I've had a vague generalized food intolerance my whole life. I think I just have a sensitive stomach. I've had ulcers my whole life. I have a stomach ache more often than not, but I've just learned to live with it. Some things I cannot eat even if it were all that was left on earth, like Indian food. It tastes good, I know. But I think it would keep me from ever traveling in India. I have a marked shellfish allergy. Living in the Midwest, it's not a big problem. But when I'm anywhere where shellfish is prevalent, ... I plan around it. I can only eat a little, and when I do, I have to figure in sick time that day. lol. Because it is really delicious, fresh, "caught that day" seafood. Sadly, my biology does not recognize it as food. It thinks it is Sigourney Weaver in Alien or something. I was vegetarian for a time, and then I went to eating only fish and chicken, no red meat. To this day I don't handle red meat well. But lately I've been eating steak in small portions, and have not been any sicker than I normally am after eating.
I do regular "fasts." I don't actually stop eating, but cut out everything possibly bad for me -alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, sugar, fried and processed foods (not that I eat them often anyway), heavy, rich foods, etc. Give my body a chance to repair itself before I start abusing it again.
Assuming I never have to go to India, my attitude toward food and travel is, eat what I want. It's controversial, because I'm bound to be ill and inconvenience people, and it also means I never make myself eat something I find repulsive. But I'd rather sample local cuisine - there is a strong connection between culture and cuisine- and puke. And I always travel with things like an apple, trail mix, protein bars. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
I like to be well and there is nothing worse than getting ill when travelling, especially when there is so much to see and do. I don't see cutting out 'nice' things in my diet as depriving myself but rather safeguarding my health and getting more out of life as a result.
When I was younger and didn't know what caused the problem I also learned to live with it and got used to that baseline of never quite feeling well and always having stomach ache and headaches and being tired. But now I know what it is like to feel properly well and healthy, I like to stay that way. My choice.
my lactose intolerance arise because I do not make any of the enzyme that breaks down lactose (and never have) and when it is in my system it has long term systemic effects and I've seen this contribute to early deaths and chronic illnesses of a number of family members. It won't happen to me.
As it happens, more adults are intolerant to lactose to some extent, than are tolerant to it but it is largely ignored or written off as IBS. Wheat I have a greater tolerance to and will eat if I don't have much other choice and the worst effect is bloating and lethargy which is tolerable. I just feel more comfortable and clear headed without. Ad astra per aspera
I didn't know that lactose intolerance could have such serious long-term effects. Are you sure that you don't have milk allergy, a rather different condition?
The symptom list for lactose includes: nosebleeds headaches/migraines joint and muscle pain spasms palpitations IBS type symptoms - bloating, nausea, diarrhea lethargy poor immune system Ad astra per aspera
Is lactose intolerance primarily an allergy to cow's milk ? As melo points out, we're not supposed to drink that at all. Or is it an allergy to all milks such as, say, goats milk which is supposedly okay for humans.
That said, I'm okay. I can eat more or less anything. Anything I avoid is by preference or disgust (especially oysters) keep to the Fen Causeway
And yes, we're all slightly intolerant of alcohol. Being sick from drinking too much as a youngster is because the stomach doesn't want that much alcohol in it at once, stopping being sick is a "learned" reaction.
But drinking booze is pretty much elective these days. keep to the Fen Causeway
one did fine, but the other was sick for a week.
lost appetite, moped around, no energy.
gave her some kidney tincture, encouraged her to drink more water, and with extra affection and massage, she came around fine, as per. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I have a genetic defect that prevents the enzyme being made, ever. Most people make lactase that breaks down lactose when they are babies and this eases off as they grow older - hence why adults are more likely to be lactose intolerant. As pointed out elsewhere, we aren't 'supposed' to have milk in our diets once weaned off breastfeeding therefore no need to keep making the enzyme.
How did we come to be eating or drinking anything that we do?! Ad astra per aspera
My guess is that some herdsmen discovered they could give raw milk without making cheese out of it to toddlers, and stopped giving it as the kids developed intolerance - until at a point the kids didn't develop intolerance, and gained an evolutionary advantage. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Evolution in action !
Funnier yet: most probably co-evolution.
So, in societies where milk was really the only thing available during some periods, being lactose intolerant was strongly selected against (like: you might die).
It is the lactose in the milk that is specific to the problem and lactose is present in all mammal milk including goat etc. The reason goats milk is thought to be ok for some people who can't have cow's milk is because these people are allergic to cows milk protein, which is not present in goats milk. Ad astra per aspera
(If milk or bread gives you a bellyache, I don't think you should drink it. I don't want anyone here feeling sick. I'm a nice person. I just like making fun of making fun of the French!) "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Most supermarkets DO have a good range of stuff in special shelf sections.
I presume all this reflects the high rate of such allergies in the Finnish population. You can't be me, I'm taken
I suspect that the food manufacturers say, "OK, if we make it without wheat then it's gluten-free." Which is not the case. I've seen things so labeled that contained oats and/or barley, which are every bit as dangerous as wheat.
And it's astonishing how many people don't make the connection between flour in a food item and the fact that it's made of wheat. The good side is that restaurants chefs and servers almost always are helpful, understanding and will go out of their way to prepare something in an uncontaminated pan.
isn't it wonderful to find you don't have to live like that any more?
waking up in hospital with plastic tubes meeting above my eyes, trying to concentrate in school with cluster headaches, stomach feeling like it was breaking rocks...
raised three kids their first years vegetarian, they got to keep their appendixes, tonsils, adenoids.
the fat molecules in dairy are built to support a calf's rapid growth, not a human's gradual one, ergo lymph solidification, bloating.
the fact that it's better for the planet too makes it a no-brainer...
i feel so bad for all the kids with lactose intolerance that will have to wait till they are 18 or so to know what 'well-being' really is, as i did.
so, well done for speaking up, in wales, and for having the discipline to take good care of yourself. good luck while travelling!
i'd carry some miso with you, for the morning after, if you have to go a bit off your usual diet. a tsp in some hot water can turn things round again better than anything else i know.
hard to pull off on the road, but here's melo's surefire cure for what ails ya
a cup of freshly boiled water 1 tsp barley or rice miso 1 small leaf dried wakame sea vegetable, or a good pinch of kelp powder 1 tsp brewers' yeast 1 tsp minced parsley 1 tsp lemon juice 2-3 drops umeboshi vinegar 2 drops tabasco 2 tbs cooked brown rice
drink deep, and be weller!
for travelling, i usually get individual sachets of dried miso, which do the trick.
for you who get occasional stress headaches, i recommend picking up some CEPHYL aspirin, available unfortunately only in france and switzerland, afaik. they really are amazing. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Any interesting products of Mother Nature are welcomed - being one myself.
I am a sinner, but one with 5000 years of testing to back me up ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
i'd love to be an omnivore, and i'd even more love not to be misunderstood when i talk about diet!
being an omnivore is a sign of great health, that's what we're set up to be.
diet is also a palliative, once one finds out one's imbalances and which foods heal them.
in my case diet is a wonderful release from a suffering past, so i know i'm luckier than if i had remained ignorant about the subject, but i'd be even luckier still, were i so healthy as to be able to return to omniverousness.
it's horrible having limits that most others can't relate to, but i make lemonade, and have fun doing it.
anything's better than going back to hell, as in wales so aptly describes the grungy feeling of trying to live on what doesn't agree with you.
my diet is a stretched out band-aid over a difficult series of ptsd memories, and lord love us, it works!
everybody's mileage will vary according to the individual biology, psychological architecture and environment.
deep down i have a hunch one day i will find another healing that might restore me to the sovereign state of omnivority, lol.
or to living on the prana in air maybe... this is not so far fetched, as already i am amazed how little quantity my body needs compared to before i understood which were 'superfoods', so high in curative and nutritive values that quality could easily replace much quantity.
food is fascinating...the roots of our choices go so very deep, changing radically was neither an easy nor attractive option, until i learned to make it so, silk purse from sow's ear, if you will.
i love it when people are healthy and happy with how they eat. this, however, is not very common, and on the good side, people are becoming ever more open to new choices, which i find a pleasure to encourage, hoping always that there may be a similarly profound change in one's ability to better self-regulate one's own health, that i had.
for example, my partner has had an 80% reduction in pollen allergy, since becoming vegetarian. she could probably knock out the last 20% if she liked saunas more.
:) ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
The benefits exist only with sufficient heat (<65 C), and the vapourization of water on the stones to increase humidity rapidly. Steam baths and saunas both use steam for healing, but in the sauna the steam is invisible. The temperature is needed to get deep into the muscles, and to stimulate surface blood vessels which then clear the skin of crap.
I usually go for about 80 C, but spray some water around on the walls and benches before I sit down, so the heat is not so dry and the sweat starts straight away. I often put birch oil in the water for added aromatherapy ;-)
Saunas are also intended to be quite dark.
Most people outside of Finland do not know how to use the sauna or 'soorna', as they call it. Harrumph. I heard all the horror tales abut 40 C hotel saunas with a notice saying do NOT throw water on the stones! You can't be me, I'm taken
The 'vihta' is kept in water. Before you flick yourself with it, you place it briefly on the hot stones to create more steam and heat up the leaves.
The possible painful part is that the swish of the vihta creates a waft of very hot air in it's wake. That hot air never reaches you, but it can reach a neighbour. Sauna etiquette thus demands that you take this into account. You can't be me, I'm taken
Neither is nudity threatening. As I said the sauna should be dim. Running to the lake is a different matter. Rarely are saunas unisex, except in families. But often men and women in a group take turns in the sauna, and relax outside when it is not their turn. This means the trip to the lake is visible to the relaxers. Men tend to run naked to the lake. Women tend to take a towel which they discard at the jetty. When men return from the cold lake after a swim, there's very little to see ;-)
It's all done in the very best of taste ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
No, I love it. You don't need to educate me on it. I was just wondering if the Finns did that too. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
I'm curious about what causes food intolerance, that is, lactose intolerance & gluten intolerance. Does anyone know? There is no treatment? You just have to live with it your whole life?
For instance, at the moment, the advice is that babies should be weaned at 17 weeks at the earliest and that they should receive no gluten until they're six months old at least, in order to avoid triggering food allergies in the immature immune system. There's also the issue that breast milk contains all sorts of things that interact with the baby's immune system to help educate it about what is food and should be ignored. Formula fed babies don't get that, so may be at higher risk of the various syndromes above. Twenty years ago the advice was to formula feed and wean them as soon as possible ...
if the mother's tummy is unsettled, her milk can pass this on to baby.
some foods like cabbage fr'example, can digest fine in mom, but still cause all kinds of reactions in baby.
or too many spices, basically too much fermenting, causes gassiness and colic.
sometimes nursing moms have to modify what they eat to accomodate a baby that has very much its own set of better or worse-digested foods.
i bet sam knows this already... generally, simple is good. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I'm gluten intolerant, and so am delighted to see this discussion. I've been wanting to do something about a trip across the pond, but even more worried about food than In Wales, given that we can no longer bring much of anything useful with us on planes. God knows what the airport squad would say if I showed up with a suitcase full of rice noodles.
Gluten intolerance is, as I understand it, caused my an allergic reaction to a protein that occurs in wheat, oats, barley and rye. Does nasty things to the digestive tract.
Buh-bye to any thoughts of drinking those wonderful European beers. No baguettes, no pasta. And the list goes on.
It's less the prospect of going hungry a bit, but what's really frightening is the possibility of eating something contaminated with wheat and getting sick from it.
If you Poemless personally have food issues, you might try doing elimination diets in sequence. Take all the, say, wheat out of your diet for a couple of weeks, see if you feel better. Then put it back in. If your symptoms recur, that's a clue.
I have lots of references on this stuff, if you want to discuss further. Now, back to reading comments.
They reckoned that the lamb/potatos/peas diet was the lowest level of likelihood alergy meal that you could get and still bre medically ok. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I misspoke. Gluten intolerance isn't really an allergy; it's just that some peoples' systems can't handle the whatever-it-is protein. I do reasonably well except, like In Wales, I have to avoid fast-food places and especially places where they might buy some of their food prepared from a larger supplier--such as the soup bases used in Chinese restaurants. Many of those have MSG, by the way, no matter what the restaurant says.
Wheat is such an industrial crop that it's in everything, often disguised as something else. Or included as "natural flavoring" or some other weasel wording. Hydrolized soy protein is another nasty term. The more processed the food, generally the less safe it is.
I've read that gluten intolerance supposedly is more prevalent in people of northwestern European ancestry, which makes for interesting considerations of how much, say, beer is drunk in that part of the world and what some of the chronic health problems are there and here.
I do like your sig line, by the way.
Buh-bye to any thoughts of drinking those wonderful European beers.
Not quite, there are gluten free beers, in fact there's even a gluten free beer festival.
Check this for a list keep to the Fen Causeway
Some ulcers can be cured with antibiotics, but only your doctor and you could know if yours are that sort.
On the bright side, you must at least be wonderfully svelte!
Karen in Austin 'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher
Ulcers: Not the anti-biotic type. Really, it's under control for the most part. But in college I was in the hospital for a while. I kept complaining of stomach aches, and every doctor thought I was either being a hypochondriac or just had heartburn (which I've never had, actually). They even told me I didn't know where my stomach was, and when I pointed to the area where the pain was, they were like, "Hm. Well. That is where you stomach is. Most people don't know..." It got to where I could not even stand, and that when I went to the hospital. So after 6 months of complaining to doctors who told me to take some Tums, they did an upper GI and said, "Your stomach is full of ulcers! How have you been surviving that pain?" Omg, did I want to strangle them! I just love how doctors don't take your complaints seriously and then reprimand you for not taking action sooner. Idiots. I didn't test positive for the bug that causes the ulcers that can be cured with anti-biotics. It's entirely stress-induced; I had a rather insanley traumatic childhood. I did have to stick to a very strict diet for about 9 months. Horrible. No alcohol, chocolate, cheese, nuts, fried food, spicy food, acidic food. Toast. I ate mostly toast. And oatmeal. And I was on one of those new-fangled pills that is supposed to help your stomach repair itself. It worked. I still have a terribly sensitive stomach, but I've not been back in the hospital in pain.
Svelte: Eh ... Sveltish, maybe. But that's only because I didn't eat for several weeks last year (emotional crisis) and my stomach shrank to the size of a pea. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Vanity helps me to avoid the shellfish, too, besides just the pain of the swollen glands in my neck. I just hate to look in the mirror and see huge jowls on either side of my face.
And as to doctors... I mustn't go there. Thank goodness there's one in the family, or we'd all be dead already.
