I've received a handful of emails asking about my current health situation. I'm usually not one to divulge a lot of details about my health, but I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to answer questions. Also, these friends were genuinely concerned for me, and/or have similar situations and wanted to compare notes, not just overly curious.
What's my diagnosis?
A little over 30 years ago I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance, barley intolerance, oat intolerance and IBS-D. I also have life long allergies to tree nuts (except almonds and macadamias) and bivalve shellfish. I've been able to manage my IBS-D over the years through diet control and have been able to quell flares within a month or two of increased dietary strictness.
Since that original diagnosis, I've discovered that I can't tolerate guar gum, xanthan gum, gellan gum, locust bean gum, cellulose gum, carrageenan and enzymes added to flour. The thickeners and emulsifiers are known to trigger flares in many folks with IBS or one of the IBDs.
What's making me sick right now?
I've been in a persistent IBS flare for 8 months, since November. I have been eliminating practically every possible thing I could think of to get this one under control. I went completely gluten and dairy-free and avoided all of the other foods I know I have problems with for 2 months and still wasn't well or on the way to being well. For the 4th of July I thought I'd come up with a menu I could eat, no bread, just sausages, corn, potatoes, vegetables, salad, fruit, dairy-free dark chocolate, a rice cake, marshmallows, and some candy that I thought would be safe to have as a treat -- jellied fruit slices and gummi candy. I read every label and didn't see anything I knew I couldn't have. And then I got really sick a day later. I looked up every ingredient in every product I ate and found an ingredient in several of the foods and treats I ate that is on the list not to eat for sensitive individuals -- modified food starch or modified corn, wheat or potato starch.
My goodness, modified starches are in so many food products. The gummi candies, the jelly candies, the sausages, marshmallows, and the mayo-like salad dressing that I ate on the 4th and 5th (the leftovers) all had modified starches. I was sick for a couple of days and didn't piece this all together until the 7th of July.
I suspect I've been eating modified starches for a long while, not knowing they weren't for me. It was sometime last fall that I began buying a few extra treat items and packaged foods to have around the house instead of always baking and cooking from scratch. In addition, sometime in late summer/early fall I bought a large 50-lb sack of bread flour that contained enzymes. I'd been slowly doing my own self in all these months.
How am I doing now?
I have now stayed completely away from all of the foods that I now know are harmful for my system. While I'm tired and run down, I'm feeling better and my IBS symptoms are abating. I'm on a diet high in anti-inflammatory foods. The theory is that eating these foods will help in the healing process and reverse any damage done by a prolonged flare-up. I've also been able to add back in cheese aged 3 years+ (which is only one brand of Parmesan cheese in my local stores) and an organic, all-purpose white flour made with just wheat, no barley or enzymes. This flour is expensive, so I make my family bread with the other flour we have and I bake my own bread using the organic, barley-free and enzyme-free stuff.
I'm really kind of annoyed at the big food manufacturers. Modified starches and gums are in food products that are sold as healthy alternatives, not just the boxed meals or other convenience foods. I can't eat commercially-baked products, as the flours bakeries use contain the same barley/barley malt and enzymes that mainstream flour has. It's a lot of label reading to find unadulterated products. I noticed at Christmas time that even the heavy cream for whipping now contains carrageenan. (Carrageenan, by the way, is linked to UC, intestinal lesions, and colon cancer in animal testing.) These additives are, for the most part, cheap ways to improve the texture of food products.
To those of you who reached out to me about my health, thank you. I hope that now I am on the path to being well again. And for those who indicated you are also going through similar issues, I hope you find the key to unlocking good health for your own self. Thanks again, friends.
