Balance Your Diet

I recently read an article that a colleague of mine posted on Facebook. The article suggests that meat in dairy and even some fibrous foods kill gut flora and cause intestinal inflammation. Before I even read the article I commented that this could not possibly be true. In the GAPS diet, for example, there is a point where you will eat nothing but bone soup, ginger and honey. Now if the doctor who developed the GAPS diet found some success in a diet that mostly consists of meat and vegetables, that alone is a legitimate argument against the information given in this article.

The article, however, did say some things that I will agree with. Dairy, for example, can cause inflammation in some. Such individuals need to really watch it when they eat things like yogurt, which is actually supposed to help gut flora. Unfortunately, until there gut is healed the yogurt will only hurt them more. The doctors who developed the dietary protocols to heal autoimmune disease/leaky gut syndrome, do mention watching out for irritants such as eggs and dairy.

It's very possible that what the article meant was that the acidic nature of meat could actually kill gut flora. This I can actually believe, but even my nutritionist was very clear about raising the amount of fruits and vegetables in my diet; just not raw fruits and vegetables right away.  I had to start eating them cooked or cultured.  Part of the reason for this, I believe is to help raise the ph balance which creates a very unfriendly environment for Candida, (the main culprit of leaky gut syndrome). I just feel that people need to be extra careful when reading such articles because one may feel that they shouldn't eat meat at all. This is where we need to be careful no matter which leaky gut healing diet one chooses, balance is always key.