Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Pork a no-no?

Does anyone here react to pork? I thought all meats were safe but someone wrote that pork is inflammatory, better to stick to chicken, lamb, and beef. It's getting so confusing because in certain diets, all meats are considered inflammatory.

A few days ago I had severe pain in my back and remember eating a lot of pork the day before, but I can't be sure if it was really the pork because I'd also eaten ice cream and scallions, also possible culprits.

Where I am the cheaper kinds of meat are chicken, duck and pork. Beef is expensive.

Help!!!

I'd blame the ice cream before blaming the pork. It's usually red meat that's considered inflammatory. The problem could also be any coating on the pork, or possibly anything injected into the meat to make it more flavorable. I'm always leery of any cheap meat, especially from the big box stores.

--Greg

Wow.

My diet is based on meat and eggs. To be honest I think I'm doing well on the diet, and if I had to stop eating meat I don't know if I would be able to continue.

Yes meat is expensive, but I find that now that I don't eat on the street I have more money for buying whatever I'm going to eat at home.

I don't like straight pork, but I have never noticed a problem with bacon as long as it does not have spices in it. The stuff I eat has salt and celery extract for flavoring. gbash is right about plain meat being fine, it's only things they add to it that cause problems. For instance, I was dismayed to learn that frozen turkeys here in the US often get injected with flavorings that include modified food starch -- that lesson was learned the hard way, after one of my joints started acting up after eating such turkey at a potluck.

ice cream more likely could trigger a flare.

but the meat - if processed and with aditives - can give me problems also.

my naturpath gave me a list of common triggers. but then also had me do blood testing for food sensitivities.

i tested very sensitive to casein, the milk protein in dairy, and mildly sensitive to eggs (assuming one or more of the egg proteins).

though my reaction to dairy is "subtle", i've always seen the connection (since i started with issues at the age of 30) to dairy (gastritis (inflammation of the stomach) flares), but realize that dairy may have been bothering my joints as well. staying off of dairy does seem to help me a lot, both my GI system and joints do seem better off of it.

everything else came out fine, including all of the grains. and i've tested negative for celiac a number of different ways (biopsied, antibody tests, gene tests). but i still do a low starch diet because so many here swear by it and it does help with my insulin resistance / metabolic syndrome.

so, it may be that you do have a food sensitivity to pork, or as others have suggested, could be something else. i'd keep a food / symptom diary and see if plain pork, maybe a "grass fed" / "organic" cut cooked plainly at home makes you flare to test it.

you are right, pork after lamb is supposed to be the lest food allergen producing of the meats. other proteins are more common allergens, like the cow casein in milk, my food sensitivities are typical.

pork is a common trigger for some migraine sufferers, so i wouldn't be surprised if it aggravated some of us with AS. i recommend reading labels. i eat breyers ice cream because it tends to be all natural, but still always check the label, you never know when a manufacturer will change something.

we just have to remain in that habit of reading, preparing most of our own food if not all, and testing everything. i've seen food journals recommended, and think that would be a very good idea, especially if you are struggling with possible triggers.

Hey, Kristine:

All meats and egg yolks are pro-inflammatory because they contain AA (Arachidonic Acid) and/or precursors. So people with arthritis have extolled the virtues of vegetarianism for many years and I was unfortunate enough to buy into it, costing me considerable health.

When just starting NSD, it is important to know the potential participation of meats, but if You are strict enough otherwise, the AA will not be invited to the party; inflammation should not start up in the first place.

However, new to NSD and no gut healing yet and even a tiny amount of starch can trigger a flare response. Also, fatty meats (especially pork that for many reasons I do not eat) contain a type of fat that will stick like glue to the intestinal walls and conduct, seemingly, the bad bacterium right into our lesions. If eating a lot of fat, especially that has been cooked (denatured--hydrophillic) it is also important to supplement with EFA (Essential Fatty Acids--oils especially EVOliveOil, fish oil, borage seed oil and others like flaxseed, etc); these are hydrophobic and exclude water and serve to coat the tract and exclude bacteria, even smother and displace the Candida fungus to some extent.

In early stages of NSD, lactose in ice cream can also cause a flare. Klebsiella is also a milk-fermenter, and converts lactose and galactose into simpler sugars, in the process it multiplies. Combination of ice cream and fatty meat is probably a factor; we need to speed up the foods through our systems but these would tend to slow things down enough for the enemy to multiply at familiar geometric rates.

Bon Appetit,
John