gone off them completely to solve some lower back pain issues I’ve been having intermittently.
Guess what? Â My back pain has completely gone (I’ve also lost 7 lbs despite my valiant attempts not to lose any weight at all), so my hunch that it was somehow caused by some minor gut inflammation spreading to my lower back area appears to be correct. Â My back pain was the ONLY clue or symptom I had that my gut was slightly imbalanced. Â Â I wonder how many folks realize that their back pain (and other joint pain) is potentially caused by gut imbalance?
I will continue to avoid grains for the next several months and then gradually reintroduce them sometime in the early Fall 2010. Â Â I have to say, though, that I feel GREAT completely off grains and all sugars (disaccharides cannot be fully digested if the gut is out of balance even if only slightly – toxins from the undigested food and pathogens that feed on it spills into the blood causing an unpredictable mix of symptoms). Â Â My goal is to definitely eat grains again, as they are truly a wonderful, traditional food.
It’s just that in our modern lives, our guts may need periodic rest from them as they are so very difficult to digest unless your gut is in top form and only by going off them completely for a period of time can your gut fully heal. Â The fiber in grains is particularly harsh on the gut. Â Fiber from fruits and vegetables is a much more gentle type of fiber on the gut.
I suspect that most people would benefit tremendously from a break from all disaccharide foods (grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, all sugars except honey and fruit) to heal their gut wall unless you are fortunate enough to have been born naturally to a Mother with no gut dysbiosis herself, breastfed for an extended period of time, and never had antibiotics or other meds in your life! Very few folks would qualify based on that criteria! I’m learning a lot on this adventure and will be blogging more about it in detail in future posts.
**Please note that nothing I ate all week came out of a box or package. It was all made from scratch. This is definitely typical in our house. Boxes and prepacked foods generally do not make the cut to be in our pantry.
Food Log Monday, April 19, 2010
Breakfast: Â Smoothie (pint of raw kefir, 2 bananas, 1/3 cup organic peanut butter, 2 TBL raw local orange blossom honey, tsp or 2 of carob powder, splash chocolate extract)
Lunch: Â Half 8″pizza leftover from last night’s dinner (almond crust pizza with peppers, onions, organic pepperoni slices, cheddar cheese toppings), glass kombucha
Dinner: Â 3 egg omelet with provolone, pepper, onion filling, glass kombucha, blueberry cobbler (made with pecan flour) for dessert
Snacks: Â None
Food Log Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Breakfast: Â Smoothie (pint of raw kefir, 2 bananas, 6 organic strawberries)
Lunch: Â Leftover omelet from last night’s dinner, glass kombucha, leftover blueberry cobbler
Snack: Â cup of alfalfa tea
Dinner: Â Turkey chili, baby green salad with homemade ranch dressing and pepitas, homemade kombucha
Snacks: Â 2 raw honey, semi sweet chocolate mint patties from Heavenly Organics
Snack before bed: Â small cup of bone broth, cup of nettle tea
Food Log Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Breakfast: Â almond flour pancake with butter and pure date syrup, glass of kombucha, small cup of chicken broth, cup of jasmine tea
Lunch: Â Homemade pizza (mushroom, onion, zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, organic pepperoni, organic provolone and organic cheddar cheese topping)
Dinner: Â Marinated chicken (marinated in traditionally brewed teriyaki sauce and raw honey), veggies cooked in butter, glass kombucha
Food Log Thursday, April 22, 2010
Breakfast: Â Smoothie (2 bananas, pint of kefir, 8 organic strawberries)
Lunch: Â Â Homemade pizza (mushroom, organic pepperoni, zucchini, yellow squash,red peppers, onion, organic provolone and organic cheddar cheese toppings)
Dinner: Â Meatloaf (made with grassfed beef), veggies cooked in butter, glass kombucha
Evening Snacks: Â Pear, whole grapefruit, cup of alfalfa tea
Definitely have to watch the PUFAs – no doubt about it and nuts can be one of the higher PUFA foods. But, then again, grains are high in PUFA too, so substituting nut flour for grain flour and eating moderately should be ok approach for most especially if no vegetable oil is consumed from other sources. Thanks for the kind words, by the way!
I've been reading lots about excess PUFA in our diets contributing to an imbalance of Omega6/Omega 3. Generally speaking, nuts have high PUFA…Pecans, almonds, peanuts…(but also especially industrial seed oils)
Good blog, Sarah.
I would like to take a break from grains but wonder about it's safety as my 9 month old still primarily nurses. Unfortunately said 9 month old keeps me too busy to do the kind of research into it that I would like.
Dr. Tom Cowan MD wrote in Wise Traditions Journal a few issues back about a lady who went off grains for awhile and felt great but after she healed from her symptoms, she started to have other issues and by going back on grains, they were solved. Dr. Cowan MD believes that there is a time to go off grains and a time to come back on them that is unique to the individual and that avoiding them your entire life is not necessarily a wise thing to do.
I will be blogging more about back and joint pain and how gut health affects them greatly in the future.
I would guess that your Vitamin D3 level is good…I recall you take fermented CLO. I found that my intermittent back pain improved when I spent more time getting regular sunshine. I think that back pain is improved when when we aren't deficient in Vitamin D. I haven't heard of it being related to gut health….I hope this works for you.
I highly recommend Dr. Stephan Guyenet's Whole Health Source blog.
I would suggest you be very careful when you went back on grains. They may cause damage that will be silent for a while, then pop out with something very painful that will take longer heal the second time around. That was my experience. So I just don't see the point of going back on grains if you feel so good without them. We lived just fine as a species without them till 10,000 years ago. We were healthier without them. They are tasty, convenient and will keep us alive if we don't have enough meat and fat. But they are not necessary in the context of abundant food.
Fermented milk like kefir, yogurt, clabbered milk is much more digestible than raw milk in its unfermented state. Lactose, milk sugar, is a disaccharide and for folks with even mild digestive imabalance, cannot be easily digested and usually feeds pathogens even if the cows get no grain at all. Better always to ferment the milk so the lactose is all used up before you consume it.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks so much for the food log! One question: I noticed that most of the milk you drink is in the form of kefir. I do the same and wonder if I'm missing out on some of the benefits of unfermented milk. Would love your thoughts!
I get raw where I can find it .. hard cheeses like cheddar are raw but the provolone is organic from the store but not raw. Not sure if provolone can be made raw. Some cheeses (like mozzarella and perhaps provolone as well) must be heated to make them.