Coping: Going “Partly Vegan”

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Yeah, sure, the Thanksgiving turkey was amazing.  But then again, so was the “turkey hangover.”  We’re just not used to eating that kind of rich food around here.

Until Thanksgiving, we have both been in really good shape – and while we eat meat, it’s generally not processed and it’s generally not including much wheat flour in any of the recipes.  Till turkey day, when we threw caution to the wind…  But that gets to the heart of today’s column…wheat and health.

This week, I’m going up to the eye docs for another follow-up to the four surgeries in the past year.  But the big deal is that I have discovered a way to pick up 2-3 lines on the eye chart:  Eat foods that don’t cause an epithelial cell reaction.  It’s an amazing breakthrough in personal health that deserves some detail…

(Continues below)

 

A bit of personal background to put this into perspective.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been a life-long sufferer of eczema and asthma. Billions of years ago I had a test series called the “thousand lashes.”

Basically, the docs give a minute injection of this, that, and the other thing, over a grid they lay out on Ure back.  Half an hour later, they come back with this bulls-eye looking thing and measure how big the swelling around each injection is.

Miserable – and your back itches non-stop for a week after.

Point is:  I was almost allergic to everything.  Wheat, eggs, corn, chocolate, and on and on…  Let’s be real: You can’t hardly live on the ideal diet…

Fast-forward to me doing all those vitamin and mineral experiments on myself that I’ve told you about.  Those experiments helped me come up with a “personal best” of vits and minerals that really made me feel much better and highly energized.

The most recent addition is a hefty dose of two things:  Probiotics to aid stomach digestion – which has nearly ended over0acid stomach bouts.  Plus  I’m now taking a  decent blend of mixed resveratrols.

For a few days, I took myself off wheat.

In fact, I had come so much off wheat that I hadn’t had a piece of bread in a week or so.  In addition, instead of having my two shots of alcohol in the form of a wheat-based vodka, I switched to a sugar-based spiced rum.

An amazing thing happened:  My eyes got better.  Not just a little, but one or two lines on my home eye chart.  That’s a big deal.

One more data point:  I had noticed after the string of eye surgeries that when I got a bit of water in my operative eye (like in the shower and such) there would be a period of 10-minutes to an hour where everything looked like there was a solid fog in place.

A little experimenting (at the recommendation of an eye doc we know) with hypertonic saline (Muro 128 5% Opthalmic Solution 1 fl oz (30ml)).  Then I went on a data-quest to see why it was working and found this:

“Seventy-five patients (89 eyes) with corneal edema were treated with topical instillations of 5% hypertonic saline in a water soluble polymer solution (Adsorbonac). Ancillary therapy included glaucoma medications, IDU, corticosteroids, antibiotics and hydrophilic bandage lenses. The drops were instilled as frequently as required to maintain clarity, and visual acuity was utilized as the sole parameter of therapeutic efficacy. Primarily because of variations in etiology, concurrent therapy, and environmental factors, the results showed a high degree of individual variability. The therapy was uniformly well tolerated and a majority of patients demonstrated improvement in the visual acuity following use of the medication for a period of 3 months.”

This was on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website here.

I figured that when I developed this (foggy) corneal edema over the course of the morning that something underlying was wrong with my diet.  I eliminated wheat and things improved.

Was it possible that long-term wheat allergy and 40-years of eating wheat is what caused the cataracts in my eyes?  It became an intriguing possibility.  No way to back-test and know, but maybe the operative eye had turned into a super-sensitive allergy meter, as it were.

But, it was not until a number of A-B tests (vodka versus rum) that I became convinced that wheat had to go.

Except – after having a week of spectacularly good vision, along came Thanksgiving.  Sure enough, as the data would suggest, my eyes Friday morning were back with corneal edema-like “fog.”  Not as bad as previously, but I’d only had a day of wheat.

Time to clean up the diet.

Short-term Friday it was cleared with a drop of Muro 128 in the operative eye a couple of times during the day.  But, it left Elaine and I watching a bunch of videos on reducing inflammation which is what was going on with the eye.

Is there something to too much wheat?  Well, then how about too much meat?  And what can we substitute?

What started, right then and there, was ordering potato flour, rice flour, and oat flour to begin experiments with baking wheat-free bread.

After watching a lot of videos, we’ve concluded that what had been running 50% of our diet (proteins from dairy, cheese, meats, and such, could be ramped down to the 10% range.  Cheese, especially, will be down-portioned.

So, we’ll try it and see how it works.  Elaine tried whole vegan a while back, but turned out she needed more of the proteins from animal source, at least initially.  This time, we’re both taking the turn and we’ll be trying the “slow withdrawal” method and see how that goes.

If every once in a while I let out with a big hoo-rah , then it’s working.  Otherwise, we can always revert.

But my sense is that the real secret to a longer-life is an inflammation reducing approach…and there are several books on point, but everyone’s chemistry is slightly different.  Seems like some good guidance is to be found in The Anti-Inflammatory Diet & Action Plans: 4-Week Meal Plans to Heal the Immune System and Restore Overall Health.

OK, off to the “week after” with much to do…off turkey, too.  Until next time, of course.

Write when you get rich,

George@ure.net

46 thoughts on “Coping: Going “Partly Vegan””

  1. Wheat is one of several culprits. All nightshades cause inflammation and red wine releases histamines. Many people sensitive to wheat are sensitive to all grain. Corn is typically suspect 2. Yeast is right up there.

    So grass fed meat and dairy is good, except they allow corn on the stalk to be called grass. And farmed fish is often fed grain. Rice is most often tolerated.

    But life gets pretty boring with no nightshades, grains, dairy, etc. one solution is to turn to Asian recipes, which includes all kinds of non wheat noodles, less meat, plenty of vegetables and mushrooms (also a suspect) and few nightshades. With nonstick pans, oil can be minimized. Not that Elaine needs to worry…. ;-)

    • Doug — you are right about the nightshades. ANYONE with a hint of arthritic symptoms should try a strict nightshade elimination diet for three weeks, then have a meal full of potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. If they have dramatically more pain the next day — then it’s time to ditch the culprits. If you know someone who eats a lot of pizza and is in sh_t shape, they could be reactive to wheat, tomatoes and peppers.

      When I did the nightshade elimination diet and the subsequent feast, the next day I not only ached, but had a strange stinging sensation all over. I miss Bell Peppers, but not enough to feel that way.

      • By the way…..

        A highly palatable ‘tomato sauce’ can be made from a combination of cooked, puréed, carrots and beets. Cooked in a meat broth with appropriate seasonings and the resemblance to tomato sauce is strong. Add lemon or lime juice, or vinegar for zing.

      • There is still a missing piece to the puzzle (IMHO). All of the above foods are aggravating symptoms, but the missing piece yet to be discussed is what is TRIGGERING all the adverse reactions. I found it helpful to do a study of Lectins (carbohydrate binding proteins) that are toxic to humans, especially as you reach a saturation level in your middle aged years. A cleansing/detoxing Fast is of course beneficial and wise, and then try a Lectin Blocker such as the one specific to your blood type. I like the “Deflect” product https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IAEV76 (no financial ties…) the best, after doing my own due diligence. Note 1: This was highly motivated research after an unexpected retinal detachment and emergency surgery, requiring me to learn how to take care of my eyes. All nutrition related! Note 2: There is an outstanding Juice Fast Recipe from Stanley Burroughs (“Master Cleanser”). YMMV, but it was the best remedy by far for a variety of ailments & conditions amassed over 60 years. Simple, inexpensive, and effective.

  2. I do not know if there is an Aldi grocers near your local, but I do know they’ve got some of the best lines of gluten free foods you can buy. A bonus is that much of their packages stuff is some sort of dye free, high fructose syrup free, and the gluten free. I’ve bought their packaged gluten free brownie mix and I was pleasantly surprised at just how good it was. They tend to have the lowest prices on milk and eggs as well. Loss leaders I suppose. Also, they don’t carry alot of name brand stuff, so I guess that’s how they manage to keep their prices really low and be able to carry foods that just aren’t normally in stores. You should at least give their store a once over. Good luck with gluten free. It can be difficult for those who eat out too much, but should be easy peasy for you.

    • I like Wednesdays at Aldi, like a gift for myself. With their off the shelf canned goods, I get those insane sharp painful points in my eyes,usually from GMO junk.

  3. OK Ure – got something for you:
    GLUTEN CROSS REACTION AVOID LIST
    Dairy
    Egg
    Sesame
    Soy
    Potato
    Chocolate
    Corn
    Hemp
    Millet
    Oats
    Wheat
    Rice
    Tapioca/Cassava/Yuca
    Teff
    Yeast
    (Coffee — you will find coffee on some of these lists. It has been found that if you grind your own whole bean coffee with no flavorings it is OK — something about the processing and additives causing the gluten cross reaction. Additionally, Dave Asprey, of Bulletproof Coffee fame, recommends single estate coffee. Why, because mold is a very common contaminant of coffee which may cause many of the perceived problems with coffee, and a single estate brand will take better care of the beans than growers dumping theirs into a bulk blend. He says if your black coffee is bitter — it has mold — don’t drink it. He says Europe generally gets a better grade of beans than the US. ALDI is now carrying a couple of organic single estate beans, and COSTCO has a good medium-dark organic with no bitterness [does not say single estate]. This keeps my organic coffee expense well under $10/lb.)

    Forget the “slow withdrawal”. Just drop everything on the list above for six weeks. Then add back one at a time and see what happens with symptoms.

    This is a pain in the ass temporarily that may save you months or years of guessing. You have to read every d__n label and scrupulously avoid all these inflammation triggers.

    The first things to try as you add back possible triggers would be Dairy and Egg — the most common cross-reactors, then Corn and Soy, another pair of common ones.

    A great dairy substitute is coconut milk. After going through two dozen brands at my local Asian market I recommend AROY-D brand in a liter carton. You can buy it on Amazon. Most coconut milk has off/strong flavors and sulfite additives. (Sulfites cause their own reaction problems for some people.) The AROY-D in the carton has neither and has a rich uniform consistency and mild flavor.

    George — forget the gluten-free bread baking and do this test first. See if you can even tolerate any wheat substitutes.

    Also, gluten-free baking is frustrating. It is not a happy pursuit. Some of the dough conditioners added, such as the extremely common one, xanthan gum, are problematic in their own way, and cause gut pain or other problems for those with with compromised digestive tracts.

    Let my hassles save you some time, money, and enormous frustration. I have been at this for YEARS.

      • That’s what everybody says. You can no longer cook like a ‘normal ‘merican’. Here is a general list:

        Various meats
        Green leafy vegetables
        Various root vegetables
        Beans and legumes
        Summer and winter squashes
        Nuts and Nut milk
        (See my affirmation of Doug’s post on nightshades)

        I’m a soup and stew person so I buy a lot of meat with bones and cook it a long time so I get a rich gelatin broth. The next day I remove some of the fat off the top, debone the meat, and add vegetables. Good food and easy to digest.

        You really have to wrap your head around the fact, “I have to eat differently”. I have lived near some large Asian/International markets as I have made this dietary transition and they have been a big help. If you find you are seriously cross-reactive to a lot of foods on that list, it might be a factor that moves you closer to a large city with Asian/International markets.

        In a regular American grocery store your thinking is going to be limited to what you know how to cook, of which they have copious amounts. How much of a grocery store has wheat, dairy, egg, potato and corn in the package or can?

        Walk into the fresh vegetable section of a really big Asian market and just stand there and think. People eat this stuff. Maybe I can eat this too. How do I prepare it?

        Google it! Buy some! See what it tastes like raw and cooked simply. Well, maybe that will go with this other thing that I like — and on and on. Culinary adventure.

      • That’s a tough one.

        You definitely can’t tolerate coconut? The AROY-D brand I recommended is a superb substitute.

        What about hemp, rice or oats? Mylks can be made from these. Hemp would be truly nutritious.

      • First, find yourself some nuts and soy that’re not genetically modified — if you can. Ensure your intolerance is to the actual food, and not to a gene-level alteration which is beyond your body’s ability to process.

        NameOTG: Xanthan gum is a substance which has been genetically-modified, to make it non-poisonous to humans (notice I didn’t call it “safe” or “non-toxic…”)

  4. Something I saw the other day made me laugh.

    “Vegans be like,”only humans drink milk from other animals.

    Only humans fly planes, talk on cell phones, make movies and drive cars.” Lmao!

    Off to win the lotto jackpot!

    :)

  5. Modern hybrid wheat varieties have lots of proteins not found in older varieties. Try making bread from Einkorn or Emmer flour (2000 year old varieties) and see if symptoms return. The are low gluten and don’t require multiple rising so bread making is much easier.
    James Johnson, ex-nuke

  6. George,

    A great gluten free vodka is bottled down Ure way in Austin – it’s called Titos. My daughter in Tomball introduced me to it, and it is quite good and highly rated in reviews. See:

    https://www.titosvodka.com

    At the very bottom of the page is their gluten free banner (they use corn instead)

    • I can confirm that Tito’s is gluten-free. My wife has serious gluten issues and Tito’s does not bother her.

    • I’m not convinced that corn is better than wheat – I avoid both as much as possible. I do like vodka and rum, but getting information on their exact derivation is difficult. Perhaps the best approach is to just go with Everclear(in proportional quantities) in one’s drink of choice. That would minimize anything that’s not ethanol.

    • Warhammer, you made my day! I discovered Titos a few months ago and love the smooth taste. Now I can enjoy it fully!
      Thank you!

  7. The blood type diet also has some good points because O’s need meat and A’s don’t. Also the book the grain brain is another one to look at. The proteins from grains are not digestible to my body so I eat no grains. I use almond meal and a bobs mill grain free meal that I usually mix 50/50 and get a palatable bread biscuit, and even cookies or cakes.
    According to my research in an alkaline system no disease
    can grow. This is pee and saliva. One can do the ph strips to
    check ones alkalinity.

    • Went on blood type diet over twenty years ago after witnessing major benefits to others. Almost immediately I was consuming nearly half of what I was accustomed to and received major energy boost. Yes I cheat occasionally but at 63 yrs. I have given 80 pints of blood to canadian blood services am physically fit-on no medications other than vit.D3 and visits to doc were physicals at age 55 and sixty. Blood type diet is for me!

  8. George, please please please add a morning cup of bone broth before or after coffee. I have similar gut leak autoimmune issues and it changed everything. Most of the retail offerings are crap, Pacific is a good one.

  9. George I am shocked that you don’t know about the glyphosate poisoning of our crops, especially corn and wheat. They are hybridized to resist the glyphosate (Round Up) that is used while growing. Also, wheat and other grains are sprayed with it before harvesting to dessicate the crop for easier harvesting.

    I am blood type O- and can only tolerate white rice in small amounts. I, too, require animal proteing to function the best. Funny thing is, I feel better avoiding beef; pork and poultry are ok, but I feel best on fish.

    Do try the elimination diet others recommended. You will be surprised at how different you can feel. Gee, maybe your gout would go away too.

  12. About all these grain allergies…
    Might not be the grain itself, after all–but what it’s been sprayed with. Not long ago I lost 2/3 of my vegetable beds that had been mulched with the same hay fed to livestock. (I’d run out of leaves for mulch.) Took a sample of the weirdly stunted broccoli to the local Ag Extension office. They pronounced herbicide, had I been spraying? Absolutely NOT, sez I. A neighbor’s spray drifted? Sez I, no one anywhere close enough to drift. And I don’t use chemicals. When the sample was forwarded to the state Ag guy, he said there’s no telling what kind of herbicide it was without an expensive test.

    Then a few days later I was complaining to the feed store manager who happened to be a retired rice farmer. What he said chilled me to the bone. They all spray just prior to harvest: rice, wheat, oats, alfalfa, soy, corn, you name it—any grain or forage crop. Have been for years and years, ever since he could remember. This is done to make all the grain and forage come to optimum harvest degree at the same time. Easier to harvest. Bigger harvest. What is usually sprayed is Roundup.

    You can’t tell me that some of that herbicide or any other isn’t soaked into the grains and forage that we and the animals eat. I was told at the Ag Extension that Roundup breaks down in two years–I can go ahead and plant vegetables there safely. Somehow I don’t believe that.

    So…my point is that perhaps it isn’t the wheat or corn or whatever, it’s the chemicals that are in them that cause reactions. Perhaps this is why so many are allergic to grains…it might not be so much the gluten afterall.

    While avoiding processed flour and grain products, I’ve switched to non-GMO organic wheat, corn and rice. Grind my own for bread, cookies, etc. Might be worth considering, along with switching to one of the ancestors of wheat.
    Just my FWIW.

    • Wow! Thanks for that insight. I have heard lectures on GMO foods, but have never heard what you revealed.

      I think this may be an additional problem in the American diet and health problems. It has been known even prior to RoundUp and GMOs that a grain heavy diet is not nutritionally sound.

  14. Mr. Ure, please check out the author Anthony Williams. Wrote the book Medical Medium. On Amazon.
    Explains a lot of what you are exploring and experimenting with.

  15. Just to let you know G, you’re showing that you are super vitamin C low. Taking straight C is useless for this. You need to make liposomal vitamin C. It fixed everything here, and I mean everything including colds. Write me if you need more info.
    If your gums bleed when you brush them, this is a big sign also.

    Chris

  16. Boy, you set yourself up for this one George. After reading through all these replies, there seems to be only one thing left to consume – are you ready for it ? …….. Gluten free water ……… LMAO

  17. I started following a ketogenic diet (high fat, very low carbs and moderate protein) over a year ago. Very low carbs means no starchy vegetables or grains at all and very little fruit. One of the first things I noticed less than a week on the diet was the burning I had in my back along the spine was completely gone.

    The past week or so I was vacationing with family and made a conscious choice to lighten up on the carb restriction, enjoying a little cake, some bread, a couple of cookies, even some whole grain pancakes. First thing I noticed was that that burning in my back had returned. Now that I’m back home and I’ve been “clean” for a few days, that burning is gone. By the way, some people find dried beans and legumes inflammatory also.

    I recommend 2 books – Keto Clarity: Your Definitive Guide to the Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet and Cholesterol Clarity: What The HDL Is Wrong With My Numbers? both by Jimmy Moore and Dr. Eric Westman. Both are available on Amazon. Jimmy’s website is http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/ .

    Another website I recommend is https://www.ketovangelist.com/the-ketogenic-diet/ Hosted by Brian Williamson. His podcasts are very informative.

    There seems to be a lot of evidence that ketogenic diets have reversed numerous health issues, including type 2 diabetes and mental health issues, and some people have had improved cholesterol levels. It also often aids in weight loss.

    The diet was originally developed for patients with epilepsy to help control their seizures.

  20. George, the author of the Medical Medium book has a blog. Recently he published an article on eye health. Here is the link directly to that article on his site. And, a reminder that he has outlined a healing diet we could all benefit from in his three books. We are using it, especially the gut healing celery juice and staying off all gluten; yet still have some strong resistance to giving up dairy. [at this point in the process]

  21. King Corn is cheap so it is used in 80% of food plus medicine, cosmetics and health care products. It is difficult to recognize because it uses 180 aliases. I have to read every grocery label before buying.

    I am terrible allergic to corn. Two hours after eating, my body temperature drops, because I’m in a crisis the blood pressures rises very high and then I go to sleep for hours.

    Keep hearing about why the govt. doesn’t know why people are so fat. I grew up on a farm and we fed corn to fatten the animals for market.

  22. I’m amazed reading these responses. Being “advanced in age” I don’t recall a single incidence of being bothered by what I have eaten or drunk. Of course, I don’t eat or drink a lot (like many of my compatriots, perhaps) excepting Vodka; But I can still write. Perhaps one need to consume less?

  23. I found that reducing the amount of sugar & cheese and eating 3 medium size meat, chicken, or egg, & veggies meals a day, I have no health problems & my vision greatly improved when I purchased new glasses about 3 months ago. Also, no eating after 8 pm, but you can have a Fiber Bar for a snack @ 2 pm.

  24. It has long been my contention that the human body does not tolerate counterfeits very well. GM food or feed are not the foods our species has acclimated to over the past 100 millennia or so. We don’t process it properly. Additionally, the majority of our modern GM foods are genetically modified to be doused with broad-spectrum poisons and petrochemical fertilizers and not be killed by them — [these are] ALSO things our bodies don’t tolerate very well.

    ‘Ever wonder why tobacco products are so addictive?

    “Niacin” is nicotinic acid, and is an essential nutrient. It was, in fact, first isolated by using nitric acid to oxidize nicotine. The tobacco lobby would have people believe nicotine and nicotinic acid are the same substance. NOT SO!

    MY THEORY is that nicotine counterfeits niacin, essentially making our body, at the cellular level, believe it is getting niacin, and that this is the addictive mechanism of the drug.

    I’ve never seen this theory broached, nor any study linking diminished tobacco craving to niacin supplementation, but it is my theory, nonetheless, that both niacin-counterfeiting and diminished craving would prove out, should some medical or pharmaceutical laboratory impartially investigate.

    I carry this same theory over to genetically modified food. It is my contention that GM foods counterfeit their biologically-natural cousins. We use these foods, but our bodies cannot properly process them, ’cause, well, they ain’t natural.

    There have always been people who had peanut, gluten, or lactose intolerance. A very, very few people (on the order of less than 1:10000 for each allergy, in 1970), until first chemically-modified, then later, genetically-modified food made its way into our diets, beginning in the 1970s. Intolerance, or flat-out allergy to these three foods is now somewhere between 1:83 and 1:20 (CDC estimates, and I don’t know whether they take into account the hippies for whom ciliac or LI are fashion statements.)

    Rapeseed oil is a mild poison. “Canola oil” is rapeseed oil which was hybridized, then first chemically, and later genetically modified, to make it not-poisonous to humans. AAMOF rapeseed was the first widely produced artificially-modified crop. This was done because rapeseed produces roughly 2.6x as much oil per acre as soybeans.

    Why?

    Why does my daughter (who is not lactose-intolerant) become physically ill when she drinks generic milk, but not when she drinks organic milk? Why do I become physically ill when I consume deep-fried or greasy restaurant food, but never home-cooked food fried in grease or olive oil?

    I don’t know, but I suspect.

    Could my eating out issue have something to do with the FDA requirement (TBH I don’t know if this is my State’s FDA or the redundant Federal counterpart) that fried food for public consumption MUST be prepared in canola, and deep-fried food in (one or more of): Canola/ sunflower/ soy/ safflower/ peanut oils — ALL of which are now genetically modified? Could it be the glyphosate on the wheat (used to kill and “desiccate” the plants, right before harvest) from which the buns and crusts are made? How ’bout the MSG and sugar sneaked into the meat course, a course which was fed glyphosated GM corn, injected with, God only knows what kinds of antibiotics, then (for sheep, cows, or bison) IV’d synthetic papain just before being butchered and becoming said meat course?

    My suspicion, BTW, is “all of the above.” Americans are living longer, but will suffer in future generations with a poor quality of life from about age 25 on, and that sucks…

    George, it sounds like wheat might be your issue. When you do your control, try getting a bag of einhorn flour from which to make bread.

  25. Another clue: everyone from the USA I know, who has travelled to Italy or Spain, has lost weight, despite eating far more food than they eat here. Gluten and wheat intolerant people have feasted on pasta and bread for weeks without a problem. Some of this may be the exercise and fresh air tourists get, but consider also the different strains of grains, and different practices. So when I am on a dietary phase which includes wheat, I try to buy organic, Italian pasta, and organic bread flour.

    Sad to say, California wines are almost all sprayed with a special pesticide for bugs that only live in California. Other affordable wines typically have lots of sulfites, except Australians, which use something else as a preservative. Turns out that somebody patented a product which neutralizes sulfites, supposedly in the glass, with no taste. Small amount of hydrogen peroxide. Haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds harmless enough.

    As for spirits, I tried Polish potato vodka and found it had more adverse effects than scotch. I speculate that 10x distilled vodka from any source would have little residual toxins. But then there are the plastic bottles. A liquor store manager told me that one of his customers is a chemist specializing in plastics. The man literally wept, while explaining how toxic plastic bottles are when they hold alcohol. Perhaps one should pour spirits through activated charcoal before imbibing?

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