Frigging Woo

[sqbr]

So one problem with having lots of chronic illnesses and food intolerances is constantly crossing paths with health quackery. Sometimes by sheer chance they can actually offer some helpful recipes. Paleo blogs are a good souce of recipes with meat but not dairy, for example, even if their reasons for eating that way are ridiculous. But often I just get pissed off when I think of how sick I would be if I actually listened to these charlatans, and how much harm they do to the genuinely sick people who are taken in.

A relatively minor irritation from today I just feel like ranting about:
I am looking up recipes for colonoscopy prep, right now ginger jelly/jello. I came across this recipe, which seems about what I want except with honey instead of sugar. It started out ok: like me she's following some special diet, and ginger is good for settling upset stomachs. Sure. But "breaking down toxic buildup in your organs"?

I decided to check out this GAPS diet. It claims to heal digestive and neurological issues, which is a stretch, and the side bar is full of woo about Leaky Gut and "Tumeric: better than medications?". But there's worse health food ideas than a diet that "incorporates the simplest foods for the body to digest".

Except I scrolled through and it's terrible. The faddish emphasis on red meat broth and coconut is silly, especially since a moderate amount of people have digestive issues with them. But onions and garlic?? Those are super common IBS and reflux triggers and a huge proportion of people with gut problems are going to have trouble digesting them. There's a bunch of other common IBS triggers too, like honey and cauliflower. Making the diet pretty much useless for anyone except those who are (a) basically healthy but taken in by woo or (b) happen to have a specific food intolerance not included in the starting diet.

I tried looking up proper elimination diets but got inundated with woo. Afaict they generally consist of chicken and white rice. Here's the list of low FODMAP foods suggested to people with IBS. And I mean, even though there's scince behind those diets being helpful in the right context they can still be used as part of bad medical advice. But if you want a diet for people with digestive issues they're a good place to start. Except that's too mainstream and boring for fancy quacks selling apple flavoured bone broth protein for $40 a jar.

And now I'm hungry :)

EDIT: I'm not actually in the market for an elimination diet, I was just curious.

Comments

[alatefeline]

This is a good rant. Thank you.

Also thanks for the link! I will be using that! Though, of course, even though I just started recognizing and tracking which foods now make me ill a few months ago, I've already figured out that some of the suggested low FODMAP foods are definitely off my edible food list.

[sqbr]

Glad it was helpful! Good luck figuring everything out.

[alatefeline]

Thanks.

[sami]

My mother has extensive experience with gut problems and IBS and pretty much all the things in that by "extensive experience" I mean "she nearly died" and by "she nearly died" I mean "I am not exaggerating the hospital called us to come in that morning because they weren't sure she'd make it to evening"

I don't know exactly what your problems are but if it's IBS-type stuff I can get you her recommendations in that she has basically been through All The Things including quite a lot of trial and error since she's been dealing with it for nearly twenty years.

Like, most "supplement" things are rubbish and she knows it but there's one you can get in the fridge section of pharmacies called, I think, "Inner Health Plus" that she says is really good (there's also one called IBS Support but that's less good)

(I mean rubbish outside of exceptional circumstances, like during her Severe Illness period I bought her folate supplements because she was losing her hair due to folate deficiency and I, age 19, with very little idea of what folate was or was for, had a very confusing moment when I asked for folate and the pharmacist asked if I was pregnant and I was like "what")

(She spent some time being fed intravenously which avoids quite a lot of tummy troubles but nonetheless she does not recommend it, because it sucks beyond the telling of it in a range of ways, not least among them that just because you are technically being supplied with nutrients does not mean your body does not think you are hungry if you don't eat and also apparently the general awfulness of spending weeks straight on Nil By Mouth is extreme)

[sqbr]

Thank you! Yeah I find Inner Health Plus mildly helpful, though I'm trialing a different fancy probiotic right now.

And having just spent a day on a fluid only diet before my colonoscopy I can only imagine how unpleasant no foods at all must be.

[sami]

Yeah. She also spent extended periods on "clear fluids only", and then a few months where she was allowed food, so long as it didn't have fibre.

In hospital this means a lot of chicken breast/white rice meals and very very little flavour.

I won her eternal gratitude when she was at home for working out a recipe for lasagna. It had actual taste. She nearly cried with how amazing it was. This is what happens to a person when they don't eat much for months and what they ate was the blandest food in all human cuisine.

[sqbr]

nods

I am looking forward to the rainbow of flavour when the range of uncoloured flavouring essences I ordered arrives :)

[moonvoice]

I've got a surgery coming up where one of the side effects will be days-to-weeks (and a minor chance of a lifetime-of) nil-by-mouth, and it's actually one of the things I'm like 'eckkkk' about, even though the surgery has plenty of other more serious risks.

I like food damn it.

[tree]

if you're interested, i can send you my copy of the elimination diet cookbook i got back in the day which i'm pretty sure i still have. but you're not wrong about the chicken and white rice. there's also a cookbook called 'friendly food' which is from the rpa's allergy unit -- you could probably get it from the library or secondhand.

hmm, now i'm feeling like maybe we've already talked about this, so if we have then just ignore me.

[sqbr]

Ah, thank you! I'm not actually looking for an elimination diet, I was just curious to see how bad the woo on was :)

[moonvoice]

Yeah, the low FODMAPs I've heard a lot of good things about, but the effort to do it properly is quite high, and that automatically rules it out for me.

I've found it kind of hilarious (in that *groan* way) how many diets that are 'wonderful for you!' usually recommend a high amount of onions, garlic, spices, cruciferous vegetables, prepared 'raw fibre' etc. which are alternatively either terrible for GERD and/or IBS and/or other issues.

For coming off my GERD medication, I've been told (by my GP) it's best to just go on the simplest 'white diet' I can - white bread (no preservatives), white rice, potatoes, white breast chicken, etc. along with broth and fruits I can tolerate (if there are any), particularly bananas (which are considered a white food), along with meat broths etc.

I haven't properly done it yet. Honestly I am terrible when it comes to my preference of dealing with illness side effects vs. changing my entire diet and buying/preparing food. Like 'oh no I'd rather deal with the pain thanks than steam some chicken and rice.' *sighs*

There is *so much woo* around this stuff. I am looking into turmeric though, scientists are doing a lot of work into curcumin at the moment since they're already aware of its anti-inflammatory effects, but ugh it being marketed as a 'wonder drug/spice' means the price goes up and people start saying it cures everything. But I can still get it cheap at Indian grocers.

[sqbr]

Yes I find it "hilarious" too. On the whole, "health" food tends to be worse for me than regular food.

And yeah tumeric is the only woo thing my dad has pushed on me that seems like it might actually be good for me. Plus it's one of the few spices I can eat without feeling bad afterwards so I was eating a lot of it anyway :)