If you’re like many of my patients, then you’re probably all too familiar with uncomfortable symptoms like fatigue, bloating, heartburn, joint pain, and sinus issues.
Perhaps you’ve even been told before by doctors and other health-care professionals that there’s nothing to be done about it. If that’s the case, this chapter will be very exciting for you.
Part of our approach with the Elimination Diet is to treat your symptoms and your diet like a puzzle; you are a unique individual and there is a unique diet that will work best for you. This chapter is the first step toward piecing together your individualized diet. We start with an overview of the foods that are the most common culprits and the most frequent sources of symptoms. These are the most reactive foods and the foods most likely to cause intolerance. This doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily have a reaction to all of these foods. But in order to pinpoint the diet that works best for you, we’ve got to remove these foods before you can experience freedom from your symptoms.
All the foods that appear in this chapter have the potential to damage and irritate the gut. When this irritation is persistent, leaky gut and chronic inflammation can develop, opening the door for autoimmune diseases and inflammatory conditions. We must focus first on removing these foods in order to create a calm and balanced environment within the gut.
In Part 3 of the book, you’ll learn how to strategically remove and reintroduce these foods, which will enable you to create a customized diet. Here, I’d like to introduce you to them and their most irritating properties. My hope is that this will help you understand why they’re being removed in the first place, and motivate you to stay on track throughout the program.
More than 80 percent of my clients feel much better after eliminating gluten and dairy alone. Removing these two foods produces profound relief from such a wide array of symptoms that I often wonder why every single health-care practitioner doesn’t begin treatment with this step.
You’ve no doubt seen “gluten-free” foods start to take up more space at your grocery store, or gluten-free meals pop up on restaurant menus. Is this just a trend, driven by the latest fad diet? No, it’s quite the opposite: It’s a reflection of the market finally meeting the needs of the millions of people affected by gluten sensitivity. Whether you know it or not, you are likely one of those people.
Gluten is a combination of two reactive proteins, gliadin and glutenin, which are present in wheat, barley, and rye. It helps give bread its chewy texture and elasticity.
But it’s not just found in breads. Gluten is used as an additive in processed foods, a thickening agent in soups and sauces, a fermenting agent in condiments, beer, and grain alcohols, a binding agent in medications… I could go on, but in simple terms: Gluten is everywhere. (See the hidden sources of gluten list at: wholelifenutrition.net/learn/gluten-free.)
The problem with the ubiquity of gluten is that it has an exceptional ability to cause irritation. That’s because it can’t be broken down properly by human digestion. Instead of reaching your small intestines in tiny groups of amino acids called di- and tripeptides (made up of 2 or 3 amino acids each), gluten is left in larger peptide fragments that are highly troublesome to immune cells.
World-renowned research scientist and gluten expert from Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Alessio Fasano says that the prime issue with gluten is the shape it maintains. He states that no one on this planet digests it well, and our immune cells mistake the undigested peptides from gluten as being a dangerous bacteria. Either directly or indirectly, these peptides can trigger a release of potent inflammatory chemicals called cytokines from the immune cells. These inflammatory cytokines act both locally and globally.
Locally, they can damage the intestinal wall (particularly when genetics for celiac disease are present) and disrupt digestive processes.
Globally, the inflammatory chemicals released by the intestinal immune cells can travel into the bloodstream. Increased levels of these inflammatory chemicals circulating in the bloodstream have been associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity, arthritis, migraine, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and eczema, among other conditions.
Gluten has an amazing ability to break down the defenses of your intestinal wall. It can bind to your intestinal cells and causes them to release a protein called zonulin. Zonulin is an important gatekeeper responsible for opening up junctions between your intestinal cells to allow particles to pass through. We don’t want zonulin released constantly in the intestines. Gaps here let food particles and trillions of organisms escape into the blood, and contribute to leaky gut syndrome. This could be happening to you after every meal.
A 2006 article in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology indicated that all people will get at least a mild case of leaky gut after eating gluten. If someone has a healthy intestinal tract with calm immune cells, friendly organisms, and nonreactive genetics, this leaky gut will close in a short period of time with little harm done. If someone has hyperactive immune cells, harmful organisms, and/or celiac disease or even non-celiac gluten sensitivity, this leaky gut can be a real problem.
Gluten can cause an incurable (but treatable) autoimmune condition called celiac disease, which is estimated to affect approximately 1 in 100 people. Nearly all of those who develop celiac disease have the genetic predisposition to do so. But genes alone don’t mean that the disease will develop; usually a trigger or trauma switches the disease on. Surgery, infection, childbirth, the death of a spouse, vitamin deficiency, and bacterial imbalances all have been shown to contribute to someone manifesting celiac disease. A 2013 study published in Nutrients confirmed that stress of the system could leave a person more likely to develop celiac disease. Researchers from the University of Salerno, Italy, wrote, “adults with celiac disease reported more frequent and more severe life events in the years prior to the diagnosis than control patients.”
When you have celiac disease, your immune system starts attacking your own intestinal cells. This leads to constant inflammation, a leaky gut, nutrient deficiencies, and an imbalance in the organisms found in the intestinal tract. When these 4 factors are present, several other diseases can begin to develop. In fact, researchers have associated more than 200 diseases with celiac disease.
While researchers estimate that around 1 percent of the population suffers from celiac disease, an article in Post Graduate Medicine Journal in 2006 stated a staggering observation: “Population-based screening studies suggest that as many as 50–90% of people with celiac disease… are living undiagnosed in the community.”
In my own clinical practice, I commonly see clients who were diagnosed with a multitude of other issues before they were finally diagnosed with celiac disease. On average, it takes them ten years to get an accurate diagnosis. That’s not a misprint. Typically, people have seen numerous doctors, taken handfuls of medications, and suffered for countless days before they finally go on a gluten-free diet and feel like a million bucks.
Doctors used to think celiac disease was very rare and only looked for diarrhea, nutrient deficiencies, and weight loss to diagnose it. When they saw these symptoms, they would request a biopsy where a sample of the upper intestines was examined under a microscope. If the intestinal biopsy revealed that the hairlike cells of the intestines—the villi, which help absorb nutrients from food—were eroded down to stubs or holes (a condition known as Marsh III villous atrophy), then you were diagnosed with celiac disease.
But this process was flawed because it assumed two things: 1) that the majority of symptoms that occur with celiac disease and other gluten-related disorders occur in the intestines, and 2) that a negative biopsy guarantees a person doesn’t have celiac disease. These assumptions left millions of people in a sort of medical no-man’s-land with no clear diagnosis or treatment plan.
In reality, symptoms of celiac disease are likely to spring up all over the body. In my own practice and research, the following conditions and symptoms have presented a link to celiac disease:
Skin disorders: eczema, acne (rosacea and vulgaris), psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, dermatitis herpetiformis
Mental disorders: anxiety, depression, atypical bipolar disorder, eating disorders
Respiratory and sinus disorders: asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis, nasal polyps
Gastrointestinal disorders: GERD, diarrhea, constipation, gas, nausea, bloating, intestinal cramping, sharp pains in the abdomen
Sleep disorders: insomnia, sleep apnea
Neurological disorders: autism spectrum disorders, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, Raynaud’s disease, one side of the face going numb after eating gluten, memory loss, ataxia
Metabolic disorders: type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, failure to thrive, elevated cholesterol, excessively low cholesterol
Aches and pains: chronic back and neck pain, migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, unexplained joint pains
Bone disorders: osteoporosis, osteomalacia, osteopenia
Nutrient deficiencies: vitamin D, iron, zinc, folates, magnesium, calcium, vitamin K, tryptophan, phenylalanine, and vitamin B12
Only when gluten was removed were clients able to see symptoms and conditions such as these improve or subside.
If you are experiencing chronic diarrhea, persistent weight loss, iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis, or other symptoms that are nonresponsive to treatment, you can ask your doctor to run a test for celiac disease.
Today, there are multiple ways to get tested. Numerous articles have shown that the old gold standard, taking a tissue biopsy from the upper intestinal tract, can produce false negatives. Some have theorized that this is because the person being tested has intestinal symptoms in a place that is not sampled in the biopsy. So they’ve recommended that up to four or more biopsy samples be taken to avoid this issue, which can be quite invasive and expensive.
Thankfully, there are blood tests available now that look at four different markers and are coming close to replacing a biopsy. Those markers are for four different types of antibodies. Research published in BMC Gastroenterology in January 2013 found that when all four are present, there is a 99 to 100 percent chance of predicting celiac disease.
(In case you want to request these tests from your doctors, the antibodies referred to in the study were named IgA anti-deamidated gliadin peptides (dpgli), IgG anti-dpgli, IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase, and IgA anti-endomysium.)
If you test positive for celiac disease, the treatment is to avoid gluten completely. While there is no cure for celiac disease, this treatment is highly effective—once they remove gluten from their diets, most people feel infinitely better in a very short period of time.
Remember that a negative test for celiac does not mean you don’t have it or that you don’t fall somewhere else along the spectrum of gluten reactivity. Many of my clients who’ve benefited from removing gluten were without the genetics or a positive biopsy for celiac disease. The best test is to follow the Elimination Diet and see how you feel when you remove gluten from your diet and then add it back.
For a period of time, those who fell into the gray area of gluten reactivity did so without a medically defined condition. I consulted many of these individuals who seemed to belong to a unique population of gluten-sensitive people without a celiac diagnosis. They had what looked and acted like celiac disease from the outside but all of their blood tests and biopsies came back negative. And yet when they took the gluten out of their diet, they got better.
This “not full-blown celiac disease” is called gluten sensitivity. An article in Digestion and Liver Disorders in 2003 and another in Gastroenterology in 1980 revealed that there indeed was an entity other than celiac disease out there. And only in the last few years have researchers begun to address NCGS as its own entity.
Up to 6 percent of the general population suffers from NCGS, and the symptoms associated with it are almost as extensive as celiac disease. Here are common symptoms experienced by those with gluten sensitivity:
We’ve discussed the elements of gluten that have been linked to celiac disease. But according to “Non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Is it in the gluten or the grain?” a review published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases, there are other irritating characteristics present in gluten that can cause NCGS and increase inflammation in healthy individuals:
Because there’s currently no laboratory test to accurately diagnose this disorder, you must let your symptoms guide you—if you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed beginning here, you might have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. The only way you can find out if you have this is to eliminate gluten during the Elimination Diet. If your symptoms return when you add gluten back in, then you will have clearly identified the root of the problem.
Could you continue to eat gluten even if your Elimination Diet experiment reveals it as the source of your symptoms? You could, but you should know the risks involved. If your immune system is reacting to gluten every time you eat, and you continue to eat gluten, research has indicated you are more likely to suffer from disease. Liver cancer rates can go up; your risk of dying may increase by 600 percent compared to those who choose not to eat gluten; and your rate of autoimmune disease may increase. In essence, if you are having a constant smoldering of inflammation due to gluten consumption, you are more susceptible to most modern diseases.
Clients don’t like me when I mention the need to remove dairy during the Elimination Diet. Everyone loves milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, and other dairy-containing foods, so I usually have to present a solid and compelling case for cutting them out. It’s not a tough case to build—here are six reasons dairy could be disrupting your digestion and damaging your health.
1. Lactose: For starters, cow’s milk contains lactose, a type of sugar that is not well tolerated by most adults: Between 60 and 75 percent of adults can’t properly digest it. Most of us no longer produce lactase, the enzyme needed to break down lactose. Symptoms of lactose intolerance can be mild to severe and include: cramping, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting.
2. Mucus: Most milk contains a protein by the name of BCM 7. This protein is known to increase mucus production in the respiratory and digestive systems in animals. A 2010 article in Medical Hypothesis by Bartley and McGlashan suggested that this byproduct of milk breakdown may create excess mucus production in people. Excess mucus can worsen upper respiratory issues such as asthma and decrease nutrient absorption in the gut.
3. Insulin spikes: Milk has a high insulinogenic effect. When you drink it, your pancreas triggers the release of a ton of insulin. High levels of insulin promote inflammation, which we are directly working to minimize with the Elimination Diet.
4. Toxin pollutants: Dairy products have been proven to contain some of the highest concentrations of environmental pollutants such as flame retardants and dioxins. Research from both Environmental Health Perspectives in 2010 and the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health in 2001 indicate these toxins can damage the immune system, and long-term exposure can lead to reproductive and developmental problems.
Toxins end up in dairy and other foods by way of bioaccumulation and biomagnification, processes that occur in the natural world. When chemicals like dioxins are released into the air, they will settle on the plants and soil. Plants will accumulate more dioxins over time. Animals that eat those plants will accumulate even larger amounts of dioxins. Because persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins, PCBs, PBDEs, and DOT bind to fat, they will be stored in fat tissues and freed when an animal uses that stored fat to make milk for their offspring.
The breast-feeding offspring will get up to 25 percent of that animal’s fat accumulating toxins through the milk of their mother. In other words, the amount of toxins is magnified when passed through the milk. When we consume cow’s milk frequently, we are taking the place of the calf in receiving the accumulated toxins from the cow.
5. Chemicals and hormones: When Spanish and Moroccan researchers tested the chemical content of milk in 2010, they were shocked to discover 20 “pharmacologically active substances.” Their findings were published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry and showed evidence of contamination of the milk by antibiotics, antifungal medications, anti-inflammatories, and hormones, such as estrogen. You’re probably wondering how this is even possible. Well, some of the medications were given directly to the cows, some were applied to the udders and migrated into the milk, but other traces were linked to diet (cattle food) and environment. Many of these medications can damage your gut and lead to bacterial imbalances.
6. Disrupted digestion: Cow’s milk contains protease inhibitors, which can create or worsen leaky gut. These inhibitors prevent enzymes from digesting proteins. Undigested proteins can activate the immune system, setting off the inflammation cascade that can cause leaky gut.
Removing gluten and dairy from your diet are a great starting point, but the most accurate and efficient way to identify the source of discomfort within your unique system is to remove all possible sources of irritation. Only when we remove all reactive foods can we create a blissfully calm gut. And this is the ultimate key to your complete recovery. Dr. Sidney Baker, one of the founders of Functional Medicine and the Autism Research Institute, always says, “If you are sitting on two tacks and you take one out, do you feel 50 percent better?” It is necessary to remove all of your irritating foods in order to get to a state of calm.
Like gluten, corn is everywhere. It’s not just when you know you’re eating corn that you’re consuming it—there are hundreds of corn-derived ingredients hidden in processed foods, the most well-known and prevalent being high-fructose corn syrup.
What do we have against this favorite summertime vegetable? First off, it’s not a vegetable at all; it’s a grain that has similar protein structures to gluten. And this means just like gluten, it contains inflammatory properties. Corn is full of prolamins, the same plant storage proteins found in other grains that are resistant to digestion in the human body.
Here’s the other trouble with corn: Nearly all the corn in the United States comes from genetically modified seeds. And more than 85 percent of the crops are grown from a seed that’s been engineered to produce its own insecticide. This type of corn contains a type of Bt-toxin that kills bugs by poking holes in their intestines.
Producers of Bt-toxin seeds have claimed that the pesticide doesn’t impact humans. And yet researchers writing in Reproductive Toxicology in 2011 presented a different truth. Canadian researchers tested pregnant and non-pregnant women and found evidence of Bt-toxin in:
Research is still being conducted to reveal the impact of elements such as Bt-toxin on our health. Still, there are other modifications made to genetically modified organism (GMO) crops that make them genuine digestion disturbers. By design, they are made to be more resistant to pests. This resistant nature carries over to your digestive system, where GMO foods will resist being broken down by enzymes. Undigested food particles can produce symptoms of allergy and sensitivity, and increase the chances of developing leaky gut.
By eliminating corn, you will also be removing one of the most insidious and damaging foods: corn sugar, otherwise known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS has zero nutritional benefits and may contribute to a leaky gut, and the chronic consumption of HFCS can increase your risk for fatty liver disease.
According to Dr. Lyn Patrick, an expert on liver disorders with the American College for the Advancement of Medicine, it only takes the consumption of 25 to 35 grams of fructose in one sitting to lead someone on the path to disease.
Here’s how the pathway can develop: When high levels of fructose are consumed at one time, the body cannot absorb and process it fast enough. The extra fructose lingers in the intestines where it will feed bacteria, allowing them to grow rapidly. These bacteria can irritate the intestines, leading to a leaky gut, which will allow bacteria to sneak into the blood and increase inflammation. The inflammatory chemicals can then travel to the liver and cause damage.
Along with our normal use in candy, sauces, and processed foods, the consumption of HFCS in flavored coffee beverages sweetened with syrup and in sodas has led to a massive increase in fructose consumption. How much flavored/syrup-sweetened coffee would you have to drink to ingest 25 to 35 grams of fructose? Just look at the sugar content of your sweetened coffee beverage and divide that by half. Most sweetened syrups are made with high-fructose corn syrups that are 55 percent fructose. A popular 16-ounce, vanilla-flavored coffee beverage with whipped cream has almost 70 grams of sugar and 35 grams of fructose. Drinking one of those a day for three months or longer can leave you more susceptible to fatty liver disease.
Fructose beyond 20 to 25 grams at a time can also lead to intestinal distress. The extra fructose is rapidly fermented by bacteria in the upper intestines, leading to gas, bloating, distension, and what my clients call “gooey poops.” If these bacteria are fed often, they can overgrow and irritate the intestinal wall.
And we already know that repeated damage to the lining of the gut will cause leaky gut, allowing particles and toxins to float freely into the bloodstream and increasing inflammation. Since we are working to heal the gut and reduce inflammation with the Elimination Diet, corn must fall strictly on the “no” list during the program.
Soybean or soy is a type of legume that is eaten whole as edamame, or processed into other forms you might be familiar with: tofu, tempeh, and soy milk. In lesser-known forms, it is used as an additive in processed foods. You might see it on a label as soybean oil, hydrolyzed soybean protein, soy albumin, or soy lecithin. This last one is in nearly all packaged cookies and candies.
Like corn and gluten, soy is sneaky. It’s in baked goods, deli meats, protein bars, cereal, chicken broth, mayonnaise, vitamins, peanut butter, sauces, soups, and more. Eating a diet of whole, fresh foods is pretty much the only way to avoid soy.
Also like corn, much of the soy in the United States (94 percent) is genetically modified. In fact, soy was the first major genetically modified crop in 1996, having been modified to withstand excessive spraying of the herbicide Roundup. A 2014 article in Food Chemistry entitled “Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans” showed that not only are these genetically modified soy plants less nutritious than their conventional counterparts, but they are also laden with herbicide residues.
Soy is naturally resistant to digestive enzymes produced by the pancreas. It produces compounds that inhibit the pancreatic enzyme trypsin from breaking down proteins in foods (hence their name, trypsin inhibitors). Genetically modified soy has been found to have higher amounts of these inhibitors, making it even more difficult to digest. If we do not break down the proteins found in foods, we are more likely to have immune reactions to those foods.
When you get to the phases of the Elimination Diet, you’ll notice that you will be removing foods beyond gluten, dairy, soy, and corn. Every food that is removed is done so with specific purpose. Each item that appears on the “no” list has the potential to irritate or inflame your unique system. As we work to create the most calm, peaceful intestinal environment for you, all of these potential contributors must be removed. Failing to do so could create inaccurate results during the Reintroduction Phase or, worse, ensure that your symptoms stay put.
Here are a number of the other foods on the removal list and their most irritating characteristics:
You’ll want to avoid alcohol during the Elimination Diet. Beer, wine, and hard alcohol aren’t kind to your gut, and drinking them will hinder your efforts to create a calm intestinal environment. This does not mean you have to quit drinking forever, but it does mean you’re in for a dry spell if you truly want relief from your symptoms.
What about just one drink? The science advises you against it. Gin, vodka, whiskey, and beer may have gluten proteins in them. One little sip and your entire experiment may be thrown off. Besides, even the slightest bit of alcohol may create micro damage to the villi of the small intestines. It actually burns the sensitive tips of the villi, which are important for secreting digestive enzymes and absorbing important nutrients. If the alcohol contains gluten, even more damage can be done.
When alcohol is drunk in excess or on an empty stomach, it can accelerate the development of leaky gut. It seems to have a unique ability to open gaps for endotoxins, which are bacterial compounds that cause inflammation and damage tissue.
Alcohol will also feed bad bacteria, increasing the risk of bacterial overgrowth or an imbalanced gut environment.
Beef proteins have been shown to have cross-reactivity with dairy proteins in some individuals. This means that people who are really dairy sensitive may not tolerate beef. In multiple articles on rheumatoid arthritis and the elimination diet, both Kicklin et al. and Darlington et al. found that beef was one of the top irritant foods for arthritis. And when Dr. Ellen Grant of Charing Cross Hospital in London tested foods and their effect on allergies, beef was found to be one of the top contributors to migraines.
Pork is the second most common food irritant found in gallbladder disease. People who regularly consume bacon, lard, and other pork products may start reacting to the pork proteins found in these products. Reactions can be experienced as stomach pain, bloating, excessive gas, cramping, and constipation.
According to Zar and Benson in the American Journal of Gastroenterology in 2005, antibodies to pork were found to be significantly higher in subjects with irritable bowel syndrome as well.
Avoiding beef, pork, and all processed meats during the Elimination Diet will ensure that you aren’t exposed to nitrites, to which many people can be sensitive. These commonly used food additives can cause headaches, fatigue, runny nose, and even hives, if you’re allergic.
Chocolate and coffee both contain chemicals called methyl xanthines (theobromide in chocolate; caffeine in coffee). These molecular compounds can contribute to anxiety, sleeplessness, and heart palpitations in people. When someone is anxious or excited, they can secrete more cortisol, and elevated cortisol can cause a permeable gut.
IgG food sensitivity panels and dietary challenge tests are finding many people react to both coffee and chocolate. Children with anxiety and autism have a particularly high reactivity rate to chocolate.
In 2009, the Autism Research Institute compiled results from more than 25,000 questionnaires filled out by parents of autistic children. The answers determined what interventions, whether they were medical or lifestyle changes, had the most positive effects on their children. The removal of wheat, dairy, and chocolate were among the top four.
You’ve likely heard of the warnings on medications that caution against taking them with grapefruit juice. This is because certain compounds in citrus fruits (naringin and others) have the capacity to alter liver enzymes significantly. If you slow down liver enzyme function, medications, toxins, and other substances are more likely to loiter in the body, ready to irritate and damage cells. As time goes on, I see more and more people starting to react to proteins in citrus as well. Rashes, fatigue, and abdominal pain are three common symptoms of citrus reactions.
Eggs are a highly allergenic food, and yet most people would never think to blame them for symptoms such as bloating, gas, nausea, and skin rashes.
Eggs contain an enzyme called lysozyme, which will link up with undigested egg white proteins. Together they’ll form what’s known as a lysozyme complex. A lysozyme complex will float through the digestive system and resist digestion while picking up bacterial proteins, growing bigger as it travels.
Once at the gut barrier, the complex will slip right through—lysozyme possesses a unique chemical ability to cross through cellular junctions. From here, it maneuvers into the blood where it circulates throughout the body. The undigested proteins will trip the immune cells’ alarm, kicking out inflammatory chemicals.
The term nightshade actually refers to the Solanaceae family of plants, which includes tomatoes, potatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cayenne and paprika (made from peppers), eggplant, goji berries, and tomatillos. Nightshades found in the wild contain levels of chemicals called alkaloids that prevent us from eating them. The common vegetables we use today have been bred to contain much lower levels of these alkaloids, but some sensitive individuals still react to even small amounts. Those individuals sensitive to nicotine, a common alkaloid in eggplant and tomatoes, may want to eliminate those foods from their diets.
Even if you find that you are not sensitive to nightshades after following the Elimination Diet, be sure to remove the greening and sprouting parts of potatoes. These portions are indicators of an increase in alkaloid compounds, and high concentrations of these can cause problems for most people. Only store your potatoes for up to three weeks in a dark and dry area to prevent them from sprouting and turning green.
Tree nuts and peanuts are two of the top eight triggers of food allergies. Examples of tree nuts are cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans, and walnuts. You can be sensitive or allergic to one nut or another, or separately to peanuts, although most people with an allergy to peanuts are also allergic to one or more tree nuts.
There are numerous reasons as to why tree nuts and peanuts are so reactive for many. Here are four of the most likely:
1. They are hard to digest. Nature has designed nuts and seeds to be resistant to digestion by animals so they can be spread across the land in animal fecal matter. They have hard coatings that are difficult to digest, enzyme inhibitors that interfere with digestion, and lectins that may disrupt the intestinal lining.
2. They have a high protein content. Protein fragments from foods (peptides) can be mistaken for foreign invaders by the immune cells if they are not broken down very well during the digestive process. These undigested proteins might mimic a common invader of the body like rotovirus, for example. Because of this, any food that has high protein content and is not digested well is more likely to stimulate an immune reaction in the intestinal tract, especially if that intestinal tract is “leaky.”
3. They often have toxins from mold on them. Peanuts are legumes that grow underground in a moist environment, where there’s a risk of mold developing. Most all samples of peanuts in the United States contain traces of a mold toxin known as aflatoxin. This substance, when not properly detoxified, may cause liver damage as well as contribute to cancer risk.
4. They have high anti-nutrient content (phytates and oxalates). Peanuts are particularly good sources of both oxalates and phytates. These are two substances that are known to bind to minerals like zinc and calcium in your foods and make them less available to your body.
Unless nuts are soaked, sprouted, and then dehydrated, digesting nuts can be a challenge for most. Soaking reduces the phytate content of nuts and neutralizes enzyme inhibitors. Still, nuts—soaked or not—are to be avoided during the first two phases of the Elimination Diet, and then added back in strategically during the Reintroduction Phase.
In some parts of the world, sesame has landed on the list of top 10 most allergenic foods. This is because sesame has the perfect combination for a potentially reactive food. First off, it’s an amino acid–rich protein source, which can make it difficult for people who can’t properly digest proteins. It’s also a seed, which means by design it will resist being broken down by acids and enzymes due to its hard coating, enzyme inhibitors, and lectins. A seed wants to survive to keep its genes alive. Watch for sesame on breads, buns, and bagels, and in crackers, dips, and spreads.
Sugar is sticky. Setting a lollipop on a couch cushion will prove this point quickly. When the concentration of sugar in your blood builds up, the sugar can stick to proteins there. One such protein is called hemoglobin, which you may know as the protein responsible for carrying oxygen through the body. When it has sugar stuck to it, the hemoglobin will be in a different shape.
When hemoglobin proteins change shape, they can’t do their job very well. But there is something else that happens when a protein changes shape: It is no longer recognized by immune cells as being normal and not harmful. The immune system will flag the sticky, misshapen proteins as foreign invaders and launch an attack against them. This attack leads to inflammation and all sorts of symptoms.
Beyond that, some people actually have immune-mediated reactions toward sugar—they can have an allergic response. I see this appear on IgG food allergy/sensitivity panels quite often. They might experience symptoms such as rashes, fatigue, and headaches, and never think of sugar as the cause.
It’s also important to remove sugar from your diet during the Elimination Diet because most of the sugar in the United States comes from a combination of beets and sugarcane. Both of these crops are known to use high levels of herbicides. The majority of beets used for sugar (95 percent) are genetically modified to withstand herbicides like Roundup and when tested, often have high levels of herbicide residues on them.
Some studies have estimated that up to 60 percent of people with a gluten reaction may have a cross-reaction with yeast as well. If you have Crohn’s disease, you will have produced antibodies to yeast. Because strains of yeast that live in our intestines may be presented to our immune cells throughout our lives, this is a common substance that people may find they are sensitive to. Yeasts are found in baked goods, alcohols, and nutritional yeast products.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the list of foods in this book—remember, this is about creating a customized diet. You’re going to discover which foods work best for you and which don’t. I know it can be hard to give up some of your favorite foods, but think about how much better you’ll feel once you do! You are going to have to make a decision and ask yourself this question: Do I want the foods or do I want to lose the symptoms? The choice is clear to me, especially when it can be so delicious to follow the diet!
Now that you understood the foods that are the biggest culprits, let’s take a look at another key factor: the environment.