Connect
Turbocharging the body's healing efforts
Givens: (1) We know that some sufferers with lung disorders experience spontaneous improvement. (2) Whatever we can do to amp up our body's natural tendency toward health is a worthwhile undertaking. (3) It is well established that our gut microbiota interacts with other systems in our body, notably the brain and the LUNGS. (4) It is also well established that the beneficial microbes in our gut thrive on resistant starch and fermented foods. Resistant starch is a starch that isn't digested in the small intestine but travels on to the Colon where it ferments. (5) Naturally fermented foods, e.g., kraut, kimchi, some pickles, yogurt are equally helpful in establishing and maintaining gut health. (6) It seems reasonable believe that anything we can do to foster a "kick ass" healthy gut will devolve to the benefit of our lung health.
Foods that provide resistant starch include cooked and cooled oats, legumes, rice, barley, potatoes, and generally cooked starchy vegetables. And if you're worried that starches will pork ya up, betcha can't remember a time when you noticed an obese person and thought they'd been eating too much acorn squash, sweet potatoes, or beans, brown rice and so on. You know better: too much high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar processed foods. I enjoy and take a quiet satisfaction in making kimchi and eating 2-3 ounces daily. Being involved in battling this condition on my own turf with the work of my own hands is reminiscent of Daniel Pecaut's experience conveyed in his book, Beating Bronchiecstaisis. Let's do it. Don
Like
Helpful
HugInterested in more discussions like this? Go to the MAC & Bronchiectasis Support Group.
Connect
@thumperguy
That's some great information!
I so agree we need to try and be proactive with our food selections
I do buy the large fermented saurkrauts from Costco in the cooler section. I found out it's really good thrown in with my Italian salads.
Shari
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
2 ReactionsHello! Loved ready this. I too purchased and read "beating bronchiectasis" and am applying a lot of his advice and what you have said to a new lifestyle. I have a repeat CT scan next August and my goal is to have a great improvement in the results. Have not tried the kimchi yet though. Hope it tastes ok 🙂
Shari, How ’bout describing your Italian salad.
gj, IMO kimchi is little more than jazzed-up sauerkraut. It’s nutritional profile is expanded by dint of whatever Else you choose to add to it. So since you’re familiar with sauerkraut you’ll probably be okay with kimchi. I’ll add though I much favor my own concoction over “store-bought.
@thumperguy
Sure my Italian salad is made with Good Seasons packets of Italian dressing and mix with good Olive Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother. Use romaine and leaf lettuce tomatoes, black olives, cucumber, pepperocini and put the sauerkraut on top. Since the salad is already tangy the kraut blends in well. I saw someone on a video on beating cancer who ate two huge salsads like this every day with kraut and everything else in the salad.
I'm pretty much have gone vegetarian except for fish and eggs now so I eat lots of salads.
Shari
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 ReactionThank you so much for the info, pep talk and most of all...the reference! I’ll read anything and try most things! All about “my way” “with a little help from my friends”!
thanks @pfists- Shari for that fantastic salad, I will gove it a go. I am also Vegetarian except fish and eggs so just my cup of tea.
Shari, You're probably gonna think I'm the Grinch who took the enjoyment out of eating. At that risk I'll tell you that since 2007 I've been eating an exclusively low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet. It was prompted by reading a remarkable book by Emeritus Cornell Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry, T. Colin Campbell who authored a book with a regrettably misleading title called The China Study which The New York Times deemed to be the most comprehensive study of human nutrition ever undertaken. Campbell is of a mind with a comparatively small cadre of like-minded physicians, dieticians and hangers-on like me who champion this way of eating. At least two of those physicians have conducted research which yielded angiographic evidence that this way of eating, strictly pursued, can actually not only arrest, but reverse heart disease: Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. and Dean Ornish.
In my "down-home" way of thinking I figure if this way of eating can reverse heart disease it's probably good for me too, even though I don't have heart disease. Now here's the part you're probably not gonna like. The "low-fat" element is no where near the "anything below 30% of calories from fat the the USDA considers "low." The diet that Esselstyn and Ornish consider low-fat is at or below 10% of calories from fat. It's difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve that level without jettisoning cooking oils from one's diet. Here's a section from a plant-based nutrition blog I used to write which explains the rationale.
My Early Light posting last time included the following verbiage, “…Cornucopia of seven or eight colorful vegetables steaming in a Wok with a splash of water…” There’s a stealth health message in them there words, drawing so little attention to itself that you may have missed it. It involves a significant departure from the Standard American Diet (SAD) and it’s the fact that I used no oil in cooking the vegetables. Truth to tell,I use no oil in any of my food prep. Not even olive oil one might ask? Correct. Not even olive oil. And here’s why.
To begin with olive oil isn’t a food but a highly refined, processed food extract. It has no protein or essential amino acids, it has no carbohydrates, it has no fiber, it has no minerals and almost no vitamins except a little vitamin E and some phytosterols. So if it’s not a food, what is it? Well, it’s pure fat, and nothing in your food pantry or on the planet is more calorie-dense. Most oils are low in Omega 3 fats (which we need more of) and very high in Omega 6 fats (which most American need less of) It’s true that both of these fatty acids are “essential,” but most American diets are heavily unbalanced in favor of Omega 6’s which is undesirable.
A convenient definition of a junk food is a food that’s calorie-dense (high fat, high sugar and usually high salt) and has little or no nutrient value. Assessed in this way cooking oils, including olive oil, are checkmated.
But if you really feel you need olive oil, why not go for the gusto. Eat a few olives and have the benefit of the WHOLE FOOD with its marvelous symphony of interacting nutrients, not just the processed extract of pure fat. Stay tuned.
This post, other than being about an increasingly popular and healthful way of eating, has nothing to do with Bronchiecstasis and MAC which arouses concern in me that I'm at risk of becoming persona non Grata on this discussion board. Don (Thumperguy)
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 Reaction@thumperguy I found Daniel Percauts book fantastic also!
@pfists Thats a great idea, I was trying to eat if by a few tablespoons, it was spicy, no wonder. Haha
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 Reaction