Diet Thread

[Tequestra]

... messed around with baking bread ...

Hello and Happy Sunday CKinnard. I was first inclined to visit the Cycling Health subforum after noting VosAdrian's thread in the Active Topics list, and was reading that thread which made me wonder about gluten. I read some of your writings too, so it is a nice coincidence to find my way here where you posted yesterday, after I read enough in VosAdrian's thread to understand that anything about gluten was not of much use there anymore,

I have been searching the forum for 'gluten' and luck would have it, baking gluten-free bread is something I have tried, and tried, and tried again a year ago, and my bread was never baked enough or something, so I eventually resigned myself to forking out the $18.00 for four(4) loaves of the Coles variety every week or two, and I stick them in the freezer and hope they don't break apart in the slices when I take them out in pairs to toast them.

If you could be so kind one day when it is convenient any time at all in the future to write down however it was that you managed to bake the best loaf you ever toasted and tasted, and let me ask questions and trade notes, it might save me $18.00 each week or two, minus expenses, which I promise to spend on hi-vis vests with 1m-> signs on the backs to promote Australian bicycle safety and awareness, if that could be enough payment for explaining to a novice baker how I might work out how to bake myself a nice, gluten-free loaf of bread that my mother doesn't have to roll her eyes when she tells me how good it tastes for once.

Gluten was the mystery all my life that I discovered by chance in October 2015 and lost 25kg in two months, as well as curing hookworm (necator-americanus) and very significantly reducing chronic, serious asthma. Pain in general, or inflamation on the hookworm sores all over the legs in some kind of noticable harmony with the inflamation of the lungs and similar 'stinging'-like pain (not the same feeling as spinal pain), was visibly reduced, because the pink/redness around the leg lesions disappeared after a few days without gluten. The inflamation and associated pain were almost gone.

It became easy to determine whether there was gluten in frozen french-fries (potato-chips)cereals or biscuits (which all contain gluten, even rice-bubbles), because the next day when my legs turned red and my lungs clamped up, I could just ask myself, "What did you eat yesterday?', and eliminate the known gluten-free consumption to find the cause of it.

If you get the chance to help me learn how to bake gluten-free bread, it would be motivation to have another go at it again. I also wrote to mention that after finally working out how much better my overall health is when I moderate my gluten intake to the minimum I can afford, I am of the belief that there may be others around who are suffering needlessly as I did for a few years before 2015. Getting off the wheat-gluten for a week might indicate some cause that can often be overlooked in the diagnostic process, and there's no harm in trying for a few days.

[CKinnard]

hiya Teq. wow sounds like you nailed the cause of much suffering in gluten.
I can understand your enthusiasm.
If you are inclined, I'd be interested in your heritage/ethnicity, as gluten sensitivity/intolerance is dependent on it.
You can also develop gluten sensitivity if you have a leaky or inflamed gut, in which case the sensitivity resolves mostly once your gut is healed.
Healing is facilitated by eating a healthy whole foods plant based diet - smash the vegetables, sweet potato, mild to moderate legumes, fruit, water.
nutrition facts, caldwell esselstyn can guide more on this.
However, ime psychoemotional health is also important for gut health.....so dealing with stress more effectively is also helpful++.

As for gluten free, I don't know how much you have tried, but I would suggest you start experimenting eating grains in a more unprocessed state than bread, and get adventurous with non wheat non gluten grains. i.e. corn (maize), rice, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, amaranth, sorghum, teff. and even though oats has a form of gluten, it is not irritating to a lot of gluten sensitives....so worth testing.

If one of life's pleasures is bread, I'd suggest you go off starch for a week or two, and work on your relaxation, early nights, etc. Replace the starch with cups and cups of fibrous carbs, which are the best for gut healing (and don't use sweeteners or salt). It makes a massive diff to appetite.

Starch addiction can be stress and overeating related. It is actually quite normal to be able to go 12-16 hours without feeling hungry. If you cannot, then you are probably a little insulin resistant, and that may be driving your love of bread.

Once you feel free of starch cravings, you'll understand what I am talking about....and be amazed that you just are not hungry for long stretches.

The reason I am suggesting going off bread for a bit is because it is made from flour which is a significant form of processing. This will spike your blood glucose more than if you ate the grains in their whole form. You'd be better off eating a cup of boiled whole buckwheat.

As for my gluten free bread efforts, it's been literally decades since I did all that, like back in the 1980s! I messed with barley buckwheat rice and corn flour rather than wheat flour.....and for the essenes stuff I had one of the first books written about the dead sea scrolls and their recipes. I recall sprouting whole wheat berries, then mushing into a sticky ball, then flattening out on a tray and leaving in the hot sun for a few hours. I also had it at an institutional vego restaurant in Brisbane (Squirrels) in the 70s and remember theirs was a lot better.

What I'd suggest you do is get in touch with a good WFPB cook.
Have a look at this site
https://plantzst.com/contact/
and I seriously suggest you get in touch with Katie Mae.
I've worked at the same facility as her in the USA, and attended her cooking courses, and she's very ON IT!
she researches the hell out of things, and very inventive and respectful of lost techniques.
She is pretty good at responding to internet comms, though if you are really keen get on the phone and try to talk with her directly.

She also does a lot of interesting stuff with sweet potato that you might consider messing with instead of bread. Check her free recipes.

[Tequestra]

If you are inclined, I'd be interested in your heritage/ethnicity, as gluten sensitivity/intolerance is dependent on it.

Thank you for such a great and informative reply!

I'm mainly English if we go back to Plymouth, 1828, before the Swan River Colony in 1829, with some Irish from the orphans transported to Sydney four generations ago on my Mother's side, and 1/4 Spanish from WW-II on my Father's side, the other quarter being Australian of unknown heritage.

You can also develop gluten sensitivity if you have a leaky or inflamed gut, in which case the sensitivity resolves mostly once your gut is healed.

Hookworm! That is what started it, because I was never fat until around 2011, and that is where I didn't know I'd been invaded by hookworm, and they live in the intestines, and that was what must have been mining those intestines for their own survival, and the gluten was inflaming the 'hooks' in my guts.

Another medicine which was flagged !!!SPAMMER!!! on the preview was the actual assassin of that colony of poor little living things in the wrong place at the wrong time - my guts. It was the gluten though, that seemed to have made the change in the guts, because it was quite easy to distinguish the several changes in the redness on the legs, the wheezing of the lungs, and the feel of the guts.

It seems fairly obvious that hookworm was the villain, and the gluten was maybe more of an opportunist?, because I would eat weet-bix and cereals and bread and toast and chips galore all my life, until around the time the first signs of hookworm would have appeared without me then knowing the cause.

psychoemotional health is also important for gut health

Perhaps coincidence, but it was January 2016 after only a few months as a plant-eater (w/ eggs), that I found the dreamy-blue GT Tequesta frameset out on the front verge before the council rubbish pickup, and I reckon that the gut muscles at least have been on the improve since I have had bicycles on my mind again. Having a purpose in life is good for the heart too.

... grains in a more unprocessed state than bread ... even though oats has a form of gluten, it is not irritating to a lot of gluten sensitives....so worth testing.

That is good to know, as I briefly looked at oates at Coles, and there was no Gluten-Free label, so I discarded them as an option. You have converted me regarding the bread, CKinnard. I did stop including gluten-free toast with breakfast around a year ago, because it saves money but mostly because I can feel the vegetables:

butter/cannellini beans x 150g, onion x 1/2, pineapple-slice x 1, tomato x 1/2, broccoli x 3 or 4 sprigs, sliced-mushrooms x 1 handful, egg x 1 with cheese-single-slice x 1,

every morning digests much more comfortably WITHOUT toast! It was some kind of Australian tradition with the usual bacon & eggs standard breakfast that I tried to emulate in a vegetarian substitute using onion-rings and hot-fried beans (they just go dark brown on one side, yum!) for dead pig flesh. ;-(

The only place for gluten-free bread in my diet now is with the 'snack/s' which might be alikened to 'lunch' to replace whatever carbs got burned up that morning, in the afternoon and 'dessert' to keep the hunger pains away at bed time. Breakfast is my main and only large meal of the day. I will work out a 'snack' recipe without the gluten-free bread before those last six(6) in the freezer are finished off.

Have a look at this site.

Thank you for what I guess as about the best reply I have ever received, ever. I will study this information carefully and repeatedly until I can absorb it properly. I am already inspired to take myself a shopping tomorrow ...

[CKinnard]

ok Teq.... your ethnicity is unremarkable. Some race mixes increase probability.

I just thought... you'd probably enjoy the facebook group for whole foods plant based people. It's very active, and there's a lot of knowledgeable people on it who have come to the diet to help with various ailments. There's a few health pros too who occasionally answer questions comprehensively.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/PlantBasedAussies/

I'd be interested to know how you picked up hookworms. I presume you got it walking barefoot in a developing country???!!! but nothing would surprise me these days.

[Tequestra]

I'd be interested to know how you picked up hookworms. I presume you got it walking barefoot in a developing country???!!! but nothing would surprise me these days.

Indeed, you guessed it. In hindsight, it would have been sometime between mid-2010 (rainy season) at the earliest and mid-2011 when the first symptoms arouse: serious asthma (lungs are where larvae gestate), distended abdomen and weight gain (the breeding colonies prefer the intestines), and then the sores on the lower legs, that really help a bloke to understand the true reason why a cyclist shaves his legs.

I always wore thongs at least in Thailand, but I have read online that it is known to contract the little blighters from something as amazing as a drop of water from the leaf of a tree after a monsoon, so that is why I chose mid-2010 as the most likely of any 'invasion' before noticing the symptoms in 2011, but not the cause.

It was in May 2014, just after the last coup in Thailand, that I was talking to my Mother on skype or something, and this was after a year of bleeding itchy legs that had me believing that the little red cockroach plague from Hong Kong was at my feet all day but invisible, and that is when the coup in Thailand gave me a good reason to get away from what I thought was making my legs bleed.

So I got to Suvarnabhumi two days after, and no luck stopping the bleeding on the legs, and some wise old healer man even gave me four medicine pills the size, shape, colour of 1.5 maginified almonds, on the long train from Hat Yai back to Bangkok, after we'd slept the night across the aisles and he recognised my conundrum somehow, and the first two tasted like shite if I recall. I have kept the others in favour of a pharmaceutical well-known most applicable to hookworm that I can't mention because the Machines think I am a spammer.

It was that which I found the name of after reading for an hour on the web, and it was in May 2014 after I was talking to my Mother on the phone, across the water, and she mentioned an SBS documentary she had seen about hookworm. This was hookworm contracted by Australian manual workers, who never took holidays overseas, but they had shared a forklift with someone who had. Globalisation globalises hookworm. I would take that as a warning if I was some kind of authority around here. That's like getting the toothache without the chocolate!

I went to the local drug store in town near my hotel and bought the pills in a kind of 'tourist pak' over the counter. Still it took more than half a dozen treatments over a year, and the problem with hookworm is that even after the medicine which cannot be named has starved these poor little would-be pioneers to a Grand New Intestine of their very ability to digest glucose and survive, they leave their mark where they die, and some of them are too tough to filter out through the bloodstream.

After the extermination/interspecial-genocide is over, and the itching stops, and in time it is apparent that things down there are under control again, some of them seem to accumulate in places in the skin of the legs and rise to the surface, and when these microbial remains reach the hard surface of the host organism's skin, and eventually thrust their hard pointy shells through that host organism's outer layer, they cause impulses to be transmitted to the host organism's neural networks to indicate discomfort, and scratches them out for them.

No one ever told me how the Thais do it, but DIY hookworm is not an easy cure. The good thing is that you know that they know that if they kill you they die too. That is the best thing about it, sir.

[mikesbytes]

Guess we should eat chips instead... https://www.delicious.com.au/food-files ... h/4MUArVOn

[Nobody]

For fries addicts though, it’s not all bad news. The study did reveal that those who indulged just once or twice a month weren’t subject to the increased risk of death.

Once or twice a month is hardly a life worth living for a fries addict though.

[Nobody]

Commentary on another bogus Mediterranean versus vegetarian diet study.

https://youtu.be/MmkS8bmU9Co?t=7m35s

[Patt0]

Table and summary of some low carb studies.compilled by Dr Sara Hallberg. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 0/htmlview

[CKinnard]

Table and summary of some low carb studies.compilled by Dr Sara Hallberg. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 0/htmlview

Dr Hallberg would be spending her time more scientifically robustly, if she got out of her office, and went in search of traditional cultures with a longevity advantage, who eat LCHF, AND conducted an experiment on people with BMI's under 23 who have advanced atherosclerosis in order to test the power of LCHF to reduce atherosclerosis.

[march83]

No she wouldn't, because she wouldn't find them


If she did however, that would be something....

[Nobody]

I think this is very timely. She ends with "think of everything you hear as wrong, until you prove otherwise and you will be hurt much less..." Sad that deception is getting so blatant where big bucks are involved.



On the topic of deception. I had an older woman I know inform me she eats well but has a total cholesterol of 5.5 and higher blood pressure. She told me she only eats meat about once a week, but eats an egg and milk every day. She was informed that eggs were good for her and an ideal food. So it came as a surprise to her when I told her that eggs have some of the highest levels of cholesterol of any animal food. It's easy to see why people are being deceived when you do a basic google search.
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=chol ... as_rights=

However as many of us know, the reality is somewhat different.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/eggs-a ... ng-claims/

[Doperis1990]

Did anyone try intermittent fasting? I know it is not well known over the globe.

[CKinnard]

I'm consulting to a company currently that is integrating multiple health services.
They are in the middle of a baby belt outside Brisbane, and the revelations are stunning.
I had not realized the disturbing levels of morbidity afflicting pregnant women and newborns.
I don't have figures, but the great majority of pregnant women who come into the clinic have been obese for years before conceiving, in many cases artificially. Pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes are off the charts. And it stuns me that pregnant women and new mums can be so ignorant about healthy diet.
Even in my hospital days 20+ years ago, I never remember idiopathic toe walking, tongue-tie, hypotonia, mild cerebral palsy, and positional plagiocephaly being so prevalent.

This is a serious sign of something very very wrong in Australia's health.
Take your pick on the cause, but discussions with local doctors, a dentist, and specialist nurses point the finger at being obese during pregnancy, poor diet, vaccines (whispered), sedentary lifestyles, resultant endocrine disturbances, later conception, delivery techniques, higher rates of cesarean sections.

There's a lot of young kids that are starting with serious disadvantages.
If you want to see the future of Australia, get familiar with what's happening with babies and young children.
But who's to blame? Ultimately, parents have free will to choose the values they will live life by, and raise their kids.

[m@]

Did anyone try intermittent fasting? I know it is not well known over the globe.

I've given the 5:2 diet a go in the past, with some pretty good results. I reckon I'd find alternate day fasting hard, but 5:2 diet fits with my disorganisation quite well as long as I don't have anything serious planned for a fast day!

[CKinnard]

For the brotein afficionados, pray you don't have ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/man ... 55ac521c11

[User Name]

What's the latest with Omega 3 supplementation? Is it still less than good, or unnecessary, or has it gone back to being good again?

And how bad are acrylamides? Even though it's most likely a carcinogen, does it cause cancer if consumed in 'certain' amounts? It's hard to get passed the reams of mainstream articles to find the real story. Most articles say stuff like, "it's a carcinogen, so avoid eating potato chips or other starchy carbs cooked over a certain temperature."

Also, acrylamides are in foods that, as far as I know, aren't known as cancer-causers, such as dark chocolate and coffee

Even digging a little deeper turns up not much more than, "even though acrylamides are a carcinogen, studies of the compound are inconclusive at this stage"

[mikesbytes]

For the brotein afficionados, pray you don't have ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/man ... 55ac521c11

Had a look around for some more articles on this but as I'm currently behind the great fire wall of china, I didn't see a lot. There was an explanation on how the genetic condition combined with excess protein intake however of more interest was the comment that one had no chance of knowing they had this genetic condition as its not tested for

[CKinnard]

however of more interest was the comment that one had no chance of knowing they had this genetic condition as its not tested for

the more interesting point to me is the woman would not have died if she stuck with a whole foods diet.
The profundity of this has been lost in the modern world which is deluded in believing food comes in packets.

We didn't evolve to eat concentrated forms of anything, let alone protein....and this is probably why the genetic flaw that causes this disease persists. People who have the flaw have been able to live full and healthy lives as long as they eat a balanced and healthy diet.

[Nobody]

What amazes me is that she was doing all this to her body and either was ignoring blood test results or didn't get a blood test. Surely if your urea and/or urate results are too high that should flag impending trouble. But then when bodybuilders get together, maybe they down play the importance of this part of being healthy.

[Baalzamon]

What amazes me is that she was doing all this to her body and either was ignoring blood test results or didn't get a blood test.

And this is what is so sad with our current medical system. Do you think they will order a urea test on someone who appears healthy? Nope blood sugar and cholesterol and if you're lucky electrolytes and blood pressure checks.

[CKinnard]

What amazes me is that she was doing all this to her body and either was ignoring blood test results or didn't get a blood test. Surely if your urea and/or urate results are too high that should flag impending trouble. But then when bodybuilders get together, maybe they down play the importance of this part of being healthy.

blood tests? we're talking gym and body sculpting culture! blood tests don't count as much as the sermon from the mouth of the most cut dude and dudette in the gym.

some examples of what I've seen in the last 3 weeks thanks to gym culture (and I mean thanks for the business):
- a pec and triceps palsy after a guy went for a PR deadlift. he doesn't like vegetables. (I presume the palsy resulted when the motor component feeding his nerve root was adversely tractioned as it passed through a heavily arthritic facet joint in the spine (seen on xray)).
- pec minor and biceps brachii tear in a guy injecting roids, whose only veg intake is one cup of broccoli a nday that he eats with his 2 cups of white rice and half a skinless chicken.
- triceps tendonosis, diet less than 1 cup of vege a day.
- sacroiliac joint subluxation while training for Commonwealth Games duties, 2 cups of vege a day. (this guy is a senior body guard with the Qld Govt)
- recurrent hamstring strain, doesn't like or eat vege.
- achilles tendon rupture, doesn't like vege.

I genuinely wonder is it only me who sees the connection between diet and musculoskeletal health?
Interestingly, the low vege intake in these pursuits goes back to the 1950s and 60s in California. World Gym and Gold's Gym had the biggest impact.
Younger bros would benefit from listening to old bodybuilders. Arnie has changed his diet dramatically since old age has set in.

[CKinnard]

I ran into a retired GP a few days ago while having breakfast with a riding mate.
In the short interaction, she had to drop a barb by implying there's not much she and I agree on.

I once had a conversation with her about the obesity epidemic, which she was inclined to downplay the role of GPs in.
I challenged her view saying that GPs are supposed to be at the top of the health care tree, and if they don't take diet and obesity seriously, then who else has a chance.
She asked me what I thought GPs could do, and I asked her what she has done through her career with patients who consistently fail to take prescribed medication (the analogy i was drawing that diet should be a medical treatment similar to medication prescription, as Hippocrates indicated).
She stumbled over this, which indicated the narrowness of her thinking.
I dare not point out
- the commercial conflict of interest she has in striking people off her books who persist in not following her medical mgt, whether taking medication or a healthier diet.
- that public hospitals already apply an algorithm that pushes non compliant patients to the end of the queue
- that surgeons withhold surgical services from the obese.
- that general medical practice is funded primarily by tax revenue, which is a finite govt resource that should be subject to similar accountability and outcome measures as all other govt expenditure.

[Nobody]

And this is what is so sad with our current medical system. Do you think they will order a urea test on someone who appears healthy? Nope blood sugar and cholesterol and if you're lucky electrolytes and blood pressure checks.

I'm starting to get the impression that standard blood tests vary between the states, since basic biochemistry, haematology and lipids/cholesterol I thought were fairly standard here. Biochemistry usually has the urea test in it. Urate is usually by request. My specialist has asked for it on occasion. I have to ask for glucose and most other tests. I get a lot of refusals too. Even after I explain why.

But yes, I totally agree. The medical system is messed up. I believe everyone should be screened by blood test for most abnormalities/conditions at least once as an adult. Especially if the condition can be treated before symptoms arrive. It would have saved me a lot of problems now from haemochromatosis symptoms, some of which are irreversible.

...blood tests don't count as much as the sermon from the mouth of the most cut dude and dudette in the gym.

Yeah, that's the problem. I rarely mentally group bodybuilders and health together. The lifestyle appears to be a good way to shorten both health span and life span.

some examples of what I've seen in the last 3 weeks thanks to gym culture (and I mean thanks for the business):
...doesn't like or eat vege.
...doesn't like vege.

Goes to show that vege is an acquired taste (much like beer), since cooked vege with some spices is a highlight of my day.

I genuinely wonder is it only me who sees the connection between diet and musculoskeletal health?

Yes, it's just you (and me, and a few others ). Since I doubt any of the gym junkies have still made a connection.

Interestingly, the low vege intake in these pursuits goes back to the 1950s and 60s in California. World Gym and Gold's Gym had the biggest impact.
Younger bros would benefit from listening to old bodybuilders. Arnie has changed his diet dramatically since old age has set in.

Yes I remember Arnie doing an infomercial on "less meat, less heat" in reference to global warming. I've also seen him inform the public that one can get enough protein without meat. Even though he doesn't claim to be a vegetarian himself. IMO no better BB to help change entrenched opinion.

I ran into a retired GP a few days ago while having breakfast with a riding mate.
In the short interaction, she had to drop a barb by implying there's not much she and I agree on.

Might be able to take that as a compliment.

I once had a conversation with her about the obesity epidemic, which she was inclined to downplay the role of GPs in.
I challenged her view saying that GPs are supposed to be at the top of the health care tree, and if they don't take diet and obesity seriously, then who else has a chance.
She asked me what I thought GPs could do,...

As much as I'm not a fan of GPs, they are in a difficult situation with how easily people are offended by advice about their diet and weight/size. Especially considering that most are usually processed food addicts. Then having to face that discussion with every other patient, every day would be too much for me to do deal with. Maybe a diet flyer/leaflet - as someone said one of the GPs have done in the past - would be easier for all involved.

I dare not point out
- the commercial conflict of interest...

The standard business practice of placing money/profit before the well-being/health of the general population. It all comes back to money. And the government(s) for whatever reason allow it to happen.

[mikesbytes]

Wow you guys are on fire tonight

CK has beaten me to it and put a lot of detail on the Body Building (BB) scene. I'll put it in a simpler way, think of BB as a sport, their diet reflects what they consider necessary to meet their sporting objectives. BTY we should be saying some BB's as suggesting that all BB's do x is outgrouping and is definitely not correct. Also it should be pointed out that BB's make up a small % of those who go to gym.

In regards to the rare genetic condition, how do I know I don't have rare genetic condition that will kill me if I eat too many vegetables? The ultimate answer perhaps is that we should be tested for absolutely everything.

Oh and perhaps a better way to describe doctors is to say that they haven't advanced as far as they should. What they should be doing with patients that have issues that are likely to have been caused by poor nutrition is referring them to the relevant specialist, in this case a dietitian. Follow up (when they return to the doctor) is to ask them if they have followed up on the nutritionist's advice

As to who to blame, I've heard this analogy;
Take a class of students, if one student is doing badly we can blame the student but if 60% of the class is doing badly then we can blame the teacher. So who is the teacher when it comes to food, its primarily advertising