Chasing 'Newtrition'
Fixing the gut in 53 easy steps 😩
On bread and making dough…
I love bread. When we were still hungry after a meal, my parents would tell us to “eat some bread.” I’m not sure that was the best advice from a nutritional standpoint. We probably needed more protein or fat, not empty carbs. (Maybe slap some raw A2/A2 butter on that bread and we’re getting closer….)
And then there came Celiac disease. My father received an official diagnosis and went off gluten, much to his great dismay and with a great outpouring of lamentation. Seeing as I had much of the same symptoms, I decided to skip the (unreliable) test and just go off gluten myself. It helped a lot.
I heard that some people had better results switching to sourdough. Sourdough uses natural airborne yeast to leaven the bread as one did before the advent of Science(tm)-based active dry yeast. Since we breathe in this natural airborne yeast all day in the air we breathe, it should be pretty harmless, I figure.
San Francisco is known for its sourdough, as it is home to a specific strain of natural yeast. Or at least the foggy climate allows the yeast to be more abundant in the air? Anyway, bakers save some dough from a previous batch as a “starter” to speed things along. But not everyone has these magical substances, and they’re not all equal.
In my mind, the benefit of sourdough is in the slower rising of the dough. The dough is allowed to form different protein structures than when active dry yeast is used to move things along rapidly. I certainly had less issues with sourdough, especially when made with organic flour.
My father used to bring a loaf of sourdough back from San Francisco when traveling to attend a Labor Law conference (he was well respected in the American Labor Law domain). Later, I found myself living in the SF Bay Area, and organic sourdough was everywhere. It almost seems harder NOT to get sourdough in the Bay Area!
I really do think the yeast was a factor, though. Once I was visiting a homeopath in Alameda. The window was open and in wafted the scent of freshly rising dough from the bakery next door.
Like clockwork, 15 minutes into the session I developed the familiar sensation of massive sinus congestion, as if I had spontaneously developed one of the chronic sinus infections that plagued my youth. She closed the window at my suggestion.
As I was driving home, 15 minutes into my drive, like clockwork, my sinuses began to clear! Perhaps I was allergic to something airborne in commercial bread making. Was it the yeast?
Later I learned about glyphosate, and how it is a herbicide and pesticide used on crops. How does it kill insects, you might ask? Well here’s just one study I found just now:
They found that glyphosate inhibits the production of melanin, which insects often use as part of their immune defenses against bacteria and parasites; it thereby reduces the resistance of these species to infection by common pathogens.
“The finding that glyphosate appears to have an adverse effect on insects by interfering with their melanin production suggests the potential for a large-scale ecological impact, including impacts on human health,”
“The finding that glyphosate appears to have an adverse effect on insects by interfering with their melanin production suggests the potential for a large-scale ecological impact, including impacts on human health,”
The most common use is to enable farmers to use Roundup week killer by making the wheat immune to the disruptive effects of the glyphosate. It is also sprayed on harvested wheat as a desiccant to speed up preparation for processing.
Do you notice a pattern here?? Stephen Covey of the The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People used to say, “Slow is fast with people.” Maybe I would say, “Fast is toxic to people.”
So I was done with bread…for the time being at least. And also pasta.
This was bad timing, as just down my street there was a new bakery that made fresh loaves from semolina flour and also fresh pasta (not dried or frozen).
Many years later, in San Francisco, I found an Italian restaurant in North Beach that imports semolina flour from Italy. I think their carbs are safe for me to eat! Now, I’m not sure about all those CARBS…. But maybe the Rochester semolina products were safe for gluten-free me after all!
And once I was traveling in Germany on a mission to secure a rare German dog from a Belgian breeder — a Hovawart. I was staying in Leipzig (home of J.S. Bach’s church, and also the Stasi). My hotel had an amazing breakfast with local fresh bread. I ate much of it, as well as beer. I had no problems. Hmmm.
The Germans are known for the purity of their foods and they do not use glyphosate. One of my employers held an international conference in Florida. I remember hearing that the visiting Europeans were so scared of American food that they ate nothing but salads the whole event! I’m not sure I understood why they thought that was the safest bet. I probably would have gone with beef myself.
Ayurveda
Wearing one of my Dad’s tweed jackets and sporting an attempt at a beard — for gravitas, you know — I was taking my lunch break in some pleasant, quiet, windowless room that had been set aside as a retreat for faculty (I was interloping). This was on one of my days of non-stop classes — attending and teaching — as a PhD student and Teaching Assistant in Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music. For some reason, they liked to schedule all classes on Monday and Wednesday, creating a hectic non-stop day. Then on Tuesday and Thursday, I was supposed to be working on my dissertation; only I was spending those entire days recovering from the previous day’s academic extravaganza!
For lunch I was eating my favorite meal. Actually, it was my only meal. I was mono-dieting on kichari, an Indian rice dish with lentils or mung beans, vegetables, ghee, and mild curry powder (Bolst’s Mild). This being my ONLY meal meant that, yes, I was a…VEGAN. And, this being my only meal — and a vegan one at that — meant that I was starving. Thus it tasted awesome every time (as would any food, to be honest).
Why was I eating kichari every day? Why was I a vegan during perhaps one of the roughest periods of my life when protein would be helpful for my overtaxed brain? Well, there was this girl, you see…
So I liked this girl, a super-cute graduate piano student at school, and she was really into this Ayurvedic practitioner and acupuncturist named Sonam Targee. He got his name and training in Tibet, but originally he was a local Rochester, NY native. As such, his real name was Lester Finley III, which I found to be an amusing bit of gossip when I discovered it. But if one is going to offer alternative healing modalities from “the Orient,” one should adopt a modicum of authenticity to be taken seriously. Marketing at its finest!
All kidding aside, this dude was the coolest “doctor” I’d ever been to. He was a musician and an amazing human being. When I was taking a class in audio recording, I got to record his band in the professional studio at Eastman. Sessions with Sonam would start with chatting as he took extensive notes on a pad of paper. We really got to know each other then. He would do some Qigong and acupuncture, and then prescribe Ayurvedic diets and supplementation.
Once I caught him sneaking a hot chocolate into the office. I was scandalized! But he informed me that ginger was the antidote to chocolate. To this day I am a bit skeptical about that as both are rather heating.
However, the vegan life was not for me, as it turned out. Despite Sonam’s assurances that I would adapt to getting all my protein from BEANS, I just became slow-witted, as if time slowed down. At school, everyone seemed to be racing around and talking a mile a minute. I just wanted to be chill and meditate or something. So maybe the diet was working, just for a different profession — Tibetan Monk — rather than Music Theory Professor.
Return of the Omnivore
I was saved from veganism by…restaurants. Well, sort of. You see, there was another girl. Well, let’s call her a woman of the Italian persuasion (if not genetics). She offered to make me things like authentic beef osso bucco and her slow-cooked tomato sauce. Go with the flow.
Needless to say, my brain started working in time for me to realize that academia wasn’t for me. Several therapists later, I found myself studying IT at Rochester Institute of Technology. My burnout was gone, and I was back in the game, getting my THIRD masters degree. That was, however, the last time I ever set foot in a classroom!
Functional Medicine
Some years later, I would be working as an Instructional Designer at Robert Half International. For lunch I would be eating my favorite/only meal (minus a protein shake), but this time it was ground beef and kale (ONLY lacinato!).
Why was it my favorite meal? Because I was starving and anything would have tasted awesome! But this time, the results were unmistakable. An amazingly beautiful and super tall coworker remarked that I was “glowing” with health. What was I doing? Beef…it was what’s for dinner, and lunch, and dinner, and lunch….
Why was I eating this way? It was because of a…dog.
Well, directly it was because of a Functional M.D. that I found in Vacaville, CA, of all places. He maintained that you could get all your nutrition from beef and kale (LACINATO only! curly kale is toxic). A morning protein or meal-replacement shake wouldn’t hurt as well.
But about that dog..he was the reason I ended up in Functional Medicine. You see, Asher was a purebred Shetland Sheepdog, or Sheltie for short. We acquired him in Miami, Florida and agreed to show him and attempt to breed him.
One day I wondered why we were applying flea medication to his skin. The veterinarian instructed us not to touch the dog for a couple of days after the application. I mused, if it’s toxic for humans at like 160 pounds, how toxic would it be when applied directly to a 35 pound dog?
Eventually, we were naturally rearing Asher with no meds. We started feeding him raw meaty bones. He was super strong and healthy, with a soft shiny coat, and he smelled like a puppy even at 5.
One day I said, “Why do we feed our dog better than we feed ourselves? What is the species-appropriate diet for humans?”
So the dog led me to a Functional M.D. and Neurologist, Dr. Eric Hassid, who had me eating beef and kale and glowing. This M.D. moved to Sacramento, leaving me to flounder a bit before finding another one…Dr. Michael Ruscio. Dr. Ruscio is the author of Healthy Gut, Healthy You: The Personalized Plan to Transform Your Health from the Inside Out.
Dr. Ruscio was a chiropractor by training, but never practiced the art. Instead he went into nutrition, following his own personal healing journey (as yet untold…). I was able to see him in person at his office in Walnut Creek, near where I was living at the time. Later he decamped to Austin, Texas, where all the cool carnivore kids were setting up shop (Anthony Gustin, Paul Saladino, etc. — both no longer there).
The best thing I got from Dr. Ruscio, apart from some of his formulations, was the anti-parasite cleanse. It was about $400 of supplements and a month of unpleasantness. But after that horrible June, I was a changed man. My energy gradually increased and I was able to do things I hadn’t thought possible.
Every now and then I go back on his triple probiotic formula, conveniently packaged in single use packets. His semi-elemental meal replacement shakes are a pretty good temporary fix and gut reset when you can’t seem to tolerate any real food. I was a patient when he first developed Elemental Heal. He had me try the current ones on the market, and I wasn’t very impressed to say the least! I liked mixing half vanilla (“VAINilla”) and half chocolate (“CHALKolate”).
But these days I have a hard time downing fake shakes, even if I think they are good for my gut. I’d rather down natural bone broth to be honest (from Nourish Cooperative or Kettle & Fire).
I trust Ruscio to keep costs to a minimum, start with the easiest and most efficacious solutions, keep up with the science, and learn from his patients what actually works in a clinical setting rather than on some mice in a lab.
Carnivore (-ish)
I stopped seeing Ruscio when we got to mold exposure. It seemed like any mold I was dealing with was intractable at the moment, and costs would begin to escalate. So I started looking elsewhere for answers.
That’s when I found Dr. Paul Saladino, author of The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet. Despite “salad” literally being in his name, he was at that time eating ONLY animal-based products. Meat, organs, etc.
Later, after a couple of years of this, he started feeling not so great, and got back some worrisome lab results. He modified his approach to including some animal-based carbs, and his issues resolved. This new dietary approach he called “carnivore-ish.”
You can find his products at Heart&Soil and Lineage Provisions.
What are animal-based carbs? Well, carbs created by animals or meant for animals to eat! So that would include honey and fruit. Pretty simple, but game-changing.
I am not a surfer and body-builder like many in the carnivore(-ish) community and I find it hard to eat enough meat. (However, I do realize that the more meat you eat, the more you feel like working out, and the more you work out, the more meat you feel like eating.) So I have incorporated some safe carbs that don’t seem to bug me. I even found some sourdough bread that I am optimistic about…and it’s made in Wisconsin!
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