Meaty salty fatty food - immediate improvement?

[Prefect]

I don't understand my condition. I find no matter how dizzy and fogged I am, a couple of bites into a really meaty fatty salty dish I already feel better. And after the food I'm better for a few hours. Vegetarian food doesn't work.

It's animal fat. But...

There is NO WAY any nutritional content (EVEN BLOOD SUGAR or SALT) can hit my body in such a short time.

What in your body goes up during the act of eating?

This has to be a visceral reaction my body has to taste of animal fat?

Endorphin release?

Impact of food on my vagus nerve? (this one is doubtful, because the nature of the food is important)

Placebo?

I'm so sick of being lost.

 

[A.B.]

The recent metabolomics studies suggest that we rely less on carbohydrates and more on fats and aminoacids to generate energy.

Why you react very quickly I don't know. It might just be anticipation of the later influx of nutrients.

It could also be that the physiological changes that occur to prepare for digesting a heavy meal somehow help.

 

[Butydoc]

I don't understand my condition. I find no matter how dizzy and fogged I am, a couple of bites into a really meaty fatty salty dish I already feel better. And after the food I'm better for a few hours. Vegetarian food doesn't work.

It's animal fat. But...

There is NO WAY any nutritional content (EVEN BLOOD SUGAR or SALT) can hit my body in such a short time.

What in your body goes up during the act of eating?

This has to be a visceral reaction my body has to taste of animal fat?

Endorphin release?

Impact of food on my vagus nerve? (this one is doubtful, because the nature of the food is important)

Placebo?

I'm so sick of being lost.

Hi Perfect,

It may be from intravascular volume expansion from the sodium in the " meaty,fatty, salty dish".

 

[Seven7]

I have discovered the same, for me is sugary foods. but any food will take me out of a energy dip. it is as if my body forgot how to make energy from stored fat and can make new energy from new food.

 

[TiredSam]

Me too, minus the fatty. So lean meat with lots of salt on it. Every day.

 

[A.B.]

My favorite is a beef or chicken soup, well cooked, with vegetables and very salty.

I'm leaning to the explanation that it's in particular broken down meat proteins that are good for me (us?). That would be meat that has been boiled for a long time or fermented.

The salt also seems to help probably due to what @Butydoc is saying.

Sugar of course is also efficient in increasing energy levels but it's too "spikey". If I eat sugar I'll energy levels will go up quickly but then crash. Not good.

 

[meandthecat]

This disease turned me into a carnivore......reads like a tabloid headline.
I was once vegetarian, then at least ethical/environmentally responsible in my limiting the amount of meat in my diet. I had a good diet.
Now I need meat, it has transformed me, increased stamina, reduced symptoms, and eggs and bread(organic of course, I still have some principles)
I have Accepted and Committed To my Conan nature......am I cured?

 

[pogoman]

I've posted this elsewhere, I had a low prealbumin lab showing protein malnutrition.
Started high protein diet including steak, chicken, eggs and protein powser along with L-glutamine and BCAAs.
I've lost over 10 lbs and feel better this month on it.

 

[ahmo]

I'm eating high fat, low carb, small amounts of meat, little salt. Over the last months olives have become a central part of my diet. Body says 'no' to olive oil, it wants olives. Probably 3/4-1 cup/day. I also render and include animal fat, + coconut oil. I'm mystified by why olives have become so important for me.

 

[TrixieStix]

I don't understand my condition. I find no matter how dizzy and fogged I am, a couple of bites into a really meaty fatty salty dish I already feel better. And after the food I'm better for a few hours. Vegetarian food doesn't work.

It's animal fat. But...

There is NO WAY any nutritional content (EVEN BLOOD SUGAR or SALT) can hit my body in such a short time.

What in your body goes up during the act of eating?

This has to be a visceral reaction my body has to taste of animal fat?

Endorphin release?

Impact of food on my vagus nerve? (this one is doubtful, because the nature of the food is important)

Placebo?

I'm so sick of being lost.

It's probably the protein that's helping you to feel a bit better. I'm the same way and so are others on here. If I go even a day without meat I start to feel worse. When I do go without meat for a day when I do finally eat a meal with meat I can quickly feel the difference. I buy a 1/4 of a grass fed local beef and 1/2 a local pastured pig every year to stock my freezer.

 

[belize44]

I'm the same with meat, and bacon is especially satisfying and energizing I used to avoid these things before I got sick but now I crave meat more often than not. And @ AB, I love a good salty chicken soup! I like to add a product called Better than Bouillon, which is very salty and is a concentrated veggie, or chicken or beef paste to add to such things. I think that part of it may be that the adrenals benefit from meat and of course there is L Carnitine which, I believe is sourced from red meats too.

 

[Emily L]

I was raw vegan for 5 years, and now I crave meat. Go figure

 

[UKmum]

I don't understand the reason but my son is exactly the same about meaty/salty food. Very restricted diet even pre CFS by his due to his dislike of many foods but his go to food is bacon, sausage and breadcrumbs chicken in parmesan. Don't tell him about the parmesan though as he doesn't like cheese! By natural choice he avoids much carbs and dairy all though has no allergies we are aware of.

 

[HowToEscape?]

I've had numerous occasions where I've been wiped out and a can of tuna fish brought me back to life for a while. If I was not near food & couldn't get protein, water and something with a ton of salt (e.g cheez nips) helped but not as much.
Carbs without salt, especially sugars should in theory provide quick energy, but they don't work. This supports the theory that there something wrong with our metabolic process. There's some confounding in that the effect happens too fast to be fully in line with digestion.

 

[Mij]

My favourite is chicken soup and very salty. I cook it in my slow cooker and add celery for flavour and natural sodium. When I reheat it the next day I add Wakame. I eat this in the morning, the sodium really improves my OI symptoms. I feel so relaxed. I make it every 10 days or so.

 

[Valentijn]

My favourite is chicken soup and very salty. I cook it in my slow cooker and add celery for flavour and natural sodium. When I reheat it the next day I add Wakame. I eat this in the morning, the sodium really improves my OI symptoms. I feel so relaxed. I make it every 10 days or so.

Chicken is also one of the best sources of potassium. Better than bananas.

 

[boombachi]

Don't tell him about the parmesan though as he doesn't like cheese!

Ha ha! This sounds like my family. We didn't eat out for years when the kids were young because of their fussy eating habits. Our first outing to a restaurant was Pizza Hut......I ordered my usual pizza with peppers and mushrooms, my boyfriend ordered his pizza with 'no cheese', my son ordered a pizza with just cheese and no tomato sauce and no toppings. My youngest ordered a plain pizza base. He then went to the salad cart for some grated carrot to put on top when it arrived.

Sorry that was a bit of a diversion. I get so excited when I hear about other fussy eaters. I am so sick of hearing people tell me that their kids eat pretty much anything and it's all because of their great parenting!

 

[ukxmrv]

A UK Sunday Roast gives me a boost I have noticed. I seem to need this "perfect" mix of lots of roast meat, veges, yorkshire pudding and gravy.

 

[Wishful]

I had to give up meat for a year or so, because it gave me PEM--or at least PEM-like symptoms. Then I discovered that I could eat some meat. I could tolerate up to 180g of beef, under 30g of pork, and even a bit of chicken would trigger symptoms. I assumed it was due to metabolic hormones, because of the metabolic rates of the animals, but couldn't verify that because I couldn't get elephant steaks or sloth chops to test slower metabolism meat, and hummingbirds are tough to catch. Then I accidentally came across a list of foods with carnitine, and found the same inverse relationship (pork has 1/6th the carnitine of beef, and chicken has trivial amounts). I bought some carnitine, and found that by taking some with the meal, I could even eat a full meal of chicken. Further testing showed that it was fatty acids found in animal fats. I assume the culprit is palmitic acid, but I don't have a convenient source of palm oil to test that theory.

Carnitine carries fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane, although I can't figure out why having extra fatty acids _outside_ the mitochondria would trigger symptoms. Maybe a cellular metabolism expert will read this and come up with a theory.

We're not supposed to post suggestions on this forum, but I found that testing different meats led to a better understanding of how my body was responding to them. It would be interesting if someone who is benefitting from eating meat found that palmitic--or stearic-- acid was the active compound.

 

[PatJ]

Carnitine carries fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane

Carnitine is one of Freddd's "Deadlock quartet" supplements. When I was on his treatment (as a vegetarian) I gained 20 pounds once I started taking l-carnitine fumarate. Once I stopped the treatment (after a severe and permanent crash) I lost all that weight. I'm one of the subset of people who has lost a lot of weight since developing CFS/ME so the weight gain was a nice surprise.

We're not supposed to post suggestions on this forum

We can provide our personal experiences and suppositions about what may be happening to someone as long as we're clear that we aren't giving medical advice. We can't say "you should up your dose of drug X to Y milligrams" or "You've got liver problems!" We can say "When I was on drug X I tried a lower dose and found that certain symptoms similar to what you're experiencing were resolved" or "Based on personal experience it sounds like you might be having symptoms related to liver problems."

I found that testing different meats led to a better understanding of how my body was responding to them

Me too. I'm usually vegetarian but have been trying different meats lately. Chicken increases fatigue and brain fog. Turkey in very small amounts seems ok. Fish makes me nauseaus. Beef might give me more stamina and reduce brainfog but I've just started trying it so I don't have definite conclusions yet. I'm also hoping beef will help me to gain weight.