Dairy products, pizza, bowels and Woody Harrelson

[Trillipse]

Have just read an interview with the oddball Woody Harrelson (sp?) and he was singing the praises of a dairy-free diet. "Why on earth are we drinking/eating stuff that is specifically designed to make small animals big very quickly" and "try dairy free for a week and then have a pizza - you'll be shocked and amazed" to paraphrase his comments. Sounds to me like it might be good for the bowels...

Any ABers tried this sort of thing?

[woofgang]

well but eggs are designed to be baby chickens, grain is designed to be new plants, bulbs and tubers are designed to propagate plants, animal and fish muscle is designed to move animals and fish around so what precisely is designed to be eaten?

[Trillipse]

Woofgang,

While I appreciate your critique of Mr Harrelson's comment, you're not exactly answering my question.

I believe WH is attempting some sort of regressionist argument, regarding which I can imagine myriad arguments for and against (though I do like the romantic appeal of it in concept) but I was driving at a more results-driven thread: are his practical claims actually to be believed? Before I disallow myself my beloved cheese and milk for a period in order to test the bowel hypothesis, I was angling for a little second hand research .......

Obviously to follow the regressionist thesis to it's logical conclusion is impossible, but extremists would end up eating raw leaves and (possibly) raw animals. Given the state of our appendix, the first is somewhat futile, and the state of our psyche, the second usually distasteful (rare steak, sushi and so on notwithstanding...)

By the way - I'm assuming from your indignant post that you will and do eat anything palatable...?

[Trillipse]

"its"

[FTVS]

I go in and out of being cow milk free but i will eat gat or sheep milk products. I had the cheeses at a restaurant after 6 weeks free and I was v sick indeed. For me, teh benefits are I feel "lighter" and my skin seems better. It helps me with weight loss as well. Try it out; the only hard bit is milk in tea otherwise it is pretty easy.

[Trillipse]

Cheers FTVS - a rather more practical answer (no offence woofer)

I'm always looking for non-pharaceutical ways to combat colitis.

[woofgang]

sorry Trillipse. of course there are people who find certain foods don't agree with them and feel better for not eating them. I get spates of IBS and the triggers seem to vary...had a time when I couldn't eat prawns, one phase when frozen peas made me feel extremely ill.

and yes, my comment was intended to be a reductio ad absurdam

IMO dairy free insn't an inherently "good" diet any more than it is an inherently "bad" one. ...and the only way to see if it will make you feel better is to try it yourself.

Last (practical) word. Giving up any food because you think that you may be intolerant of it may make you feel much worse before it makes you feel better, including making you feel like you have the worse cold in the world. This is a good sign and means that the substance probably is upsetting your body and you probably will feel better for continuing to avoid it.

[Trillipse]

cheers woof,

i despise conflict, and your recent post was very pleasant... ;-)

i do understand frustration with the vast raft of people who tell you not to eat this, that or the other, btw -

coming from a farming family, this began with my father's professional vexation with the rise in vegetarianism (which i personally reserve judgement on) but each to his/her own.

i think worrying about food is going to do you more harm than anything else (i know colitis is linked to anxiety, so obviously there's a tenuous link there...) but essentially i'm an holistically oriented person : if i could gently partake in most things, i'd be happy not to have to absolutely avoid any one food or food group. but i am often a glutton, and also get stuck in my ways - moderation in all things was wasted on me...

[Scarlett]

Hi Trillipse,

I am dairy-free and have been for over a year. You get AMAZING results. I have had a kind of constant cold ever since I can remember, and giving up dairy suddenly cleared my sinuses- I could breathe through my nose for the first time ever. I did a detox too, and my skin, nails, hair and energy levels all improved.

This article explains exactly what happens:

http://www.drbass.com/symptoms.html

My UC got better too- it didn't go away, but I felt very well and had no episodes or bleeding. I just have soya milk (Alpro or So Good) and Green and Black's choc... it is quite easy to find substitutions!

[Scarlett]

Trillipse,

I would like to conduct my own study into IBD. VERY interesting that you say that you "despise conflict", as do I. I believe it is not caused by diet, but by internalising anger, causing conflict inside the body= disease.

If you and I were to express ourselves a little more, get ANGRY and allow ourselves to be confrontational sometimes, and to enjoy it, I think our symptoms would lessen.

That is what my homeopath believes, and I am inclined to agree! People with UC seem to be reserved, high achievers, who chastise themselves and keep a lot bottled up.

Am I wrong?

[Trillipse]

now then Scarlett -

I believe you may have something there...do tell me more

[Scarlett]

Er.. well that's it really! That's my theory. Doctors are forever looking for physical causes to diseases- what you eat etc, and try to cure them with chemical reactions- drugs. This is so naive in this day and age. You can make yourself ill through worry and stress. If you keep your feelings in, and never express anger 'cos you don't want to upset other people and cause conflict, then you are causing your own system to become blocked up. You are stopping the energy flow from chakra to chakra. You are internalising your own anger. This has to cause problems! Your anger has to get out- like a boiling kettle. the steam has to go somewhere! If you don't let steam out of a boiling kettle, it will explode.

I hope I don't explode. But sometimes I feel like I might!

[woofgang]

Scarlett, your theory has a basis, i was looking on the web for supporting evidence but can't find it!

There used to be a concept called the "type 2 personality" This person was described as a stress internaliser and perfectionist, i.e little things really cheese this person off and they have trouble handling beins so cheesed off. This was said to result in digestive upset and heart attack.

Certainly there is a stress related element to colitis and to IBS. When we are stressed, our bodies produce different chemicals and these do change the rhythm of peristalsis and the way that we digest food as well as other bodily functions.

[sair5412]

Hi there,

Hope you don't think I'm interrupting. I have read the last couple of threads with great interest.

I am a 26 year old female and at the beginning of 2005 I began to suffer terribly from IBS. I saw doctor after doctor, had all the blood tests, physical examinations and tests going, took all sorts of medication from anti spasmodics to anti deppressants. My problem only persisted to get worse. In the end I couldn't leave the house, I just about managed to look after my little boy and I was so depressed I couldn't go on. I was spending 80% of my life in the bathroom.

Someone suggested it could be stress related. I couldnt see the link here as it was the first time, after a succession of personal "disasters", that my life had become settled. Why would it start now? The theory was, my body was only just releasing all the stress from the past, now that I was relaxed, it had time to do so.

In August, a friend of my mother recommended that I see a therapist. I could not for the life of me believe for one minute that talking to someone about my new toilet habits was going to change anything, let alone cure it!

However, I went along to see Sue who I liked immediately and we talked about all sorts of things, my self esteem, my life as a child, my relationships all sorts. I couldnt see where on earth this was going and all sorts of memories crawled out of the woodwork with regards to my relationship with my mother especially. Sue came to the conclusion that my stomach problems were created by a mixture of my self esteem and problems my mother and I had had between us in the past. In the meantime my stomach had got better but then had a really vicious bout again.

Continued in my next post.........

[sair5412]

............I thought the therapy had made me worse! Sue assured me, this was normal and would happen. I could only trust her judgement, as negative as I went to see a private doctor who cost me �150. I went back to Sue as the private doctor couldn't suggest anything more. Sue arranged for the 3 of us (Sue, my mum & myself) to have a session together. It cost �120 for this one session and all sorts of misunderstandings and bad feelings were ironed out. All in 2 hours. Since then, my mum and I have become so much more closer and she now understands and accepts that I am sensitive as a person and is much more gentle with me. I also now see her as a gentle sensitive person herself, rather than a mother who used to frighten me into trying to be something I am not. My mother truely didn't mean to do this to me and was so so upset when she thought it was all her "fault".

What I am saying is, there isn't always a phsyical & medical explaination for things, there are spiritual & emotional reasons that we can't see or have a bandage put on.

Anyone suffering like I have, I urge you to think about seeing a counsellor or therapist or shrink or whatever you want to call it. I never thought it would work and felt stupid going at first, but it has and I have my life back AND a great new relationship with my Mum.

(sorry that I interrupted with such a long post, but if I can help others then I need to tell my story)

[sair5412]

P.S- Just so people don't think my posts were exclusively for IBS sufferers, Sue explained that my symptoms were also very typical of colitis.

[tracymort]

Ohh Scarlett you are so right! I have UC..never taken the drugs for it. Diet can aggrivate it yes (and i don't believe we are designed after the natural age of weaning 2.5 - 7 years to drink milk..especially of another animal) but stress is the cause in my case!

I get upset..it flares up almost immediately..like clockwork. I am now having counselling (need money for NLP though)..unearthed lot of fears about being myself as my mum rejected me alot no matter how well I did at school i was always a little siht apparently!
As a result I'm scared to be myself (so bottled up) and feel inferior.
The bowel is a very nerve rich place..it's as if my bowel does my worrying for me and it's had enough and manifested itself as UC.

[tracymort]

Ooh meant to add in the brilliant book http://www.whylovematters.com/ the author specifically links a stressful babyhood (i had one..left to cry most of the time apparently) to UC. All to do with the effect cortisol has on a rapidly developing brain and it can effect the way a person deals with stress for the rest of their life. One reason why I'm so against baby training ideas like Gina Fords.

[lizzierose]

what about that theory that humans only started eating dairy a relatively short time ago in evolutionary terms and therefore we haveb't totally evolved to digest it etc. so we are all intolerant to a greater or lesser extent and cutting it out of your diet can increase your energy levels. or something.

regardless of whether this is true or not i did a detox where dairy was cut out and i was bursting with energy. this was not the only thing in my diet i changed though so i can't promise it was dairy