Bringing meat back.

I was confronted and challenged when I recently caught up with some people at Nutrition Diagnostics who said that vegetarianism and veganism is voluntary malnutrition. I was challenged. To hear that was going against alot of what I thought about vegetarinism and healthy eating...and mind you alot of what I changed and read about over the past 3 years. I thought for my gut to be healthy I needed to eat no meat and lots of fruit and vegetables. I also ate no cheese, milk products (except for occasional goats cheese and milk) and no cream. I did ocasinally have yoghurt for its pro-biotic factors.

I thought that eating meat was what was causing alot of the digestive problems in society today and that we needed to cut back on what we ate. And me being me..I just quit animal altogether. I had read and learnt that especially eating red meat, when digested, stays in the gut for too long and rots in our GI tract and causes bad fermentation and therefore the diseases that are known today. I have heard mentioned that bowel cancer is on the rise due to our increased meat intake. I would beg to differ and say that we have gut problems from the increased junk food, carbs, sugar and carcinogenic foods we ingest. AND alcohol also. I recently went to a mental health seminar and a psych nurse of 25 years stated that she hasn't seen any drug cause so much damage to the body, both physically and mentally, than that of alcohol!! Just a thought.

There is always evidence and research to back up whatever we want, depending on what companies are paying for the research. Since being enlightened by the importance of meat I have found alot of good research talking about the importannce of having animal product apart of everyday meals. There are some great books that talk about the benfit of animal protein. Such as 'The Maker's Diet' and 'Nourishing Traditions.' Definitely worth a read. The Weston A. Price website www.westonaprice.org  is also another great resource and an article called 'The Protien Debate' by Dr. Loren Cordain and Dr. T. Colin Cambell. It is a good article debating both sides.

Apparently you cannot get complete protien from plant based food. Only from animal based foods. Our bodies need complete protien. Protien builds and repairs the body in so many ways. To take that out of the diet is taking away its building and fighting mechanisms. I noticed this significantly when I wasnt eating meat for about 3 years. I lost a significant amount of weight due to my body's loss of protien and it turned on itslef and started to eat its own protein (muscle). I lost muscle mass and could not tone no matter how much exercise I did. I was getting increasingly tired and easily picked up colds and flus. From my blood chemistry my body was starting to head into an auto-immune state.

To lose weight is not always a good thing. Losing fat is good but not muscle. To have a strong, toned and healthy looking body means that your body is in a healthy place to ward off disease and sickness. It also means that the muscle in your digestive tract is also strong and healthy which will aid good digestion and cut down the likely hood of infection and disease in the GI tract. A crohns/irritable bowel/celiacs/anyone for that... matter person wants to have a strong healthy gut lining. The lining of the gut is muscle and to strengthen it you need to eat animal protein/good fats and exercise.

Another huge key factor in having a clean and healthy gut lining is having good fats. When you eat a diet high in animal product you will be having good fats. This will dramatically help the digestion process. Some good fats include coconut oil, avocado oil, macadamia oil, olive oil (cold only), all grass feed, local meats, eggs, butter, cream, good quality cheeses, coconut cream and coconut milk.

When I started eating meat and good fats and significantly decreased my carb intake I noticed a huge difference in my digestive tract and stools. Quite amazed. To be honest I had pain reduced in my gut to nil and my stools  became clean and smooth and easy!! Which says sooooo much about your tract. Thats something you are very aware of when you have gut problems. What comes out tells you what is going on inside. Maybe I shoud do a blog on stools!! More to come...

Thanks for reading, Have a great day.

Em.

Starting up the blog again...

Its been nearly 7 years since my crohn's diagnosis and emergency surgery. I have had a drastic change in diet and lifestyle. I have learnt an incredible amount about food, sickness and health and am continually learning more. I married an amazing man 4 years ago and we now have two boys aged 22 months and 9 weeks. I stopped my blog for a while and deleted a lot off it as life was too hectic with pregnancy and babies. I had no head space for writing as I wasn't well with pregnancy and  life after babies is chaotic. So I shut it down. I have of late had quite a few people wondering where it went and many still ask me about health and digestive issues and about my story. So I thought I would revive the site again and slowly add more info and thoughts to the blog. Hopefully it encourages you in your health journey and at least leads you to some useful and helpful info that has helped me along the way.

I have had fairly good health for the past 7 years. I am conscious of what I eat as I am aware that with crohns disease I can go backwards and flare up quickly. Statistically people with crohns have a bowel resection every 5-10 years with much of life in and out of hospital with flare ups. During my pregnancy I struggled to eat well as I was vomiting and unwell most days. I wasn't as strict with my diet for that period of time and resorted to a lot of comfort carbs as you do when pregnant and some crohns symptoms re-appeared. Once we cleaned things back up again the symptoms also cleared up. I wasn't as strict as I had been pre pregnancy when I was pregnant. I vomited daily and didn't keep a huge amount down. But obviously enough for my bub to grow. It was hard being sick daily though pregnancy and trying to eat well. Most days consisted of sourdough toast with apricot jam and potato in many different ways. I also ate some good old road house meat pies and lots of very cold chocolate milks.

Now 2 months post partum. I am getting back on track with food again. Getting back to more low carb, healthy fats (LCHF). I am lucky to have a very supportive husband who is also convicted in eating this way as he notices his health is much better for it also. Its a continual journey of learning and experimenting. Even more so when a chronic illness is evident and can rear its ugly head so quickly and easily. I also believe healthy eating helps the mind, causes us to be aware of where our food is coming from, brings simplicity into our lives and teaches us respect for our bodies. It can only be a good thing.