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Adding Vegetables and Herbs to Diet

Messages
22
I have a question on how CFS'ers handle influx of vegetables to their diet.

I'm being treated at Open Medicine Institute. Over the last few months, on courses of Rifaximin, taking Valtrex, and many other supplements, I've made progress and feel better. My SIBO symptoms have mostly gone away and my fatigue &PEM is better, although still there.

With the progress made, I am now focusing on diet. Like many CFS patients, I've made changes throughout- especially things I stay away from (high-carbs, caffeine, etc.). Recently, I was recommended a set of vegetables (& Herbs) to take that would be helpful in improving my condition; they include:

Vegetables

  • Kale

  • Dandelion Greens

  • Lemon with Rind

  • Cabbage

  • Collard Greens

  • Carrots with Tops

  • Parsnips

  • Fennel

  • Beets with Greens

  • Onion

  • Leeks

  • Garlic

As well as Herbs
  • Parsley

  • Mint

  • Basil

  • Dill

  • Cloves

  • Cinnamon

  • Oregano

  • Cilantro

  • Turmeric

  • Ginger

  • Barberry

  • Neem

  • Holy Basil

  • Cayenne

  • Paprika

  • Cumin
___

I noticed as I take these vegetables (I've put them in a blender and taken them as a smoothie), that my body has a reaction to them- both positive and negative. The positive: I feel a kind of energy I hadn't had before. First, an energy throughout my body that is a mild but positive change. Second, a more dramatic change in the energy I have in my legs. I found this odd. Waist-up my body feels the same. But my legs have much more energy. I found myself being able to walk without the constant soreness in my quadriceps. Usually, my quads definitely feel it when I walk uphill even if the slope is gradual. But this time I was able to walk uphill and to my surprise, I didn't feel that lactic acid soreness right away (nor did I feel it later).

The negative is that I'm not sure my body is able to properly digest the vegetables. I am getting some stomach discomfort, some reflux (which seems to be of the vegetables), some more acidity, belching. I took way too much of the vegetable smoothie the first day and am now starting low and working my way up. Still even with 2 ounces today, I felt some of these negative symptoms.

I'm wondering if there's something about CFS that makes it harder for us to digest these vegetables? Should I be doing something (in the way of eating different kinds of vegetables, or taking other enzymes, etc.) to help with the digestion. Throughout my life, I've never eating much vegetables, except the cooked kind (where a lot of the value is lost) and the occasional salad. I've read the vegetables are easy to digest; but I also know some are high in insoluble fiber and CFS'ers don't always digest them well.

Any insights or advice is appreciated.
 

Diwi9

Administrator
Messages
1,780
Location
USA
Is the inclusion of all of these vegetables and herbs to your diet based on advice from the nutritionist at OMI?
 

Diwi9

Administrator
Messages
1,780
Location
USA
I'm going next month and am interested in nutritional advice. It is interesting that you feel physically better in your muscles, but if your gut isn't feeling good, perhaps send Dr. Reid an email? Are you a weight-gainer?
 
Messages
22
I'm going next month and am interested in nutritional advice. It is interesting that you feel physically better in your muscles, but if your gut isn't feeling good, perhaps send Dr. Reid an email? Are you a weight-gainer?

I thought it was a useful appointment. I suspected nutrition would make a difference, but I didn't realize what a major effect it would have on the body. I'm trying to calibrate now what works for me and what perhaps is causing more of a reaction. I will get in touch with her and get her thoughts.

I don't think I'm a weight gainer any more than average.
 
Messages
22
Did you try some digestive enzymes? They might help.

OMI had put me on Interfase Plus which has a bunch of different enzymes including some that help with plant digestion: cellulase (helps digest cellulose/fiber in fruits, vegetables, grains, and seeds), Hemicellulase (digesting Plant Fibers). Although I do wonder if I need extra dosage for these specific plant enzymes; Interfase has a combination of many besides these ones and I wonder if I'm getting enough of them just from Interfase. Also, I noticed on this page and others that there are a few other enzymes for plant food: Xylanase and Phytase. I recently came across a few enzymes specifically for soluble fiber and I'm wondering if they would help; one called Fiber Digestion which has Xylanase.

Will look into further and report back what I find. Thanks for the suggestion; I was thinking in that direction & it could help with the symptoms I'm having.
 

KME

Messages
91
Location
Ireland
Hopefully the professional who recommended these vegetables and herbs/spices will be able to help you. A couple of things that may be relevant:

1. If you’ve suddenly increased your fibre intake, it would be normal to have a bit of discomfort at first. The general advice on increasing fibre intake is to do it gradually and make sure to increase water intake at the same time.

2. A good few of these vegetables are high in FOD-MAPs, which are naturally-occurring sugars that cause trouble for people with IBS: http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/low-high.html There may be some groups you’re particularly sensitive to. You could try reducing the amounts of the highest FODMAP veg and seeing if that helps you. I manage all FODMAPs well, BUT, I have a lot of trouble with raw onion and raw garlic, and just need to avoid them. I can eat plenty of cooked onion and garlic and the green parts of spring onions are fine.

3. Generally ME/CFS doesn’t like sudden big changes. Maybe if you applied the “Start low, go slow” principle to this dietary change, it would go more smoothly.
 

ghosalb

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
upstate NY
Thanks for the post....did Dr. Reid recommend to eat all of these raw ? I eat almost 70% of these, mostly cooked at low temperature and find it helpful. Collard and Kale is pretty bad even after cooking. May be you can cook some of them and eat the rest raw. I read some time ago that turmeric is more useful when cooked in oil than as raw. Are you absolutely sure that vegetables lose all their nutritional value if cooked even at low temperature ? I would love to know and may be change my preparations. Thanks.
 

Apple

Senior Member
Messages
217
Location
UK
Seconding looking into fodmaps. Onions and garlic are absolute no-no's for me. cooked or not. They are both very high in fructans, which a lot of people have difficulty with.

Perhaps try just one or two veggies at a time. Leaving 3 days between introducing new ones. Or try making blended soups rather than smoothies. Good luck!
 

erin

Senior Member
Messages
885
I eat all those listed mostly raw or cooked very slightly since childhood. But my husband when introduced to my diet ( I'm the cook in our house hold, he does everything else!) had struggled in the beginning.
I can not eat the cabbage family since half a year. I have an aversion to them for a while anyhow, my endocrinologist told me to avoid them.
Maybe you'll get use to the diet eventually. Good luck.
 

boombachi

Senior Member
Messages
392
Location
Hampshire, UK
If you are taking all these veges in a juice, maybe you are drinking too much or too fast. It would take a lot longer for the same amount of food to reach your stomache if you were chewing. Maybe that is causing the reflux.

As I understand it, a change in diet can have a big impact on the bacteria in your gut as different bacteria like to eat different things. They also make byproducts that other bacteria utilise. I can imagine that it might take a while for a new balance to be reached.

I am glad to hear of your improvements and that you have found a treatment that is helping you.

I eat lots of raw and cooked vegetables and don't get any stomache symptoms. I get ibs-like symptoms from milk. We are all different I guess.
 

Basilico

Florida
Messages
948
I have a history of IBS-C and I had to reduce a lot of the vegetables I was eating, they were a real problem for me. At one point, I was basically eating no starches and my only carbs came from fruit, so I was mostly eating just meat and vegetables. I didn't improve on that diet, in fact I slowly got worse.

So I can't be too much help. But, something did occur to me. My husband did a course of Rifaximin to treat his SIBO (which backfired and completely wrecked his gut, unfortunately.) We later learned that Rifaximin kills off the good E. Coli in the gut, which is a critically important probiotic, so now that you are done with the abx, you might want to try a course of Mutaflor (if you haven't already).

The other thing is that humans don't produce cellulase, which is the enzyme that digests cellulose in vegetables. We have to rely on our gut flora to digest it by fermenting it. Not having the right gut flora for the job could lead to some indigestion problems (which was possibly my problem). It's likely that the abx killed off some of your good gut flora and that's why you are having some issues.
 

antherder

Senior Member
Messages
456
@bdonovan, a lot of those veggies and herbs are high in salicylates or high in sulfur, which could cause gut symptoms if you are sensitive to them.
 

CFS_for_19_years

Hoarder of biscuits
Messages
2,396
Location
USA
When I was being treated in an acupuncture clinic they recommended that I not eat any raw vegetables because they would be too hard to digest. I wonder if some of the vegetables might be causing you problems, especially things like raw cabbage and onions. Could you possibly cook those, maybe make a soup out of them by adding some garlic and leeks?

I juiced for a while when I had the energy. Beets and carrots can be juiced really well but to help with the taste I made sure half of the juice was from green apples. The beet greens and carrot greens will also juice well. There will be no fiber in the juice, and if you want, you can save some of the pulp for soup or other cooking. I know what you mean about how a veggie drink will make your make your muscles feel better. I experienced that too when juicing.

Add a few bits of raw ginger to any juice and it will be amazing!:jaw-drop: I think it would work best going through a juicer.

This is the book that taught me everything I needed to know about juicing:

https://www.amazon.com/Juicemans-Power-Juicing-Delicious-Ailments/dp/0061153702

You can read a lot of the book on Amazon by using the free preview feature.
 
Messages
15,786
Juiced vegetables make me feel sick. It's like they're too sweet or something, except it's probably not sweetness.
 

CFS_for_19_years

Hoarder of biscuits
Messages
2,396
Location
USA
Juiced vegetables make me feel sick. It's like they're too sweet or something, except it's probably not sweetness.
I once almost threw up after drinking some sort of green drink from a juice bar. This was something that a naturopath had recommended so I called her and asked her what to do for my stomach and she said to eat some bread, which did help.
I've found that adding things like green apples helps offset some of the bitterness and never had any problems with anything I made using recipes from the Juiceman's (Jay Kordich) book.
 
Messages
759
Location
Israel
My dietician says that boiled Beetroot is one of the easiest vegetables to digest.
Boiled beetroot is a natural laxative.
Don't eat raw or boiled beetroot if you have IBS diaroah.

A lot of the other vegetables you have been recommended sound hard to digest even for healthy person, like raw cabbage and raw leek.

I think you should get a different dietician or cook at least some of these vegetables.