August 30, 2018 • 43 mins
Elimination diets are all about whittling down what you eat, then building it back up again in order to identify foods that don't work for your body. Is it safe? It can be. Learn all about this process in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Huggy Bear Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
So this is the mod squad. What I'm just mixing metaphors.
(00:26):
I can't remember who said it this way, but ever
since I was researching this, I've been saying in my head, elimination.
What is that? From? Oh me? And uh? It sounds
like a mad doctor. Maybe a little bit of German
and latka from taxi. I have no idea. Well, when
(00:49):
I think elimination, I think that, you know, the term
for pooping something out. So it makes me think that
it's like the diet where you just poop everything out
and you get skinny that way. Oh yeah, I know
that's not what it is, but that's what I think about. Man.
I feel bad for people with poop problems too. It's
(01:10):
a tough thing me too, whether you can't or you
do too much, or it's just unpleasant one way or another. Yeah,
for sure, it's bad stuff. Yeah, and that has to
do with this, because IBS is certainly one condition where
one might want and we should do a show on that.
But where one might want to propose an elimination diet,
(01:31):
you can say it like that whole time. No that
I was hoping you were. I'll do one more rule
of threes. I'll do one more at some point, but
just out of out of nowhere. Huh, you're not gonna
know what's coming. You know, there's a chance that you'll
forget to do it again. Probably. Okay, that's the stuff
you should know. Why under deliver, So, Chuck, we're talking
(01:53):
about elimination diets, Yes we are. And um, that doesn't
really mean that you poop your your pounds away. It
doesn't really have anything to do with losing weight, actually,
to tell you the truth. And yet it is one
of the hottest trends right now in America at least,
(02:15):
if not the Western general. Where you you cut out
a bunch of foods and then you add them back
to see if there's something behind whatever is bothering you,
whether it's irritable bowel syndrome, whether you get headaches, whether
you get tired at three pm, whatever it is, you
(02:36):
change your lifestyle temporarily, slowly add back all of the
components that made up your lifestyle and try to identify
the thing that was messing with you, and that's an
elimination diet. And it's all the rage right now. Yeah,
and this is uh, I mean, I don't know if
controversies starry word. Sure, let's say it. It can be
(02:58):
controversial in that. Uh. Sometimes someone goes through a doctor,
orange nutritionist or some kind of health professional too for
an assistance with something like this, But many times these
days people will just do it themselves. Yeah mostly I
would say, yeah, which isn't inherently bad. Um, if you
if you do it the right way, you can learn
(03:19):
a lot about your body and what foods work best
for you. But it can also go wrong in a
lot of ways. Uh, so let's let's get into it.
That's my little caveat. I guess well, we're gonna talk
more about that later, right, yeah for sure. Okay, alright, So, um,
you kind of hit upon how some people go to
(03:40):
see like a nutritionist or a doctor to do an
elimination diet, and that's originally where the whole thing started.
This is an outgrowth of basically a medical procedure where
if you say, I don't really feel very good, I
my poops are all over the place. Um, I fall
as equhile I'm talking to people, I get headaches. I'm
(04:03):
feeling kind of anxious. There's a whole suite of of
things that I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but
there's a lot of stuff that I feel like is
wrong with me, and I'm starting to suspect that it
might have something to do with my diet. So I'm
here to see you doctor nutritionist m D. And the
nutritionists will say, what, chuck, I don't know what. What
(04:27):
will they say? Maybe they'll say elimination diet. Yeah, they'll say,
I propose an elimination diet. And uh that is the
sort of middle of the road, legit way to do this. Again,
most people do this uh d I Y style, and
that's it's not necessarily a bad way to do it.
But we're here to tell you how you should go
(04:49):
about that. We're not doctors or nutritionists. A good point,
but there are some pretty brainless steps that if you
don't follow, you could end up you could end up
making things work right, which is again why why this
is originally a medical procedure that was kind of hijacked
and done not that great all the time, But In
(05:09):
addition to UM this elimination diet, which we'll go through
in a second steps of it. UM, you you UM
are probably also going to get a skin prick test
where they will UM, well, they prick your skin to
see if they get an allergic reaction from you or
UM and or a blood test. But here's part of
(05:30):
the problem, and I suspect that this is why some
people do this on their own. The skin prick test
is not an infallible test, and even a blood test
for things like food sensitivities and food allergies are UM.
I saw it. They give false positives around like sevent
of the time, which that's not a test that's worse
(05:53):
than chance. It sounds like, I mean, that's terrible. It's
a terrible track record, if you'll remember back from our
extreme really confusing false positives episode. So I think that's
probably why some people do it on their own, is
there's like, I don't need the blood test or the
skiin prick tests. I can do this myself. That leads
me into this statu you know of Americans think they
(06:15):
have a food allergy when only three and four do.
But just because you don't have a food allergy, and
we're going to talk about allergy, sensitivities and intolerances. Uh,
it doesn't mean that like if you quit drinking and
eating sugar and loading down with carbs, you're you might
feel a lot better. Yes, And some people suspect that
(06:37):
this is what's really behind an elimination diet because just
just from the the attention that you pay to what
you're eating or not eating and to your health in general,
that it forces you to to to adopt that's um.
I mean, that's gonna have probably a positive beneficial effect
right that in and of itself, But that's not to
(06:58):
say that it doesn't actually do something more than that. Um,
And it has to do a lot with food allergies
and sensitivities and stuff. And let's take a break and
then we'll talk about all that. How about that great
h so before we get going with allergies. I wish
(07:36):
I could remember his name, But with that last story
about the diabetes, I did have one listener right in
after that episode and really kind of sent a very
sweet and loving email about me and my health. And
I'm gonna go back and find out who it was,
but uh, you know who you are. If you sent
(07:56):
that and that did this is before even this weird
false positive, But it meant a lot to me and
and kind of kick me into gear even before that test.
Oh that's great man, Yeah, it was very nice. Um.
So back to allergies. We did a pretty good episode
on allergies. Uh. We know that allergies are a defense
against what it thinks is a harmful invader, whether it's
(08:19):
a virus or some other kind of sickness. Um. But
with allergies and food allergies especially, a lot of times
it can get it wrong, and you can have your
body can think it's wording off an invader that's not
really an invader, right it it as far as you're concerned,
it's the exact same thing. You can have an allergic reaction.
(08:40):
Your body sends either T cells or immunoglobulin cells um
that go to the site and say, oh, yeah, look
we've got a foreign invader. You in flame, you start
a fever, you make this stuff, make make everything itchy,
and you have an immune response amounted. Now that's really good.
(09:00):
Like you said, if there's like an actual pathogen or whatever,
but an allergy is that mistaken identity. It's like strawberry
is like, I'm just a strawberry, and they're like, that's
what the last pathogen said exactly, I'm onto you, fraud. Uh,
and then they beat up the poor strawberry and it's
it's it's dead from that point on. But the UM,
But that's an allergy. It's it's just mistaken identity. That's
(09:22):
the same body processes. It's the thing that's kicking it
off shouldn't really be kicking it off. It's not a threat.
But again, to you, it doesn't matter. You want to
stay away from, Yeah, stay away from strawberries or eggs
or soy or peanuts, um, because yeah, I can kill you.
And one of the hallmarks of a food allergy in
particular is it doesn't matter if you have a peck
(09:44):
of strawberries or a bushel um, or if you just
have a little nibble of a strawberry, you're going to
have that allergic reaction. And you need to stay away
from from strawberries altogether, because, like you said, it can
be life threatening. Yeah, so that's an allergy. Uh. There's
also you can also be intolerant or sensitive UM. Like
(10:06):
when we did our gluten episode, a lot of people
do not have Celiac disease, but they may be intolerant
of gluten. Yeah, yeah, a non celiac gluten sensitivity, I
think is what it's called, which is also called gluten intolerance. Yeah,
so that's a little bit different because that is an
(10:27):
intolerance is triggered by your digestive system, not your immune system.
So what this usually means is, uh, you're you you're
lacking a certain enzyme maybe that is required to digest
whatever food that you're sensitive to or intolerant to. Rather yeah,
which doesn't sound like that would be really bad, Like
you're just like, Okay, I'll just poop it out. But
(10:49):
there's actually some compounds that are found in food that
if they enter your digestive tract because you can't break
it down, it can wreak havoc on you improve produce
all sorts of horrible symptoms in you from pooping everywhere
again um, from horrible cramps, bloating um, and then things
(11:11):
that have to do with your mood as well, which
sounds surprising at first and until you remember that there's
like a gut brain connection, like um of the serotonin
in your brain is actually produced in your gut. So
when your guts going haywire because you've eaten something that
you don't have an enzyme to metabolize, other things besides
(11:33):
the serotonin production are happening and you might have um
some sort of altered brain chemistry as a result. Yeah,
and Celiac disease is uh, it has it does have
a component of immune system response. So that is that
is not this. I mean that is a legit allergy. Right,
so the yeah, but gluten sensitivity is is or gluten
(11:56):
intolerance is is different. It doesn't have the immune system.
But you're still hate in life because you just ate
a pizza crust that wasn't made from cauliflower. And again
now you're pooping everywhere. Right, then you have the third bucket,
which is a sensitivity. And this is not something they
(12:17):
have studied much. Um it says in our own article,
it's a bit of a mystery of medical science. But
we just know that, you know, some people are like
MSG makes me feel bad and I'm sensitive to it.
That's everybody, right, Does that happen to you? I don't know,
because I don't know when I've had MSG. I used
(12:37):
to like put straight up MSG on my popcorn. Okay,
it's really tasty stuff, but it's it can give you
headaches and make you feel like there's a like a
triveled claw grabbing the top of your stomach. Just all
sorts of weird stuff. Yeah. I just remember, like for
a while there, like Chinese food was the enemy of people. Yeah,
(13:00):
and I was always like, man, I love Chinese food,
but that Chinese food syndrome basically blaming it on ms G. Yeah,
I saw that UM basically accused of being kind of racist.
Actually before that, like that Chinese food doesn't do that
to to anybody anymore than than other foods, especially other
foods with MSG. But you're not gonna attack a cheeseburgerburger exactly.
(13:25):
It's not like you have freedom fries syndrome or something.
It's always Chinese Chinese food syndrome. Yeah, it's this eye
opening to see that from that other perspective. Chinese food
syndrome rolls off the tongue, you know. Yeah, I'm not
gonna give up my egg rol. So the other thing,
no way, the other thing about UM sensitivities is that,
(13:45):
like you said, it's it's understudied, not well understood, because
you might eat some ms G one day and get
terrible headaches and that that claw on the top of
your stomach, and the next day you might have some
ms G and be fine. And so they have no
idea what it counts for having the headache and the
claw um. And so it's it's something we'll probably know
(14:06):
more about in the future, but for now, because we
know so little about it. You'll often hear intolerance and
sensitivity interchangeable. And this article is one of the few
places where I saw them broken out a separate thing. Actually, yeah,
and I don't remember how what our attitude was like
when we did our gluten episode way back when. I'm
sure it was inclusive and welcoming. I hope so, because
(14:28):
since Emily has become a gluten intolerant, there have been
people that have like poop pooed that. And I'm like, man,
if somebody, if somebody's eating something that it even if
it's just their perception that it makes them feel bad
and they don't want to eat it, right, who cares? So?
So I saw this thing. I agree with you, no
(14:49):
skin off your back, right, I know what is it
that that bugs people like that? I really really wish
we could get to the bottom of because I think
it would clear up lot of stuff. If you if
when you saw that, and I think everybody does it,
you just get judgy and just irritated that that somebody's
bought into something that you don't believe in or whatever
(15:10):
whatever you want to say. Um, if you could step
back and be like, oh, I'm just being or you know,
well this is my going off. Um, I really think
that would clear that up a lot. But it's just
so easy to go with that, you know, I know,
And I mean maybe it's for some of these people.
It's just like not eating heavy breads and enriched flour
(15:31):
and and the stuff that gluten is in. Maybe it
just makes you feel better to not eat that stuff.
That's that's fine too. I saw that the guy who
basically proved that that non celiac gluten sensitivity was a
thing back in two thousand and eleven. It's an Australian
doctor named Peter Oh Doc, we'll just call him Doc
(15:52):
Dundee Peter Gibson, Dr Peter Crocodile on the barbie with
the Fosters slab as his full aim. But he um
he proved that there was a gluten intolerance that wasn't
immune based, right. He proved that this was around and
when he did follow ups he found that actually, that
doesn't seem to be the case, because in these placebo
(16:14):
groups they still had the same kind of symptoms. And
he now has taken it from gluten to something called
fod maps. Have you heard of them? Frementable oglio die
mono saccharides and Polly Yall's yeah, I don't remember ever
talking about it before in my life. I just came
(16:35):
across it in the last two days. I think, okay, well,
my brain's shot to hell. But this um, these fod maps.
They are a component that's a type of carb and
it's found in gluten and some wheat products, but it's
also found another stuff too, And so this guy has said,
I think these are the actual culprit, not necessarily gluten. Now,
(16:55):
if you have sea LEAs, it's gluten, But if you
have gluten intolerance, he's saying, I think it's these fob maps.
Which is that's great if you can narrow it down
even further, But from the looks of it, it sounds
like that means you've got a lot of other food
that you can eat either rather than just pizza crust,
you poor bastard. Yeah, and then the people in the
audience of the convention hall say, is he saying fog hat?
(17:18):
Free ride? Oh? Should we take a break and then
talk about how to do an elimination diet? Oh wait,
it's slow ride, you say, free ride? Yeah? I did.
I confounded slow ride and free bird and just walked
right past the third use of elimination. So I'm a
little hippie. I'm going to sleep for the rest of this, okay,
(17:41):
all right, So we'll be back right after this to
talk about how to do this, okay, man. So if
(18:12):
you want to do this yourself, I think you you
kind of see o aid right already. Yeah, well, let's
do it again. I recommend that you go see a
licensed nutritionist. Do some research first. Make sure you get
somebody who's really good, maybe an M. D um and
say I want to try this, help me out and
they'll help you out. Um. Or you can also go
(18:34):
on the internet and just find some smoke who's done
it before, published a book about it, and is now
a multi billionaire because they did their own elimination diet,
and now everybody's doing those two. Yeah, if you go
to do it on your own, though, it take your time. Uh,
this might take a month or two. Don't don't rush
in there and be like, all right, I'm gonna eat
(18:55):
chicken broth for the next month. Like there are safe
ways to do it, and they generally involved four steps,
which is planning, uh, the eliminating round, the reintroducing, and
then evaluating. Okay, so hold on, before we go any further,
just pinpointed how legally exposed we are right now. This
is what we're doing. We're saying you were talking to
(19:17):
somebody like we're encouraging it. So let's do this instead.
Let's say Sally and Tom. Now let's say forget it.
We'll say Sally and Tom, Brenda and Eddie. Brenda and
Eddie are, um, they're going to do an elimination diet,
and this is how they're going to do it. How
(19:38):
about that? Great? That's genius, isn't it. So Brenda and
Eddie are going to sit down. I thought it was
salient Tom, and they say, well, they live next door
each other there and they they partner swap, so they're
into it. Uh. They said, we gotta plan this out first, honey,
and she says, sure, dear, let's do this. Let's sit
(19:58):
down and let's us write down a big list of
our symptoms when we feel poopy butt, or when we
feel super tired or whatever, when our uh, when we
feel constipated, maybe, and then let's list out what we
think might be some of these problem foods. And what
we're really gonna do is start a journal before we
(20:22):
do anything, and start writing down what we're eating, maybe
for a couple of weeks even, and how we feel
after we eat stuff, and maybe we can sort of
see a pattern start to emerge. Yeah, and you also
want to write down the foods you're craving, foods you
would feel like you would have the hardest time giving up.
Apparently those are frequently the culprits. Yeah, I've heard of that.
(20:43):
I even kids. I didn't know that actually, Yeah, like
a kid who's always wants to drink milk may end
up having a dairy allergy. So it's basically just our
our tendency to punish ourselves is what's behind this stuff.
There's probably some evolutionary reason. It makes zero sense, but okay,
(21:04):
I don't know. Well, maybe maybe it does make sense,
because maybe that could potentially be a dangerous thing, and
your body craves it, so it will then know that
it's an allergen. I don't know, could be population control,
maybe thinning the herd. That's all right. So if you
made your list, you're keeping your journal, and you're like,
all right, here's what I think the deal is. I
(21:24):
think for me, it's sugar and dairy. So I'm gonna
eliminate for two to three weeks all dairy and all
sugar from my diet. I'm gonna keep up with this journal. Um,
I might have some sugar withdrawal. That'll be all right
after a few days. And I'm gonna look at my
my food diary at the end of this and I
(21:47):
might have I might have to start over from scratch,
or might say, you know what, I eliminated dairy and
I feel great. Right, But since you eliminated, say, dairy
and sugar, and actually it's with a lot of elimination diets,
you do a bunch of them at once, right, Yeah,
but you don't want to do too many at once,
So that's true. That's true. You're right, but um, so
(22:09):
let's just keep it simple than sugar and dairy. With
the caveat that you frequently will need to do more
than that. But as you as you cut them out
for like two weeks, you've given your body enough time
to basically clear up any symptoms that you may have
generated by eating this stuff. This is phase two because
you've journaled, maybe done a little scrap booking, but that's
(22:31):
still part of the same phase, maybe a pinterest board.
Phase two is the actual elimination diet. Part of the
elimination diet. Yeah, and if you're cutting out something like dairy,
like all dairy, then you may need to uh and
this is where it really helps if you're working with
a health professional. You might need to supplement what you
got from that dairy, whether it's calcium or vitamin D
(22:53):
or whatever. This is one reason why we switched over
to the Sally Tom Brenda Eddie an area because there's
a lot there's a lot of things that can go
wrong that you can accidentally do to yourself with an
elimination diet, which again is why you should go to
a professional for it. But Sally and Tom are doing
their elimination diet right now. They've cut out sugar and
(23:16):
dairy and they've made it to the two week line,
and like you said, they feel great, right, And now
you get to phase three, which is what's called challenge.
It's the challenge phase. And what you're doing is you're
challenging your body with these foods that you've cut out
to see if the symptoms will produce reproduce, right. And
(23:36):
the way that you do that, I'm sorry, this is
really tough to remember. The way that Sally and Tom
do this is they wake up on the first day
of phase three and they have a little bit of
um milk cream in their coffee and they have um.
They drink it and they sit around and they stare
(23:57):
at each other. Maybe take the day off of work um,
and then nothing happens, so they have a little more.
They have maybe like a glass of milk with lunch,
and then maybe they they just drink straight from the
cow for dinner and they reintroduce dairy for that one
day and then they stop again and then they spend
(24:17):
two days back on the elimination diet like it was
before and see what happens. And they say, over two days,
that's enough time for these symptoms to reappear. And then
you do the second step of this phase, which is
you go to the sugar. Now you do the same thing.
And this is a big key that I hadn't thought about.
(24:38):
If you don't produce those symptoms from the first part
where you do the dairy and everything's all good and
then you move on to the sugar, that doesn't mean
you add dairy back in. You stay off of dairy
for the rest of the diet. Everything that you quit
as you challenge yourself, you still go back to staying
off of it as you're doing new challenges, and you
keep doing that until you've you've gone through all the
(24:59):
food that you cut out, and then you've entered the
final phase, which is the done with the elimination diet
part of the diet. Yeah, and boy, it can get
really confusing because like you've got to be really organized
Brenda and Eddie do, because it could like it might
be the coffee or the caffeine, you know, and you
(25:21):
put the cream in it and you think it's the cream,
but it was really the coffee to begin with, So
maybe you should have eliminated coffee as well at the beginning. Uh.
But it's also it's also can be very broad, like
it's not like well, this one vegetable is the cause
of all my troubles or milk is really what kills me.
(25:44):
But I'm fine with cheese and every other form of dairy.
Like it's probably a broader category like dairy in general. Yeah,
a food group is what they still call them, just
like when we were kids. Yeah, like, so, yeah, you're
gonna cut out dairy, you're gonna cut out carbs, or
you're gonna cut out so kinds of vegetables or like
gooms or something like that, or maybe meat um or
(26:05):
wheat whatever, But these are all considered food groups. So yeah,
you might have like a little creamer in your coffee
and then like cheese at dinner or something like that.
And as when you're reintroducing the dairy food group, but
because it could be as specific as a type of cheese,
you know, there's a lot of difference between fresh cheese
and you know cheese it's been cave aged for five years.
(26:27):
That could actually make a difference in your sensitivity to it. Yeah,
Or is is chuck uh lactose intolerant or does he
get poopy butt when he eats a pint of sugary
ice cream? All in one sitting you know, right, which
again is another reason why you want to UM why
a lot of people will cut out more than just
(26:48):
a couple of food groups. And then when they when
they challenge, you've gotta you gotta keep it pure like that.
I think that's what you're saying, right, You don't want
to mix sugar and dairy together when you challenge your
body again in during the elimination diet. Correct. Yeah, And
and I think maybe I was just trying to speak
to to like, you know, if I half a pizza
(27:09):
and a pint of ice cream, that doesn't necessarily mean
I am dairy intolerant. That maybe means that you shouldn't
eat four pieces of pizza. I need a big thing
on ice cream. I got you, you know what I mean? Like,
that's that's an overdose of dairy, which is not the
same thing as like, m dairy really messes me up.
I'm really glad you brought that up because that's actually
(27:30):
again that's a distinction between UM uh an intolerance or
a sensitivity and UH an allergy. You remember, with an allergy,
it doesn't matter how much of the food you eat,
you're gonna have reaction. With a sensitivity, UM and an
intolerance too little amounts. Can you can slide by with them?
And that's actually one of the things that people find
(27:51):
out with elimination diets is Okay, I'm sensitive to to dairy,
but I've found that I could I can actually have
one slice pizzas. When I have that second or third
one that I begin to poop everywhere. Yeah, Or like alcohol,
I can have a glass of wine and I'm fine.
What I'm allergic to is nine gin and tonics, Like
(28:12):
that's why, that's why I have poopy butt. Right, That's
not why I have poopy But I'm just saying in
general everywhere that that was Eddie and Tom talking. Oh
right right. Yeah. Here's another cool thing though, if you
already have other allergies have nothing to do with food,
you kind of have a head start because a lot
(28:33):
of times they're I don't know code morbid as a word,
but uh, like if you have a latex allergy, it's
you could also be allergic to like certain vegetables or fruits,
and they have you know, there are lists where people know,
like doctors know, hey, latex is also sort of co
morbid with apples. Let's say, so, do you eat apples.
(28:53):
Are you allergic to latex? That might be a problem.
Isn't that fascinating? I looked up I was like, well,
why why do they you know, I think it's called
um co. It's not more abid what cross reactive? Yeah,
it's called the cross reactive food. And they they don't know.
They just know that if you have a latex um
(29:15):
if you have a latex allergy, you're probably very allergic
to say bananas or something too. So that's that's wonderful.
It's nice that there's still new mysteries out there that
people are looking into. When you have a latex allergy
and they ask you that at the dentist in doctor
and you do have one, does that mean they dig
into your mouth with their bare hands? Uh? I know.
(29:37):
I think there's non latex gloves. I think nitrial gloves
is non latex. Why don't they just use those all
the time? Then they probably do just out of you know,
keeping it cheaper and just everyone always asked though, still,
do you have a latex allergy? Yeah? Because I don't
think it's just the gloves. It can be like an
intubation tube or there's a lot of latex going on
(29:59):
and it has a do with an enzyme that's in
natural rubber which makes its way into latex, which so
you're really allergic to. If you go to the proctologist
and ask if you have a latex allergy and you
say yes, then your doctor has another alternative. Yeah. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, No, Actually I don't
(30:19):
you know what a proctologist does. Oh did you say proctologists? Yes?
I do. Okay, shall we move on? That was that
was rough? All right, Let's talk about the how this
can go bad. Um. It can go back in a
lot of ways. Like we said, if you eliminate something
that your body needs, a certain vitamin or something, and
(30:43):
you eliminate all that, then your body might become deficient
if you don't add something back in that will help
make up for that. Or you sent a very interesting article,
uh about something that I never heard of called orthor
rexia or the thing that everybody we know has right now,
(31:05):
do you think yeah, to some degree, yes, I totally
do so orthorexia this um uh, this very brave woman
wrote this article orthorexia colon how my clean eating turned
into anorexia and orthorexia Even though it's not recognized by
the d s m IS basically, but is recognized by
(31:28):
the National Eating Disorders Association. Is kind of UH is
kind of taking UM label reading and nutritional label reading
and and thinking about what you're eating to the most
obsessive level possible. It's a it's it's it's an eating disorder,
but rather than being UM zoned in on calorie restriction
(31:53):
like traditional anorexia UM and weight loss, it's an obsession
with healthy or clean eating. And if you look around,
if you realize this, you're like, there is this is all.
This is all over the place. Like look around on
the internet and see how many foods are labeled like toxic,
Like this is a toxic food. Strawberries are toxic and
you smack your hand as you try to take a
(32:14):
bite of it or something like that. Or there's something
called the plant paradox diet, which is like tomatoes are
toxic like gooms or toxic like the just the way
that people look at food now it's either good or bad.
It's pure or it's toxic. It's healthy or it can
kill you. This is very much where um orthorexia is rooted. Yeah,
and with this woman in particular, Um. She wrote about
(32:37):
her her journey through this and how it was getting
worse and worse and how her friends started to notice
like she would go and she said she spiraled into
a total panic if she happened to eat something that
was quote unquote bad. Uh, And it was just completely compulsive,
like reading and rereading uh these nutritional lay bowls. Um
(33:02):
feeling really anxious if you're if you're not reading these things,
and it actually led to anorexi at her friend UM
stepped in and said, hey, listen, I think you need
to like get some help here. Things are getting a
little out of hand. And luckily, uh, this woman in
this case at least was listened, went to a health
professional and they confirmed that she had had uh had
(33:26):
morphed into anorexia. Right the way that it had morphed
inn anorex is because she had whittled down her list
of acceptable foods to such a small degree that she
was becoming malnourished because there was so few types of
foods that she would allow herself to eat. And I
guess a byproduct of that was just inadvertent calorie restriction
(33:49):
and like major weight loss too. But again she wasn't couldn't.
She wasn't obsessed with um, her weight. It was good
food or bad food, pure food or toxic food that
and that distinction, and then becoming like obsessed with that,
like thinking about that kind of food and foods you
should avoid and and um, she points out, apparently one
(34:12):
of the kind of accepted criterias that like you obsessively follow,
like like fitness or nutrition experts or self proclaimed experts
on like social media or something like that. And I
think just in addition to obsessing about good food versus bad,
it's just obsessing about food in general, and it begins
to take over your life and you change your life.
(34:34):
Like she was saying, she just stopped going to parties
because she knew that it would be weird if she
didn't drink or she didn't eat a slice of birthday cake. Um,
So she just stopped going to those kind of social
functions and eventually after a while, stopped getting invited to
him too. So it had like a major effect on
her life as well. It is extremely sad, and you're right,
(34:56):
she was brave for writing this. Her name is Hannah
Matthews and the article was orthor xia, How am I
clean eating? Turned into anorexia in self. I think it
was right, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. One of the
other good things though about an elimination diet um in
our own article that they point out is is one
good side effect is, uh, it just makes you really
(35:16):
pay attention to what you're eating. And that's always good
if you're like keeping food journals and trying to clean
up your diet, even if for something that ends up
being a psycho somatic food reaction, which is a thing.
Um that's okay, and those psychosomatic food reactions are real.
I mean, just because it's not a physiological response doesn't
(35:39):
mean your body doesn't go a certain direction because you think,
you know, I'm gonna eat this slice of bread and
it's gonna make me feel like crap. It's like a
self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But paying attention
to your diet in general can be a positive result
of one of these, so Brenda and any out with God, right,
(36:01):
that's the thing is, like, yes, there are positive benefits.
There's also pitfalls and pratfalls, and some of them can
be substantial, like accidentally ending up malnourished or accidentally triggering
UM an eating disorder in yourself. Um, And so again
this is why it's good to go see your professional.
But but I think the fact that there's just so
(36:22):
many people who have just come up with their own
elimination diet and like blog about it and now have
like licensing agreements with hot dog companies because you're allowed
to eat hot dogs on this elimination diet, which makes
zero sense. Um, it's like a it's a it's just
to me, it's a symptom of a larger death of
(36:43):
of expertise that that we're going through. You don't have
to be an expert at anything. You don't have to
be actually to know what you're talking about. It's a
good way to say it. You can start a blog
or a website or an Instagram and people follow what
you're saying, even if you like, I have no idea
what you're doing. Yeah, and then like this stuff you're
(37:03):
saying isn't backed by any research or peer view or whatever.
And I realized, like, you can look at what we
do from a certain perspective and be like, that's pretty
rich that you're even bringing this up, Pal, But we
like that we're not experts, but we defer to experts.
Typically we like there are research is based on stuff
that experts have come up with, are people who know
(37:24):
what they're talking about have come up with And this
is very largely like some dude just came up with
his elimination diet, and now you know, ten percent of
the country's trying it themselves and the hopes that it
will it will finally change their their life in some
positive way. And um, I don't know it was that
(37:46):
the Hannah Matthews orthorexia article really kind of was eye
opening to how I view food too, Like it's definitely, um,
like my attitude towards food has changed, that there's definitely
something you just shouldn't need, that it's better food that's terrible,
and and like that, you know, stay away from that.
And I realized, like I think about food a lot,
and it's not just I want to eat, but also
(38:09):
I should stay away from this or whatever. And it's
I feel like a lot of people are kind of
moving in that direction, just kind of developing unhealthy relationship
with food. But then I asked myself, so what I
just should stop paying attention to just eat whatever. And
I can tell you based on history when I do
that I tend to get a little tubby, a little
(38:31):
unhealthy and unhappy by a little. Yeah, a little, I
mean like a lot. Right, So that points me to
this direction that there's a third thing. There's some underlying
thing that has to do with my relationship with food
that I've not gotten to the bottom yet. But just
obsessing over healthy food versus toxic food or whatever, it helps,
(38:52):
Like I definitely eat better and I feel better than general.
But if you're still thinking too much about something, if
something that shouldn't be as big a component of your
life is a big component, then it suggests that there's
something else there that you haven't gotten to the bottom of.
And I'm talking to you specifically, Brenda and Eddie. Somewhere
between you and me there is a healthy middle ground,
(39:14):
and that's probably Jerry. That's right. It always comes down
to Jerry Chuck. That's right. Have you got anything else? Uh? No,
I will say though that um for all you Billy
Joel fans, and I very much purposely said Brenda and Eddie,
So save your emails, okay, Well, also save your emails
because now I know even though I had no idea
until just now, I said Sally and Tom because I
(39:37):
have no imagination. Yeah, well know that great Springsteen song
Sally and Tom ride west Man. That's pretty believable, Chuck,
is it a real song? No, Springstein certainly saying about
a lot of people. But that's that's what I mean.
That was believable joke. Uh. If you want to know
(39:57):
more about elimination diets, um man, they're they're out there.
But go see your nutritionists. That's our advice. And since
I said nutrition, this is time for listening, may you. Yeah,
and this is uh not so much a listener mail
as it is a little shout out to our friends
at COED. That's right. So everyone, if you are not
(40:21):
hip to co ED, let us fill you in. Because
back in two thousand nine, oh man, it's been a while.
Back in I think two thousand nine, COED, which is
the Cooperative for Education, said hey, guys, we've got this
cool um ngo down in Guatemala where we see to
it that as many indigenous Guatemalan kids get educations where
otherwise they wouldn't, and we want to come show you
(40:43):
what we got. So we ended up going down there
and did a two part episode about what we saw. Yeah,
it was it was really cool, and they've been We've
been kind of working with them off and on through
the years to help raise awareness. And I think my
favorite thing about their organization is how specific their mission is. Uh,
they're not They're they're literally trying to educate kids because
they think that is the basis of pulling people out
(41:06):
of the cycle of poverty. And they're right, because it's working. Uh.
And right now they have something going on called the
Thousand Girls Initiative and they are trying to keep literally
one thousand girls in Guatemala from dropping out of school
because education is really what it takes to break the
cycle of poverty everywhere, but especially in UH in rural Guatemala. Yeah,
(41:29):
from their research, they found that um, something like twelve
years of education is what it takes to break the
cycle of poverty in Guatemala, but that the average rural
Guatemalan has about a one and twenty chance of getting
twelve years of education. So what they do is they
have a several a number of programs set up, but
one of them is where you are sponsored and you
(41:52):
bought your paying in as a kid, You're paying into
this book fund and you get your books up front.
But then as you're paying in over time, and it's
enough that even like UM, some of the poorest of
the rural Guatemalan families can can pay for this um.
When the books run out, you can replace them from
this fund that you've been paying into over time, or
(42:12):
if the books stay good, you can buy more books
that you didn't have before, or things like computers and
all this stuff. And so kids who would have normally
had to drop out of school and work in the
fields with their families now have a chance to stay
in because they're not costing their families as much by
going to school, so their families can invest in their
kids education. Yeah, you can sponsor one of these students
(42:34):
for eighty dollars a month, or if you want to
only pay forty dollars a month, you can do that
because they will pair you with another sponsor. And all
you have to do is go to Thousand Girls Initiative
dot org or just go to the co ed page.
They have a lot of great ways you can take part.
And you know, it's it's it's one of these things
where you are literally like, I'm sponsoring this girl. That's
(42:55):
her name, there's her picture, and she's going to get
to go to school now because is I'm pairing up
with someone else and throwing forty dollars a month their way? Uh?
And it's it once again. Thousands girls initiative dot org
can mean anything more worthwhile, agreed, man um, So go
check them out and if you want to get in
touch with us in the meantime, you can hang out
(43:18):
with us at our home on the web. Stuff you
Should Know dot Com, where you'll find links to all
of our social media accounts, and you can also send
us an email. Just send it off to Stuff Podcasts
how Stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Huggy Bear Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
So this is the mod squad. What I'm just mixing metaphors.
(00:26):
I can't remember who said it this way, but ever
since I was researching this, I've been saying in my head, elimination.
What is that? From? Oh me? And uh? It sounds
like a mad doctor. Maybe a little bit of German
and latka from taxi. I have no idea. Well, when
(00:49):
I think elimination, I think that, you know, the term
for pooping something out. So it makes me think that
it's like the diet where you just poop everything out
and you get skinny that way. Oh yeah, I know
that's not what it is, but that's what I think about. Man.
I feel bad for people with poop problems too. It's
(01:10):
a tough thing me too, whether you can't or you
do too much, or it's just unpleasant one way or another. Yeah,
for sure, it's bad stuff. Yeah, and that has to
do with this, because IBS is certainly one condition where
one might want and we should do a show on that.
But where one might want to propose an elimination diet,
(01:31):
you can say it like that whole time. No that
I was hoping you were. I'll do one more rule
of threes. I'll do one more at some point, but
just out of out of nowhere. Huh, you're not gonna
know what's coming. You know, there's a chance that you'll
forget to do it again. Probably. Okay, that's the stuff
you should know. Why under deliver, So, Chuck, we're talking
(01:53):
about elimination diets, Yes we are. And um, that doesn't
really mean that you poop your your pounds away. It
doesn't really have anything to do with losing weight, actually,
to tell you the truth. And yet it is one
of the hottest trends right now in America at least,
(02:15):
if not the Western general. Where you you cut out
a bunch of foods and then you add them back
to see if there's something behind whatever is bothering you,
whether it's irritable bowel syndrome, whether you get headaches, whether
you get tired at three pm, whatever it is, you
(02:36):
change your lifestyle temporarily, slowly add back all of the
components that made up your lifestyle and try to identify
the thing that was messing with you, and that's an
elimination diet. And it's all the rage right now. Yeah,
and this is uh, I mean, I don't know if
controversies starry word. Sure, let's say it. It can be
(02:58):
controversial in that. Uh. Sometimes someone goes through a doctor,
orange nutritionist or some kind of health professional too for
an assistance with something like this, But many times these
days people will just do it themselves. Yeah mostly I
would say, yeah, which isn't inherently bad. Um, if you
if you do it the right way, you can learn
(03:19):
a lot about your body and what foods work best
for you. But it can also go wrong in a
lot of ways. Uh, so let's let's get into it.
That's my little caveat. I guess well, we're gonna talk
more about that later, right, yeah for sure. Okay, alright, So, um,
you kind of hit upon how some people go to
(03:40):
see like a nutritionist or a doctor to do an
elimination diet, and that's originally where the whole thing started.
This is an outgrowth of basically a medical procedure where
if you say, I don't really feel very good, I
my poops are all over the place. Um, I fall
as equhile I'm talking to people, I get headaches. I'm
(04:03):
feeling kind of anxious. There's a whole suite of of
things that I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but
there's a lot of stuff that I feel like is
wrong with me, and I'm starting to suspect that it
might have something to do with my diet. So I'm
here to see you doctor nutritionist m D. And the
nutritionists will say, what, chuck, I don't know what. What
(04:27):
will they say? Maybe they'll say elimination diet. Yeah, they'll say,
I propose an elimination diet. And uh that is the
sort of middle of the road, legit way to do this. Again,
most people do this uh d I Y style, and
that's it's not necessarily a bad way to do it.
But we're here to tell you how you should go
(04:49):
about that. We're not doctors or nutritionists. A good point,
but there are some pretty brainless steps that if you
don't follow, you could end up you could end up
making things work right, which is again why why this
is originally a medical procedure that was kind of hijacked
and done not that great all the time, But In
(05:09):
addition to UM this elimination diet, which we'll go through
in a second steps of it. UM, you you UM
are probably also going to get a skin prick test
where they will UM, well, they prick your skin to
see if they get an allergic reaction from you or
UM and or a blood test. But here's part of
(05:30):
the problem, and I suspect that this is why some
people do this on their own. The skin prick test
is not an infallible test, and even a blood test
for things like food sensitivities and food allergies are UM.
I saw it. They give false positives around like sevent
of the time, which that's not a test that's worse
(05:53):
than chance. It sounds like, I mean, that's terrible. It's
a terrible track record, if you'll remember back from our
extreme really confusing false positives episode. So I think that's
probably why some people do it on their own, is
there's like, I don't need the blood test or the
skiin prick tests. I can do this myself. That leads
me into this statu you know of Americans think they
(06:15):
have a food allergy when only three and four do.
But just because you don't have a food allergy, and
we're going to talk about allergy, sensitivities and intolerances. Uh,
it doesn't mean that like if you quit drinking and
eating sugar and loading down with carbs, you're you might
feel a lot better. Yes, And some people suspect that
(06:37):
this is what's really behind an elimination diet because just
just from the the attention that you pay to what
you're eating or not eating and to your health in general,
that it forces you to to to adopt that's um.
I mean, that's gonna have probably a positive beneficial effect
right that in and of itself, But that's not to
(06:58):
say that it doesn't actually do something more than that. Um,
And it has to do a lot with food allergies
and sensitivities and stuff. And let's take a break and
then we'll talk about all that. How about that great
h so before we get going with allergies. I wish
(07:36):
I could remember his name, But with that last story
about the diabetes, I did have one listener right in
after that episode and really kind of sent a very
sweet and loving email about me and my health. And
I'm gonna go back and find out who it was,
but uh, you know who you are. If you sent
(07:56):
that and that did this is before even this weird
false positive, But it meant a lot to me and
and kind of kick me into gear even before that test.
Oh that's great man, Yeah, it was very nice. Um.
So back to allergies. We did a pretty good episode
on allergies. Uh. We know that allergies are a defense
against what it thinks is a harmful invader, whether it's
(08:19):
a virus or some other kind of sickness. Um. But
with allergies and food allergies especially, a lot of times
it can get it wrong, and you can have your
body can think it's wording off an invader that's not
really an invader, right it it as far as you're concerned,
it's the exact same thing. You can have an allergic reaction.
(08:40):
Your body sends either T cells or immunoglobulin cells um
that go to the site and say, oh, yeah, look
we've got a foreign invader. You in flame, you start
a fever, you make this stuff, make make everything itchy,
and you have an immune response amounted. Now that's really good.
(09:00):
Like you said, if there's like an actual pathogen or whatever,
but an allergy is that mistaken identity. It's like strawberry
is like, I'm just a strawberry, and they're like, that's
what the last pathogen said exactly, I'm onto you, fraud. Uh,
and then they beat up the poor strawberry and it's
it's it's dead from that point on. But the UM,
But that's an allergy. It's it's just mistaken identity. That's
(09:22):
the same body processes. It's the thing that's kicking it
off shouldn't really be kicking it off. It's not a threat.
But again, to you, it doesn't matter. You want to
stay away from, Yeah, stay away from strawberries or eggs
or soy or peanuts, um, because yeah, I can kill you.
And one of the hallmarks of a food allergy in
particular is it doesn't matter if you have a peck
(09:44):
of strawberries or a bushel um, or if you just
have a little nibble of a strawberry, you're going to
have that allergic reaction. And you need to stay away
from from strawberries altogether, because, like you said, it can
be life threatening. Yeah, so that's an allergy. Uh. There's
also you can also be intolerant or sensitive UM. Like
(10:06):
when we did our gluten episode, a lot of people
do not have Celiac disease, but they may be intolerant
of gluten. Yeah, yeah, a non celiac gluten sensitivity, I
think is what it's called, which is also called gluten intolerance. Yeah,
so that's a little bit different because that is an
(10:27):
intolerance is triggered by your digestive system, not your immune system.
So what this usually means is, uh, you're you you're
lacking a certain enzyme maybe that is required to digest
whatever food that you're sensitive to or intolerant to. Rather yeah,
which doesn't sound like that would be really bad, Like
you're just like, Okay, I'll just poop it out. But
(10:49):
there's actually some compounds that are found in food that
if they enter your digestive tract because you can't break
it down, it can wreak havoc on you improve produce
all sorts of horrible symptoms in you from pooping everywhere
again um, from horrible cramps, bloating um, and then things
(11:11):
that have to do with your mood as well, which
sounds surprising at first and until you remember that there's
like a gut brain connection, like um of the serotonin
in your brain is actually produced in your gut. So
when your guts going haywire because you've eaten something that
you don't have an enzyme to metabolize, other things besides
(11:33):
the serotonin production are happening and you might have um
some sort of altered brain chemistry as a result. Yeah,
and Celiac disease is uh, it has it does have
a component of immune system response. So that is that
is not this. I mean that is a legit allergy. Right,
so the yeah, but gluten sensitivity is is or gluten
(11:56):
intolerance is is different. It doesn't have the immune system.
But you're still hate in life because you just ate
a pizza crust that wasn't made from cauliflower. And again
now you're pooping everywhere. Right, then you have the third bucket,
which is a sensitivity. And this is not something they
(12:17):
have studied much. Um it says in our own article,
it's a bit of a mystery of medical science. But
we just know that, you know, some people are like
MSG makes me feel bad and I'm sensitive to it.
That's everybody, right, Does that happen to you? I don't know,
because I don't know when I've had MSG. I used
(12:37):
to like put straight up MSG on my popcorn. Okay,
it's really tasty stuff, but it's it can give you
headaches and make you feel like there's a like a
triveled claw grabbing the top of your stomach. Just all
sorts of weird stuff. Yeah. I just remember, like for
a while there, like Chinese food was the enemy of people. Yeah,
(13:00):
and I was always like, man, I love Chinese food,
but that Chinese food syndrome basically blaming it on ms G. Yeah,
I saw that UM basically accused of being kind of racist.
Actually before that, like that Chinese food doesn't do that
to to anybody anymore than than other foods, especially other
foods with MSG. But you're not gonna attack a cheeseburgerburger exactly.
(13:25):
It's not like you have freedom fries syndrome or something.
It's always Chinese Chinese food syndrome. Yeah, it's this eye
opening to see that from that other perspective. Chinese food
syndrome rolls off the tongue, you know. Yeah, I'm not
gonna give up my egg rol. So the other thing,
no way, the other thing about UM sensitivities is that,
(13:45):
like you said, it's it's understudied, not well understood, because
you might eat some ms G one day and get
terrible headaches and that that claw on the top of
your stomach, and the next day you might have some
ms G and be fine. And so they have no
idea what it counts for having the headache and the
claw um. And so it's it's something we'll probably know
(14:06):
more about in the future, but for now, because we
know so little about it. You'll often hear intolerance and
sensitivity interchangeable. And this article is one of the few
places where I saw them broken out a separate thing. Actually, yeah,
and I don't remember how what our attitude was like
when we did our gluten episode way back when. I'm
sure it was inclusive and welcoming. I hope so, because
(14:28):
since Emily has become a gluten intolerant, there have been
people that have like poop pooed that. And I'm like, man,
if somebody, if somebody's eating something that it even if
it's just their perception that it makes them feel bad
and they don't want to eat it, right, who cares? So?
So I saw this thing. I agree with you, no
(14:49):
skin off your back, right, I know what is it
that that bugs people like that? I really really wish
we could get to the bottom of because I think
it would clear up lot of stuff. If you if
when you saw that, and I think everybody does it,
you just get judgy and just irritated that that somebody's
bought into something that you don't believe in or whatever
(15:10):
whatever you want to say. Um, if you could step
back and be like, oh, I'm just being or you know,
well this is my going off. Um, I really think
that would clear that up a lot. But it's just
so easy to go with that, you know, I know,
And I mean maybe it's for some of these people.
It's just like not eating heavy breads and enriched flour
(15:31):
and and the stuff that gluten is in. Maybe it
just makes you feel better to not eat that stuff.
That's that's fine too. I saw that the guy who
basically proved that that non celiac gluten sensitivity was a
thing back in two thousand and eleven. It's an Australian
doctor named Peter Oh Doc, we'll just call him Doc
(15:52):
Dundee Peter Gibson, Dr Peter Crocodile on the barbie with
the Fosters slab as his full aim. But he um
he proved that there was a gluten intolerance that wasn't
immune based, right. He proved that this was around and
when he did follow ups he found that actually, that
doesn't seem to be the case, because in these placebo
(16:14):
groups they still had the same kind of symptoms. And
he now has taken it from gluten to something called
fod maps. Have you heard of them? Frementable oglio die
mono saccharides and Polly Yall's yeah, I don't remember ever
talking about it before in my life. I just came
(16:35):
across it in the last two days. I think, okay, well,
my brain's shot to hell. But this um, these fod maps.
They are a component that's a type of carb and
it's found in gluten and some wheat products, but it's
also found another stuff too, And so this guy has said,
I think these are the actual culprit, not necessarily gluten. Now,
(16:55):
if you have sea LEAs, it's gluten, But if you
have gluten intolerance, he's saying, I think it's these fob maps.
Which is that's great if you can narrow it down
even further, But from the looks of it, it sounds
like that means you've got a lot of other food
that you can eat either rather than just pizza crust,
you poor bastard. Yeah, and then the people in the
audience of the convention hall say, is he saying fog hat?
(17:18):
Free ride? Oh? Should we take a break and then
talk about how to do an elimination diet? Oh wait,
it's slow ride, you say, free ride? Yeah? I did.
I confounded slow ride and free bird and just walked
right past the third use of elimination. So I'm a
little hippie. I'm going to sleep for the rest of this, okay,
(17:41):
all right, So we'll be back right after this to
talk about how to do this, okay, man. So if
(18:12):
you want to do this yourself, I think you you
kind of see o aid right already. Yeah, well, let's
do it again. I recommend that you go see a
licensed nutritionist. Do some research first. Make sure you get
somebody who's really good, maybe an M. D um and
say I want to try this, help me out and
they'll help you out. Um. Or you can also go
(18:34):
on the internet and just find some smoke who's done
it before, published a book about it, and is now
a multi billionaire because they did their own elimination diet,
and now everybody's doing those two. Yeah, if you go
to do it on your own, though, it take your time. Uh,
this might take a month or two. Don't don't rush
in there and be like, all right, I'm gonna eat
(18:55):
chicken broth for the next month. Like there are safe
ways to do it, and they generally involved four steps,
which is planning, uh, the eliminating round, the reintroducing, and
then evaluating. Okay, so hold on, before we go any further,
just pinpointed how legally exposed we are right now. This
is what we're doing. We're saying you were talking to
(19:17):
somebody like we're encouraging it. So let's do this instead.
Let's say Sally and Tom. Now let's say forget it.
We'll say Sally and Tom, Brenda and Eddie. Brenda and
Eddie are, um, they're going to do an elimination diet,
and this is how they're going to do it. How
(19:38):
about that? Great? That's genius, isn't it. So Brenda and
Eddie are going to sit down. I thought it was
salient Tom, and they say, well, they live next door
each other there and they they partner swap, so they're
into it. Uh. They said, we gotta plan this out first, honey,
and she says, sure, dear, let's do this. Let's sit
(19:58):
down and let's us write down a big list of
our symptoms when we feel poopy butt, or when we
feel super tired or whatever, when our uh, when we
feel constipated, maybe, and then let's list out what we
think might be some of these problem foods. And what
we're really gonna do is start a journal before we
(20:22):
do anything, and start writing down what we're eating, maybe
for a couple of weeks even, and how we feel
after we eat stuff, and maybe we can sort of
see a pattern start to emerge. Yeah, and you also
want to write down the foods you're craving, foods you
would feel like you would have the hardest time giving up.
Apparently those are frequently the culprits. Yeah, I've heard of that.
(20:43):
I even kids. I didn't know that actually, Yeah, like
a kid who's always wants to drink milk may end
up having a dairy allergy. So it's basically just our
our tendency to punish ourselves is what's behind this stuff.
There's probably some evolutionary reason. It makes zero sense, but okay,
(21:04):
I don't know. Well, maybe maybe it does make sense,
because maybe that could potentially be a dangerous thing, and
your body craves it, so it will then know that
it's an allergen. I don't know, could be population control,
maybe thinning the herd. That's all right. So if you
made your list, you're keeping your journal, and you're like,
all right, here's what I think the deal is. I
(21:24):
think for me, it's sugar and dairy. So I'm gonna
eliminate for two to three weeks all dairy and all
sugar from my diet. I'm gonna keep up with this journal. Um,
I might have some sugar withdrawal. That'll be all right
after a few days. And I'm gonna look at my
my food diary at the end of this and I
(21:47):
might have I might have to start over from scratch,
or might say, you know what, I eliminated dairy and
I feel great. Right, But since you eliminated, say, dairy
and sugar, and actually it's with a lot of elimination diets,
you do a bunch of them at once, right, Yeah,
but you don't want to do too many at once,
So that's true. That's true. You're right, but um, so
(22:09):
let's just keep it simple than sugar and dairy. With
the caveat that you frequently will need to do more
than that. But as you as you cut them out
for like two weeks, you've given your body enough time
to basically clear up any symptoms that you may have
generated by eating this stuff. This is phase two because
you've journaled, maybe done a little scrap booking, but that's
(22:31):
still part of the same phase, maybe a pinterest board.
Phase two is the actual elimination diet. Part of the
elimination diet. Yeah, and if you're cutting out something like dairy,
like all dairy, then you may need to uh and
this is where it really helps if you're working with
a health professional. You might need to supplement what you
got from that dairy, whether it's calcium or vitamin D
(22:53):
or whatever. This is one reason why we switched over
to the Sally Tom Brenda Eddie an area because there's
a lot there's a lot of things that can go
wrong that you can accidentally do to yourself with an
elimination diet, which again is why you should go to
a professional for it. But Sally and Tom are doing
their elimination diet right now. They've cut out sugar and
(23:16):
dairy and they've made it to the two week line,
and like you said, they feel great, right, And now
you get to phase three, which is what's called challenge.
It's the challenge phase. And what you're doing is you're
challenging your body with these foods that you've cut out
to see if the symptoms will produce reproduce, right. And
(23:36):
the way that you do that, I'm sorry, this is
really tough to remember. The way that Sally and Tom
do this is they wake up on the first day
of phase three and they have a little bit of
um milk cream in their coffee and they have um.
They drink it and they sit around and they stare
(23:57):
at each other. Maybe take the day off of work um,
and then nothing happens, so they have a little more.
They have maybe like a glass of milk with lunch,
and then maybe they they just drink straight from the
cow for dinner and they reintroduce dairy for that one
day and then they stop again and then they spend
(24:17):
two days back on the elimination diet like it was
before and see what happens. And they say, over two days,
that's enough time for these symptoms to reappear. And then
you do the second step of this phase, which is
you go to the sugar. Now you do the same thing.
And this is a big key that I hadn't thought about.
(24:38):
If you don't produce those symptoms from the first part
where you do the dairy and everything's all good and
then you move on to the sugar, that doesn't mean
you add dairy back in. You stay off of dairy
for the rest of the diet. Everything that you quit
as you challenge yourself, you still go back to staying
off of it as you're doing new challenges, and you
keep doing that until you've you've gone through all the
(24:59):
food that you cut out, and then you've entered the
final phase, which is the done with the elimination diet
part of the diet. Yeah, and boy, it can get
really confusing because like you've got to be really organized
Brenda and Eddie do, because it could like it might
be the coffee or the caffeine, you know, and you
(25:21):
put the cream in it and you think it's the cream,
but it was really the coffee to begin with, So
maybe you should have eliminated coffee as well at the beginning. Uh.
But it's also it's also can be very broad, like
it's not like well, this one vegetable is the cause
of all my troubles or milk is really what kills me.
(25:44):
But I'm fine with cheese and every other form of dairy.
Like it's probably a broader category like dairy in general. Yeah,
a food group is what they still call them, just
like when we were kids. Yeah, like, so, yeah, you're
gonna cut out dairy, you're gonna cut out carbs, or
you're gonna cut out so kinds of vegetables or like
gooms or something like that, or maybe meat um or
(26:05):
wheat whatever, But these are all considered food groups. So yeah,
you might have like a little creamer in your coffee
and then like cheese at dinner or something like that.
And as when you're reintroducing the dairy food group, but
because it could be as specific as a type of cheese,
you know, there's a lot of difference between fresh cheese
and you know cheese it's been cave aged for five years.
(26:27):
That could actually make a difference in your sensitivity to it. Yeah,
Or is is chuck uh lactose intolerant or does he
get poopy butt when he eats a pint of sugary
ice cream? All in one sitting you know, right, which
again is another reason why you want to UM why
a lot of people will cut out more than just
(26:48):
a couple of food groups. And then when they when
they challenge, you've gotta you gotta keep it pure like that.
I think that's what you're saying, right, You don't want
to mix sugar and dairy together when you challenge your
body again in during the elimination diet. Correct. Yeah, And
and I think maybe I was just trying to speak
to to like, you know, if I half a pizza
(27:09):
and a pint of ice cream, that doesn't necessarily mean
I am dairy intolerant. That maybe means that you shouldn't
eat four pieces of pizza. I need a big thing
on ice cream. I got you, you know what I mean? Like,
that's that's an overdose of dairy, which is not the
same thing as like, m dairy really messes me up.
I'm really glad you brought that up because that's actually
(27:30):
again that's a distinction between UM uh an intolerance or
a sensitivity and UH an allergy. You remember, with an allergy,
it doesn't matter how much of the food you eat,
you're gonna have reaction. With a sensitivity, UM and an
intolerance too little amounts. Can you can slide by with them?
And that's actually one of the things that people find
(27:51):
out with elimination diets is Okay, I'm sensitive to to dairy,
but I've found that I could I can actually have
one slice pizzas. When I have that second or third
one that I begin to poop everywhere. Yeah, Or like alcohol,
I can have a glass of wine and I'm fine.
What I'm allergic to is nine gin and tonics, Like
(28:12):
that's why, that's why I have poopy butt. Right, That's
not why I have poopy But I'm just saying in
general everywhere that that was Eddie and Tom talking. Oh
right right. Yeah. Here's another cool thing though, if you
already have other allergies have nothing to do with food,
you kind of have a head start because a lot
(28:33):
of times they're I don't know code morbid as a word,
but uh, like if you have a latex allergy, it's
you could also be allergic to like certain vegetables or fruits,
and they have you know, there are lists where people know,
like doctors know, hey, latex is also sort of co
morbid with apples. Let's say, so, do you eat apples.
(28:53):
Are you allergic to latex? That might be a problem.
Isn't that fascinating? I looked up I was like, well,
why why do they you know, I think it's called
um co. It's not more abid what cross reactive? Yeah,
it's called the cross reactive food. And they they don't know.
They just know that if you have a latex um
(29:15):
if you have a latex allergy, you're probably very allergic
to say bananas or something too. So that's that's wonderful.
It's nice that there's still new mysteries out there that
people are looking into. When you have a latex allergy
and they ask you that at the dentist in doctor
and you do have one, does that mean they dig
into your mouth with their bare hands? Uh? I know.
(29:37):
I think there's non latex gloves. I think nitrial gloves
is non latex. Why don't they just use those all
the time? Then they probably do just out of you know,
keeping it cheaper and just everyone always asked though, still,
do you have a latex allergy? Yeah? Because I don't
think it's just the gloves. It can be like an
intubation tube or there's a lot of latex going on
(29:59):
and it has a do with an enzyme that's in
natural rubber which makes its way into latex, which so
you're really allergic to. If you go to the proctologist
and ask if you have a latex allergy and you
say yes, then your doctor has another alternative. Yeah. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, No, Actually I don't
(30:19):
you know what a proctologist does. Oh did you say proctologists? Yes?
I do. Okay, shall we move on? That was that
was rough? All right, Let's talk about the how this
can go bad. Um. It can go back in a
lot of ways. Like we said, if you eliminate something
that your body needs, a certain vitamin or something, and
(30:43):
you eliminate all that, then your body might become deficient
if you don't add something back in that will help
make up for that. Or you sent a very interesting article,
uh about something that I never heard of called orthor
rexia or the thing that everybody we know has right now,
(31:05):
do you think yeah, to some degree, yes, I totally
do so orthorexia this um uh, this very brave woman
wrote this article orthorexia colon how my clean eating turned
into anorexia and orthorexia Even though it's not recognized by
the d s m IS basically, but is recognized by
(31:28):
the National Eating Disorders Association. Is kind of UH is
kind of taking UM label reading and nutritional label reading
and and thinking about what you're eating to the most
obsessive level possible. It's a it's it's it's an eating disorder,
but rather than being UM zoned in on calorie restriction
(31:53):
like traditional anorexia UM and weight loss, it's an obsession
with healthy or clean eating. And if you look around,
if you realize this, you're like, there is this is all.
This is all over the place. Like look around on
the internet and see how many foods are labeled like toxic,
Like this is a toxic food. Strawberries are toxic and
you smack your hand as you try to take a
(32:14):
bite of it or something like that. Or there's something
called the plant paradox diet, which is like tomatoes are
toxic like gooms or toxic like the just the way
that people look at food now it's either good or bad.
It's pure or it's toxic. It's healthy or it can
kill you. This is very much where um orthorexia is rooted. Yeah,
and with this woman in particular, Um. She wrote about
(32:37):
her her journey through this and how it was getting
worse and worse and how her friends started to notice
like she would go and she said she spiraled into
a total panic if she happened to eat something that
was quote unquote bad. Uh, And it was just completely compulsive,
like reading and rereading uh these nutritional lay bowls. Um
(33:02):
feeling really anxious if you're if you're not reading these things,
and it actually led to anorexi at her friend UM
stepped in and said, hey, listen, I think you need
to like get some help here. Things are getting a
little out of hand. And luckily, uh, this woman in
this case at least was listened, went to a health
professional and they confirmed that she had had uh had
(33:26):
morphed into anorexia. Right the way that it had morphed
inn anorex is because she had whittled down her list
of acceptable foods to such a small degree that she
was becoming malnourished because there was so few types of
foods that she would allow herself to eat. And I
guess a byproduct of that was just inadvertent calorie restriction
(33:49):
and like major weight loss too. But again she wasn't couldn't.
She wasn't obsessed with um, her weight. It was good
food or bad food, pure food or toxic food that
and that distinction, and then becoming like obsessed with that,
like thinking about that kind of food and foods you
should avoid and and um, she points out, apparently one
(34:12):
of the kind of accepted criterias that like you obsessively follow,
like like fitness or nutrition experts or self proclaimed experts
on like social media or something like that. And I
think just in addition to obsessing about good food versus bad,
it's just obsessing about food in general, and it begins
to take over your life and you change your life.
(34:34):
Like she was saying, she just stopped going to parties
because she knew that it would be weird if she
didn't drink or she didn't eat a slice of birthday cake. Um,
So she just stopped going to those kind of social
functions and eventually after a while, stopped getting invited to
him too. So it had like a major effect on
her life as well. It is extremely sad, and you're right,
(34:56):
she was brave for writing this. Her name is Hannah
Matthews and the article was orthor xia, How am I
clean eating? Turned into anorexia in self. I think it
was right, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. One of the
other good things though about an elimination diet um in
our own article that they point out is is one
good side effect is, uh, it just makes you really
(35:16):
pay attention to what you're eating. And that's always good
if you're like keeping food journals and trying to clean
up your diet, even if for something that ends up
being a psycho somatic food reaction, which is a thing.
Um that's okay, and those psychosomatic food reactions are real.
I mean, just because it's not a physiological response doesn't
(35:39):
mean your body doesn't go a certain direction because you think,
you know, I'm gonna eat this slice of bread and
it's gonna make me feel like crap. It's like a
self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But paying attention
to your diet in general can be a positive result
of one of these, so Brenda and any out with God, right,
(36:01):
that's the thing is, like, yes, there are positive benefits.
There's also pitfalls and pratfalls, and some of them can
be substantial, like accidentally ending up malnourished or accidentally triggering
UM an eating disorder in yourself. Um, And so again
this is why it's good to go see your professional.
But but I think the fact that there's just so
(36:22):
many people who have just come up with their own
elimination diet and like blog about it and now have
like licensing agreements with hot dog companies because you're allowed
to eat hot dogs on this elimination diet, which makes
zero sense. Um, it's like a it's a it's just
to me, it's a symptom of a larger death of
(36:43):
of expertise that that we're going through. You don't have
to be an expert at anything. You don't have to
be actually to know what you're talking about. It's a
good way to say it. You can start a blog
or a website or an Instagram and people follow what
you're saying, even if you like, I have no idea
what you're doing. Yeah, and then like this stuff you're
(37:03):
saying isn't backed by any research or peer view or whatever.
And I realized, like, you can look at what we
do from a certain perspective and be like, that's pretty
rich that you're even bringing this up, Pal, But we
like that we're not experts, but we defer to experts.
Typically we like there are research is based on stuff
that experts have come up with, are people who know
(37:24):
what they're talking about have come up with And this
is very largely like some dude just came up with
his elimination diet, and now you know, ten percent of
the country's trying it themselves and the hopes that it
will it will finally change their their life in some
positive way. And um, I don't know it was that
(37:46):
the Hannah Matthews orthorexia article really kind of was eye
opening to how I view food too, Like it's definitely, um,
like my attitude towards food has changed, that there's definitely
something you just shouldn't need, that it's better food that's terrible,
and and like that, you know, stay away from that.
And I realized, like I think about food a lot,
and it's not just I want to eat, but also
(38:09):
I should stay away from this or whatever. And it's
I feel like a lot of people are kind of
moving in that direction, just kind of developing unhealthy relationship
with food. But then I asked myself, so what I
just should stop paying attention to just eat whatever. And
I can tell you based on history when I do
that I tend to get a little tubby, a little
(38:31):
unhealthy and unhappy by a little. Yeah, a little, I
mean like a lot. Right, So that points me to
this direction that there's a third thing. There's some underlying
thing that has to do with my relationship with food
that I've not gotten to the bottom yet. But just
obsessing over healthy food versus toxic food or whatever, it helps,
(38:52):
Like I definitely eat better and I feel better than general.
But if you're still thinking too much about something, if
something that shouldn't be as big a component of your
life is a big component, then it suggests that there's
something else there that you haven't gotten to the bottom of.
And I'm talking to you specifically, Brenda and Eddie. Somewhere
between you and me there is a healthy middle ground,
(39:14):
and that's probably Jerry. That's right. It always comes down
to Jerry Chuck. That's right. Have you got anything else? Uh? No,
I will say though that um for all you Billy
Joel fans, and I very much purposely said Brenda and Eddie,
So save your emails, okay, Well, also save your emails
because now I know even though I had no idea
until just now, I said Sally and Tom because I
(39:37):
have no imagination. Yeah, well know that great Springsteen song
Sally and Tom ride west Man. That's pretty believable, Chuck,
is it a real song? No, Springstein certainly saying about
a lot of people. But that's that's what I mean.
That was believable joke. Uh. If you want to know
(39:57):
more about elimination diets, um man, they're they're out there.
But go see your nutritionists. That's our advice. And since
I said nutrition, this is time for listening, may you. Yeah,
and this is uh not so much a listener mail
as it is a little shout out to our friends
at COED. That's right. So everyone, if you are not
(40:21):
hip to co ED, let us fill you in. Because
back in two thousand nine, oh man, it's been a while.
Back in I think two thousand nine, COED, which is
the Cooperative for Education, said hey, guys, we've got this
cool um ngo down in Guatemala where we see to
it that as many indigenous Guatemalan kids get educations where
otherwise they wouldn't, and we want to come show you
(40:43):
what we got. So we ended up going down there
and did a two part episode about what we saw. Yeah,
it was it was really cool, and they've been We've
been kind of working with them off and on through
the years to help raise awareness. And I think my
favorite thing about their organization is how specific their mission is. Uh,
they're not They're they're literally trying to educate kids because
they think that is the basis of pulling people out
(41:06):
of the cycle of poverty. And they're right, because it's working. Uh.
And right now they have something going on called the
Thousand Girls Initiative and they are trying to keep literally
one thousand girls in Guatemala from dropping out of school
because education is really what it takes to break the
cycle of poverty everywhere, but especially in UH in rural Guatemala. Yeah,
(41:29):
from their research, they found that um, something like twelve
years of education is what it takes to break the
cycle of poverty in Guatemala, but that the average rural
Guatemalan has about a one and twenty chance of getting
twelve years of education. So what they do is they
have a several a number of programs set up, but
one of them is where you are sponsored and you
(41:52):
bought your paying in as a kid, You're paying into
this book fund and you get your books up front.
But then as you're paying in over time, and it's
enough that even like UM, some of the poorest of
the rural Guatemalan families can can pay for this um.
When the books run out, you can replace them from
this fund that you've been paying into over time, or
(42:12):
if the books stay good, you can buy more books
that you didn't have before, or things like computers and
all this stuff. And so kids who would have normally
had to drop out of school and work in the
fields with their families now have a chance to stay
in because they're not costing their families as much by
going to school, so their families can invest in their
kids education. Yeah, you can sponsor one of these students
(42:34):
for eighty dollars a month, or if you want to
only pay forty dollars a month, you can do that
because they will pair you with another sponsor. And all
you have to do is go to Thousand Girls Initiative
dot org or just go to the co ed page.
They have a lot of great ways you can take part.
And you know, it's it's it's one of these things
where you are literally like, I'm sponsoring this girl. That's
(42:55):
her name, there's her picture, and she's going to get
to go to school now because is I'm pairing up
with someone else and throwing forty dollars a month their way? Uh?
And it's it once again. Thousands girls initiative dot org
can mean anything more worthwhile, agreed, man um, So go
check them out and if you want to get in
touch with us in the meantime, you can hang out
(43:18):
with us at our home on the web. Stuff you
Should Know dot Com, where you'll find links to all
of our social media accounts, and you can also send
us an email. Just send it off to Stuff Podcasts
how Stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.
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