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Top foods to avoid (if you don’t want to do an elimination diet)

By Mikhaila

If doing an all out elimination diet isn’t feasible for you, or if you’re relatively healthy and just looking to improve your energy or lose a few pounds, avoid these foods:

  1. Gluten – You know those stereotypical Californian girls who don’t eat gluten “because it makes you fat” but they don’t exactly know what it is? Well they were right anyways. He who laughs last right? Anyways, gluten is composed of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin. It looks like gliadin is really what’s bad for people. Yes, all people. Not just people either, mammals. I have a more in-depth post here, which I’ll add to eventually. The gluten molecule is in these foods: wheat, rye, barley, kamut, spelt… And those foods are everywhere. Twizzlers, soya sauce, bbq sauce, any thick sauce or soup, some chocolate bars.
  2. Dairy – Cow’s milk is for baby cows. The dairy industry has everyone convinced that you need milk to have healthy bones. This is a blatant lie. The highest rates of osteoporosis are in countries that drink milk. You can get your calcium from greens, or if you’re really worried you can supplement, but dairy should be avoided. Yes, unfortunately this includes cheese. Don’t worry, the cravings don’t last for more than 3 weeks.

Eliminating these two foods should make a huge difference. Don’t just cut back, get rid of them. If you really want to lose weight fast, also cut down on processed foods and grains. Eat whole foods (but avoid grains). Basically eat meat, green vegetables and root vegetables. That’ll make you thin and healthy fast. Don’t eat candy, eat less sugar (or no sugar), drink soda water instead of pop, all those obvious things. But if all you can do is cut these two foods, that should help fairly quickly. Cut them out strictly though.

If you cut those two out and want to cut out more, get rid of these next:

  1. Soya (and other legumes – kidney beans, black beans, etc.)  – anything that makes you bloat you just shouldn’t eat. Your body doesn’t like it, and it’s important to listen to that kind of thing. Green beans don’t seem to be in the same category as the bigger beans.
  2. Grains – make you gain weight.  Rice, quinoa, oats, etc. They’re empty. They’re not like gluten containing grains but they’re not good for you. You want meat and veggies and fats to be healthy. (This is why the vegetarian diet is such a bad idea. Dairy and grain =  seriously bad times, and at least if you’re vegan you get rid of the dairy.)
  3. Sugar – people know sugar is bad but they don’t really know why. Our microbiome is really important and the bacteria in our gut compete with yeast. Sugar feeds the yeast. There are many other reasons but this is a big one. It’s hard to cut out too. I had the most difficult time with dairy and sugar cravings.

The simplest way to eat healthily is to eat whole foods, without grains and dairy.

But if you’re really sick, I still think an elimination diet is the best way to figure things out. Sometimes there isn’t time though, so start with those first two foods!

There are lots of people who will argue about whether certain foods are bad for you, or good for you. I wasn’t a huge grain advocate but I was most definitely a milk advocate and oh I was wrong. Try it out yourself, and then decide.

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17 Comments

  1. It makes sense if you think about it. In the wild, fruiting period of trees and grains is 2months per year (near the fall but it depends on plant), so cold-dwelling hominids dont really have access to sugar except for a few months of the year.

    I was always under impression that sugar and salt were the bane of the western world, because theyre SEVERAL orders of magnitude nore available than in nature. And hyper concentrated into crystals to boot… Can anyone imagine eating a spoonfull of crystalized squid protein?

    Milk and gluten is a close second contendwr for to bad guys, but there seem to be more people that can tolerate it. Carbs from grains and tubers are a third worst, even if gluten is ignored, we do eat a lot more of it than we should.

    As to the good…. We seem to be adapted to fungi, meat of all kinds, and herbaceous vegetables (salads, cabbage, celery etc). And longer periods without food, than 3 times a day.

    1. This comment is so late coming I hope you even see it.

      My husband eats MAYBE once a day and usually at night (he’s a night owl); my 20 yo son and I eat one meal per day (ideally a very early dinner, around 3:30pm), then snack a bit throughout the evening. We seem to be healthy enough (at least as healthy as one can be with minimal exercise and all the crap being sprayed on us). I couldn’t imagine trying to stuff threee meals a day down my throat!

      This flies in the face of all conventional wisdom, and I rarely hear/read it discussed.

  2. Hi Mikhaila,
    Hope you enjoyed the weekend. I’m heading out east today and I’m looking forward to having Dad start his food elimination rather then continue with hospital food where he is basically eating carbs and sugar. I know lunches and dinners will be no problem. I’m just having a tougher time thinking of creativity around breakfast. What are your thoughts on eggs? Your Dad speaks to having a high protein breakfast with fats. My father who is recovering from the stroke is having physio 3xs a day so a high protein breakfast would be great for him due to the amount of exercise he has to have. He has had polio so fatigue, muscle weakness is part of the after effects of this disease. I’m going to discontinue sugars except apples and pineapple (bromlein is in pineapple and it acts as an anti inflammatory). You were talking about apple cider vinegar so I figure, apples would be ok??

    1. I had the least issue with pears and apples. Pineapple was an issue.. And eventually the sugar in all fruit became an issue. Or I became aware of it, I’m not sure. If you can manage to drastically reduce gluten, dairy, and processed foods and sugar, I think you’ll see a huge difference even if you end up keeping a bit of fruit. You can decide about those fruits later.

  3. Hi Mikhaila. I for sure have a milk and wheat allergy and have many of the candida symptoms as well. I know what I should be doing in terms of my diet, but a stressful and unpredictable job seems to always make me break the diet out of convenience. I often have a lot of rebounds which as you can imagine worsens my symptoms/mood. I almost feel like a patient who goes off their medicine because they feel better, only to get worse lol. Any suggestions for sticking with the diet I should be eating? Also, what do you do for snacks? I lift and always look to get protein in, but not being able to cook meat 24/7 can make that hard (and jerky is expensive). Thanks.

    1. I’m trying to figure out how to make this as convenient as possible. It’s definitely not convenient, but my husband manages it if I’m not around. I’ll make a post about this eventually. It’s on my to do list. There’s a big learning curve. I do eat a lot of jerky (home made) which is definitely worth doing. I’ll write that up to, but it’s super quick, super easy, and a great source of protein. It’s also wayyyy cheaper than buying it.

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