Close to 0 fructose lunch, still getting sick

[dryope]

Hi Everyone,

I have managed celiac and some sort of fructose problem -- which in the absence of evidence I'm assuming is DFI. (I just did 23andme, but uh...no mention of HFI testing in my results, good or bad.)

I can handle very, very small amounts of stuff with fructose in it (or am I kidding myself?), but probaby because I barely eat breakfast and my fairly plain dinners are accompanied by dry wine and TV. So if I'm stupid, I'm also half asleep.

Lunches are at work, so having a zombie mind after eating is a problem there. Here's my lunch, which is still making me stupid:

- raw arugula and baby spinach (about a cup of leaves total)
- plain balsamic vinegar (not sweet) and olive oil (no additives in either)
- simple homemade cheese
- plain white rice (Japanese bought in Japan or Thai jasmine, no additives)

Am I crazy or is this a very safe diet? Could it be the stems in the leaves?

Anyway, I'm totally confused. Any help would be so, so great.

Dryope

P.S. I just came back from the Mayo Clinic for my dietary issues and the nutritionist clearly thinks I am a hypochondriac. The allergy doctor talked with me for an hour, somewhat avuncularly lecturing me on how the medical profession doesn't understand nearly anything about the digestive system, and they certainly aren't in a position to do much to fix it.

[ukbill]

Hi Dryope,

Sorry to hear of your problems.

I have HFI and dislike the taste of anything sweet,, this keeps me far safer than if I actually liked sweet foods.

I am not sure what "raw arugula" is.

IF you are needing to go on a very low Fructose diet then what you are eating is not good.

Baby Spinach is sort of OK'ish so long as you remove the stems off the leaves, however it will still contain some Fructose.. its a plant!

Balsamic vinegar is ALWAYS sweet.

You also mention Drinking Wine??

Well that will contain all sorts of things that if you are HFI or have a similar condition (not all are mapped out in the Genome yet) that will set you off.

If you want a social alcoholic drink to have with your meal then as far as I am aware a beer made to the German purity standards (water, barley, yeast ONLY!) will be as near 100% safe as possible unless you make your own alcohol / beer.

IF you want a much safer meal then try:-
Organic meat (or meat known to be none "brine'd" or messed about with in any way) pan fried in butter with a few herbs and mushrooms, seasoned with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny amount of Garlic and chili.

Pan fried fish, poached fish, Prawns, scallops etc..the list is endless and the opportunities to eat really well is only limited by your imagination and creativity in the kitchen.

I keep watching cooking programs and taking hints and ideas from them and adapting their methods to my HFI diet. and it works!

If you want a dressing to go on your spinach leaves then mix fresh squeezed lemon juice with olive oil and a little salt and pepper and shake it up a lot.. This will contain some fructose but so long as you are not using more than 1/2 a lemon per meal it is unlikely to cause any problems, certainly far less than any brand of "Balsamic" vinegar.

IF you want to be Fructose free then wine of any sort and Balsamic vinegar are your real enemies here.

I hope this helps

[dryope]

Hi Bill!

I think you all call arugula "rocket." It's on the "safe" list my nutritionist gave me. Though I can't eat much in that list, so I don't know why I believed her. It's just so green! Is cooked spinach safer than baby spinach? The online stats for this are not clear.

As for wine, some folks on this forum say dry wine is OK for them, as there is almost no fructose. I think some of this varies from person to person. But this may be in the "kidding myself" category. Still, fermented grape juice like in vinegar and dry wine loses almost all fructose, or so I hear. Lemon juice makes me sleepy, though.

Honey, I have celiac! Beer's gonna do bad, bad things. . I think vodka is safe, but....ugh. Where is the joy?

Sigh. Meat is vile and seafood is unthinkable, beyond a little tuna sushi here and there (I live in Japan). I think you must be right, though, but I was hoping to avoid a meat-filled life. Even eggs cause me problems, and one can only eat so much cheese. (And making it is so time consuming. But it's that or eat the plastic they sell in the stores.)

Anyway, thanks for the reply! I am a somewhat sad and hungry person right now, so it's nice to have someone commiserate.

[ukbill]

How are your Liver enzymes?

I agree with you about meat Given a chance I would be vegetarian as well. However I cannot eat anything else really so its the Cow, pig, duck, chicken fish or me.. Sorry but I vote for me!

So if I am going to eat meat then I make sure it is as tasty as possible and enjoy it out of respect the animal that died to provide me with the meal.

Humans are naturally carnivores after all.

Deep green is your friend in so far as Fructose content is concerned its the white stalks and leaves that cause us problems. that's where the Fructose is stored.

So if you buy a cabbage for example the outer green leaves are fine (in small quantities) so long as you cut the stalks out of them. the stalks and white cabbage is pure poison to us with HFI.

Rocket is one a plant I do not get on with. No idea why just not one I like to eat. I avoid it at all costs.

It is possible to brew your own "beer" and make it gluten free and HFI safe.

I would have thought the amount of Gluten in Barley is very low in the first place and the amount to get through the brewing has got to be extremely low.

If you go to a brewing shop (not sure they have them in Japan) buy glucose, hops and yeast and brew you own beer if you are worried about it that much.

You can also make HFI safe wines using flowers (for example) and glucose instead of normal sugar.

In the UK elder flower wine is fantastic if made with Glucose, however as with all things containing Glucose it has to be fully brewed out as the Glucose will be contaminated with Fructose, all glucose is.

Perhaps your question would be worth repeating on the FM proboards site? They have specialist FM advice on there.

[charlie]

Hey Tammy ......................... Are you sitting down, if not do so quickly as Bill's last post has mentioned the word (whisper)- glucose - (giggle)............ fall down in shock................

Hmm, I didn't answer your post earlier dryope as I didn't have time to even go there, and having been getting slightly irritated by things very easily recently and heading for a Charlie tantrum, thought I would stop and think first.

Ok, you don't know still which intolerance is your problem, and i don't know you as a person or what is going on in your life etc but why oh why are you drinking wine every night, or regularly anyway. surely alarm bells should be ringing with the very mention of the word. Any alcohol beverage is made using fermentation of sugars in some form or another from some plant or fruit or another therefore there is going to be an element of sugars still there in some form or another. If you have multiple sugar intolerances as I have suggested before to you then you need to decrease as much as you can.

People seem to be obsessed too about having some form of greens etc, No No No (sorry sounded like Bill again) To get the best response from the "sugar" free diets you really have to minimise ALL sugars for some considerable time to really clear the system first. And during this time you will find you react quicker and quicker to things and can start to recognise what is triggering. Once the system is healed and the villi in the intestines have had time to recover and have improved their absorptive abilities then you can start to add stuff in bit by bit but to start with it you must really be obsessive about it.

I have taken time to read back your original posts as its easy to lose track of who is who and you are celiac and finding reactions to various foods all of which tends to suggest your problem is in the small intestines so most likely are a very reactive FM especially as your genetic test has come back negative (although as we have said before that isn't an absolute negative just a less likely).....

Unfortunately alot of nutritionists don't have a full enough understanding of the content of fructose in foods so alot of things they think are Ok for those like yourself that are very sensative may find you need to limit down even more. Looking back at your various posts and what you have listed here you sound like you aren't as zero as you think you are with fructose or other sugars for that matter.

Lemonade you make isn't going to be ideal as the lemon juice used will have fructose in it, added glucose will elevate the "sugar" level so if your body is struggling to regulate sugars could be a trigger.

You mentioned hemochromatosis in your first posts, here is a link to their Uk site and they clealy state steer clear of alcohols but also you may have a difficulty on a high meat diet if you are taking on too much iron with it, especially offal and red meats. From the list of symptoms are you sure alot aren't to do with that? link to this page; www.haemochromatosis.org.uk/

So my suggestion, and what you do with it is entirely up to you.......... Is try to start thinking really positively about all this. Forget what you can't eat as that just won't help, you are allowed only a limited time to bemoan what you can't eat if you really want to crack this, start planning fun meals with what you can eat, you can use small amounts of herbs to add the "green" effect everyone seems to feel they need, become inventive but keep it simple. As you start to feel better, you will start to feel more positive, then you will feel even better and start to enjoy the food. Then, when you really feel your body is improving, then start reintroducing foods. But for now my dear i fear wine is definately off the list. Try herb teas in the evening, you can even cool them and put them in your wine glass if you feel that will help psychologically..... And don't skip breakfast, for everyone, never mind if you are ill or not breakfast is the most important meal of the day. meg has bacon and sausage on their own every morning and does really well on it. (check it is safe first, I stick to the same brand all the time)

Don't get too virtuous about meats, yes cheap meats can get contaminated but most of the middle range ones are fine and what alot of people find down the line is that where they think they have reacted to a meat is was actually what they had with it or even the meal before catching up...... Meats and fish have to be the mainstay of a safe "sugar" free diet to start with.

Eat little and often if I haven't said that already as then the small intestines don't get overtaxed at any one time.


Right, sermon over, hope this has helped. I think you just need to start over again. We all find this, you start, you think your there, you challenge the system, you wish you hadn't so you start over again, and again, and again, eventually you get the message......

[nicoleh]

I think I agree with Charlie!

I did want to add though that my DD is a human fructose detector and even if I eat any fructose, beyond the absolute bear minimum (about 30mg!) then she will react. Baby spinach (carefully de-stemmed) and rocket have been fine in small quantities (say 1/3 cup max) for me to eat. silverbeet/swiss chard has not.

This is not to say that you don't need to cut out the spinach and rocket too. But the wine and balsamic vinegar made me shiver on DD's behalf just thinking about eating them.

Meat might have to be something you just get used to. tastes do change when you change what you eat.

[ann]

Charlie, just wanted to say "thanks" for your above post. I needed to hear a lot of that too, again.

Ann

[dryope]

Wow, what an amazing and kind response from everybody! I'm so touched to have so much help and advice! You have to understand the complete and utter frustration bordering on hostility that I've gotten from the multiple doctors/nurses/nutritionists I've seen to know how much I appreciate this.

OK, I've done some digging. You all are a bit confusing on this board -- well, not just you, but the experts as well, who offer confusing lists even just for HFI (not to mention the "totally safe" DFI lists from the handful of respected researchers on this -- I'm looking at you, BU). I'll see people here say one thing, then someone else contradicts them -- like on the wine, which other people here say is OK, but on other stuff, too. That's only to be expected. Still, I trust you all more than I trust the researchers.

The only way to be sure is to get hard facts, not just of the exact brands of the food we're eating, but how it's being handled in our bodies individually. People here may have different versions of HFI or, like I suspect I am, just be some unluckily strict DFIers. So that kind of research is impossible right now.

I don't know what I have. My lunch yesterday set me shivering and my teeth chattering, which isn't a DFI symptom, and I hadn't been cold before then that day. I didn't have anything on me to test blood sugar, though. My liver panels have always been perfect, so likely not HFI, though. But then again, my mother said I've been avoiding sugary foods since I was a baby and threw up all the time when I was weaned, and I have always been pale/yellowy and underweight.

OK, so to sum up on all this food stuff I asked about:

- so, spinach and rocket/arugula are OK for some; others just do spinach without the stems/veins. Thanks -- that's good enough to get me experimenting with what I can tolerate here.

- "dry" wine varies quite a bit, but some companies have fructose and glucose as low as 1g/liter each. (http://www.enartisvinquiry.com/download/MSDS/Tech%20Sheet-Post%20Fermentation%20Panel%208.pdf) While dry sherry and brut champagne have 0 sugars, dry on its own can get significantly more than that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness_of_wine) So if I have DFI, I'm OK as long as I drink small amounts of very, very dry wines and feel OK drinking it; if I have HFI, probably not. It's probably best just to have half a glass with dinner, if I continue to drink it. (Research on hemochromatosis and alcohol shows that damage only occurs significantly above two servings of alcohol a day every day.)

- vinegar stats are also variable, but looks like balsamic is probably sweeter than I realize, about 2g of sugar per 1 tbl. (http://www.ibsfree.net/ibsfree_at_last/2010/03/what-about-vinegar.html) So annoying. So that's likely out. (Even if I have DFI and the glucose rate is higher, there's probably enough fructose in there to cause a problem.)

For the record, I don't use sucrose/glucose in anything, and I try to make all my own food. It's dextrose or nothing, and usually nothing (I only use dextrose if it's chemically necessary for the food, like in some baking recipes).

As for the celiac stuff...I've gotten sick off things that had less than 20 parts per million (much less than a crumb) of malt from contaminated equipment. No rye, barley, or wheat products for me, sadly. They are delicious, though. And home alcohol making is something I've been doing. I only have a year to wait now for all the sugars in my alcohols to turn into something drinkable. Sigh. (Here in Japan, we have very few ingredients for traditional alternative English home brewing, so I have to work with what I have.)

OK, here are some menus I've come up with. I'm glucose-free, aiming for fructose below 1g/day, am lactose intolerant (so only some dairy is OK), and can only have red meat once a week. How do these look to you?

************************************************

BREAKFAST

tea and homemade kefir

ALL DAY

wonderful full-leaf teas from this company (and I'll probably end up replacing my wine with these, too): www.teance.com/

LUNCHES

Rice, spinach, cheese salad or tuna stir fry

Oatmeal bannocks, bacon, cheddar, chives

Corn flour wraps, homemade Mexican cheese, small amount of cilantro -- as wrap/sandwich or baked enchilada with spinach

cold spanish tortilla (potato and egg frittata)

DINNERS

bacon and cheese omelets

meat and potatoes with butter and cheese

fish and rice with gluten-free soy sauce or lemon-butter sauce

risotto with lots of parmesan cheese

baked/fried chicken and creamy polenta

polenta and Hebrew National hot dogs with creamed spinach (or homemade corn dogs if I bother to buy a deep fryer)

- maybe 2 ounces of an extremely dry wine or dry sherry...maybe just get rid of alcohol altogether and only drink one gin and tonic at parties once or twice a year (the only cocktail I don't hate)

TRAVEL

Hotel (crock pot and rice maker): hot dogs, rice, spinach; bouillon/herbs, spinach, meat stew; strained and plain yogurt, rice, potato. (Celiacs can't eat out casually -- I've been glutened at even restaurants that try to be safe, so I can't usually eat out in Asia. In the states, I find a hotel near a Chipotle, which as low-fructose and gluten-free options and is delicious and cheap.)

Airplane travel (often 20-30 hours of travel time): corn tortilla wraps, salty oatmeal "cookies" (a savory with some rosemary and parmesan or similar herby/cheesy combination), lots of tea

************************************************

I'd really appreciate any thoughts. I've been trying to find a safe diet for years now, and you all would know better than anyone else if these are totally insane.

Again, thank you so much for not treating me like a freak or attention hog. I'm just a hungry person who's tired of feeling sick all the time.

[ukbill]

I think Charlie nailed it totally there!

My only additional comment is that Tuna is not the only fish.

Try others and Oily fish in particular (Salmon, Trout, etc) not sure what varieties are available where you are?

Try not to be squeamish food is food and we have to eat.. many very nasty looking things are very tasty and excellent in vitamins and minerals.

Sometimes you have to close your eyes and quickly chew and swallow (like fresh oysters).

Now there is something both very tasty and healthy for you.. if very nasty looking and have an ODD mouth feel!

I remember being goaded into it by my eldest child.. he nearly threw up watching me.. (he had lied about eating them before) so I made him eat the next one (they were fresh from the sea).

We both now enjoy them whenever we can get them.. but the first one or two.. take some eating I have to admit!

[colormist]

Man, I really want a hotdog now after reading your menu.

If you're still having a reaction after that menu, you might check the tuna ingredients (broth as an ingredient will have unsafe sugars in it), wrap ingredients, bacon ingredients (most are cured with sugar). It might just be the wine that's causing the reaction. If you omit ONLY wine for a week and find you feel better, then it might be best to keep it out of your diet.

However, as a whole, that diet sounds very delicious to me.

[dryope]

Thanks so much for your help! I'm buying only fresh food, apart from the starchy stuff, so fresh fish, making my own cheese and baked goods/wraps, etc. anyway, you all have given me hope that I can survive without getting sick.

Bill, my husband says the same thing about fish. I do eat salmon sashimi, but...well, maybe I'll get there one day.

I'm so glad I found out in this forum that Hebrew National hot dogs were safe. I haven't had the guts to buy bacon yet.

Wine's the only bit of fruit I can get, and while I hate eating fruit, I love the idea of it. Does that make sense? I'm not quite ready for just starches, meat, and cheese yet. I really hope the wine is OK. Not for the alcohol, which I'm not a fan of, but for a taste of fruit.

Oh well --I'm probably delusional.

[charlie]

YOU DON'T NEED FRUIT

YOUR BODY IS TRYING TO SHOUT IT OUT TO YOU AT THE MOMENT, FORGET FRUIT FOR NOW...................................

[charlie]

Sorry, feeling calmer, sorry no I'm not.

Nicole, Nicole, Nicole, please don't start falling into the trap yet of quoting your daughter as a fructometer. We have been there before on this board and it gets very confusing down the line as Dryope has very rightly pointed out earlier today.

With your current studying of nutrition I know you obviously know alot more than other about nutrition and digestion but you still are in the early days of diagnosis and your daughter is little and therefore cannot relay exactly what she is feeling. When they are small they seem to react to the slightest thing, but you have to add up not only the accumulation effect of foods but also life, bugs, teething, etc etc into the full picture.

I know you are aware that your whole family has "sugar" issues but you do need to be sure which one you have before quoting absolutes. Only Fred, Bill, Colormist, Regina, Little Carlitos and a few other (sorry if I have missed you out) positively diagnosed HFI can do that. and even then it is variable depending on mutations we think and age.

I have posted this recently but will repeat my experience to hopefully help you go in the right direction. When I came across this board, when I think Megs was 4, I was exhausted and despairing of ever getting any answers and then suddenly I had the answer - it was HFI. I could have staked my life on the fact that she had HFI and she did OK on the diet but still things were going on and she had various other tests for other things like epilepsy and glut deficiencies. Then recently we decided to do a sugar challenge and put her back on a "normal" diet. Well one thing is for certain - SHE DOES NOT HAVE HFI. She is not reacting to things as she should if she did. Now we are doing a sugar challenge with full metabolic work up with bloods and urine to see what is going on in 2 weeks time so maybe we will then have some better answers, but it may explain why she didn't react quite as she should on the HFI diet. And I can probably be accused of quoting her as an absolute in the early days when really I should have used her as a suggestion.

So why am I still here??? Well, apart from I enjoy the company (usually) and Chuck hasn't thrown me off (yet................) it is to hopefully help people like yourselves with the younger kids that don't quite fit...................

So yes, your daughter may still have HFI, I know you are pursuing tests for her and for now the low fructose diet is helping but please don't use her as a guide for others yet or more than me will start jumping up and down, at the moment they are hiding behind me, poking me...................

[Tammy]

Well said Charlie.
I am one that is standing behind her.......

[nicoleh]

Hi Charlie,

I understand why you don't want me to state her tolerances as guides for others, but I said "this is not to say that you don't need to cut out spinach and rocket yourself". I really don't think that it's unreasonable to mention her tolerances with a disclaimer such as this. I'll refrain from calling her a fructose detector until final diagnosis.

A couple of times you have said that you know my whole family has sugar issues. (you also suggested that my other kids might have CSID at one stage). I think you may be confusing me with someone else. My other children have no food intolerances at all (unless you count DD getting a tummy ache from capsicum) and I have never thought that they had any sugar issues at all - aside from the fact that sugar is bad for them (as for everyone) so I don't let them have very much. they used to have dairy casein and gluten reactivity as babies (not the lactose, breastmilk always fine) but these have been very successfully treated and they have been eating those foods ad libitum since 2 years old.

I would agree with you that IF my other family members had vague 'sugar issues' that DD's case would likely be something unrelated, but she is definitely the only one, and is incredibly sensitive.

once we removed the last fructose containing food from her intentional diet (save for accidents) - she actually has no symptoms at all. perfect health. and her exacerbations are clear from both blood results and symptoms, and they are to tiny quantities of fructose containing foods. So even if she does not have HFI, her reactions to foods may be useful information as to which foods are probably containing fructose.

I will be more careful in the future about what I post. We do have classic biochemical markers for HFI present in her blood tests and urine tests, a renal physician who has said that he believes she has HFI, and total amelioration of all her symptoms on a completely fructose free diet. Recently, a blood test has shown that she has classic HFI hypoglycaemia etc etc when she'd just ingested fructose. so it looks very much like she does have HFI and as I generally advise people to eat LESS fructose, not more, I am erring on the side of safety when I post, with a pretty reasonable idea of what DD's condition and tolerance is.

Do you, or Tammy, think that it would be just as effective and kinder sounding, to say "Nicole, could you please be careful to emphasise that since you haven't got a concrete diagnosis, that your DD's tolerance may be different to someone with confirmed HFI"?

I certainly would have responded well to that suggestion, as I am trying to do now, with a little more difficulty.

[charlie]

Hi Nicole, sorry if it sounded too strong,we do get a little over excited occasionally but it is important that people are clear on this condition and we have had this problem before. I am not disputing your daughter may have HfI,and you are doing the right thing in limiting her diet but I was getting confused with who was reacting, you or your daughter. If you want to discuss this further please feel free to pm me.

I am now confused though I thought your mother had suspected fructose problems and your daughters lactose and gluten could suggest familial sugar problems?...... Read your original post back, I always to back check as it gets easily confusing on this board of who is who.

Sorry if I have offended, I didn't think I was rude, just needed saying effectively, as I say we have been there before on this board and it quickly becomes very frustrating and concerning.

BTW. I had to edit that message several times....... That was a mild blast for me........ Time to head back to the FM board for a while and get that moving.......

[nicoleh]

Hi Charlie,
yes, sorry mine was perhaps a little strongly defensive as well. I apologise if I over did it too. I guess I am getting a little sick of people continually telling me that DD must just have a little FM (not here, doctors, family members) when her blood chemistry screams HFI at me. (though the docs haven't seen the latest bloods so I'm really hoping that will change sometime soon.) so perhaps I jumped on your post as another repeat of that same message.

Sorry I agree I have not always been clear about who was reacting. it is DD reacting to what I eat. we've done a few challenges now - 7ml of apple juice in my diet - obvious reaction in DD. some dextrose (definitely contaminated) - same deal - twice. and water chestnuts. However, I plan to do another re-challenge with me eating something sugary and follow it with a blood test to check that it's more than just the diarrhoea and drinking which she has had with it last times. Lucky dd enjoys her blood tests!

My mum also has suspected HFI - that's the only family sugar problems. (I wasn't even thinking of her when you said that, I only thought of me and the other dd's.) DD1 and 2 have never had a problem with lactose, just casein and gluten - and all are totally great now (thanks to better gut flora). I do agree it gets confusing! I may have said dairy originally in my first post but it was def the casein as they were ok on goat/sheep milk and with my very sugary breastmilk and also tablets containing lactose.

anyway I need to ask a few more questions of the experienced HFI'ers and update on what's happened here in the last few weeks before we see the specialist again on Tuesday, so I think I'll start a new thread rather than tie up this one.

I did head over to the FM board - quiet as you say. pity, it looks like you've put a lot of effort into it.

[ukbill]

Deep breaths Charlie Deep breaths..

Dryope just to confirm what Charlie is saying.. we DO NOT need fruit in our diets 24 /365, no body dose!

A vegetarian Diet is not healthier than a mostly carnivorous diet.

Look at who needs vitamin supplements?

Yes its vegetarians and Vegans who need both vitamin and mineral food supplements.

So if Fruit and vegetables are so very healthy and full of vitamins (as we keep getting told) why do people who eat only them need food supplements?

Its because they have deficiencies in their diet!

Look historically:-

Humans until recently (in the last 50 years) only EVER got fruit during late summer to Autumn parts of the year, the rest of the year we had No fruit at all.

Its the same with root vegetables (which have a higher proportion of sugars in them than leaf type) they were only generally available from late autumn to spring.

The only foods that were available the year round were meat, fish and dried pulses and grains and a few preserved fruits and vegetables in the more recent past (not more than the last 500 years and if you were rich enough).

So the Human body is mostly adapted to eating meat and fish based diets, yes in some parts of the world where fruit and veg grow all the year around things were and are different..

But do they live any longer?? No they do not. Do they suffer horribly from malnutrition?? Yes frequently. Will they get meat at every opportunity? Yes almost in every case.

Yes for good working of the internal organs a small amount of vegetable fiber is advisable but is not essential every day .

If you are HFI or have a similar problem with dietary sugars and the like, and continue to try to eat a mostly vegetarian diet then you are not only condemning yourself to a highly limited diet but also you will remain constantly sick, ill and depressed.

Your choice.

I know eating animals is not nice.. I love animals of all types and eating sentient beings for food is not nice. However what choice do we actually have?

What choice do they have?

Do you have a cat? Tried feeding that a vegetarian diet?

I always wonder at people who are vegetarians and in particular Vegans (and I know a few) and who keep cats and dogs and feed them on meat..

They would not have an animal killed to feed (or cloth in the case of Vegans) themselves but are happy for an animal to be killed so their Cat and or Dog can be fed??

I find that a very limited and strange way of thinking, but unfortunately very common.

If genetic scientists want to actually do something useful with their knowledge? I really wish they would genetically modify a Cow, Sheep, Pig, fish so they have no self knowledge and brain.

So we can grow meat in Hydroponic vats and all eat healthier meat with a clear conscience.

[nicoleh]

shellfish have no brain, if that helps!

[urmensch]

Dryope,

You might want to double check that you are indeed celiac. I thought I was for
years, but puzzled over reactions to fruit and also problems with dairy. After
reading this forum, I found that carrots were a problem and confirmed that
sweet potatoes were also bad for me. Some others here are also dairy intolerant,
and I took their advice to try hard aged cheese, and that was OK. Then realizing
the bread seems to be a staple here I began trying that. Store bought bread
was a disaster, home made bread using mass market flour was just as
bad, but if I am very careful and use artisan grade organic white flour
with no sugar and long rise times, then it seems to be OK. The problem
was not gluten, but the barley malt and/or sugar that is almost always added
without telling us. Barley malt has enzymes that convert starch into
sugar! The things they add to flour may be different for you (I am in
the USA).

There are two fruits that I can still eat: limes and avocados. California
and Mexican limes are not sweet at all, and they are often listed as'
zero fructose. Lemons are sweeter, as are limes from some other
parts of the world and all other citrus. Another trick is to use a pressure
cooker to reduce the fructose in vegetables. Fructose decomposes at
temperatures above 100 C.

Fructose intolerance is often confused with celiac, but the
diets are different. You don't want to exclude anything more
than you have to. The problem foods for me contain fructose,
galactose or alcohol. All are processed by the liver before
they can be used for energy.