Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Huggy Bear Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
Speaker 1: So this is the mod squad. What I'm just mixing metaphors.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who said it this way, but ever
Speaker 1: since I was researching this, I've been saying in my head, elimination.
Speaker 1: What is that? From? Oh me? And uh? It sounds
Speaker 1: like a mad doctor. Maybe a little bit of German
Speaker 1: and latka from taxi. I have no idea. Well, when
Speaker 1: I think elimination, I think that, you know, the term
Speaker 1: for pooping something out. So it makes me think that
Speaker 1: it's like the diet where you just poop everything out
Speaker 1: and you get skinny that way. Oh yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that's not what it is, but that's what I think about. Man.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for people with poop problems too. It's
Speaker 1: a tough thing me too, whether you can't or you
Speaker 1: do too much, or it's just unpleasant one way or another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's bad stuff. Yeah, and that has to
Speaker 1: do with this, because IBS is certainly one condition where
Speaker 1: one might want and we should do a show on that.
Speaker 1: But where one might want to propose an elimination diet,
Speaker 1: you can say it like that whole time. No that
Speaker 1: I was hoping you were. I'll do one more rule
Speaker 1: of threes. I'll do one more at some point, but
Speaker 1: just out of out of nowhere. Huh, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: know what's coming. You know, there's a chance that you'll
Speaker 1: forget to do it again. Probably. Okay, that's the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. Why under deliver, So, Chuck, we're talking
Speaker 1: about elimination diets, Yes we are. And um, that doesn't
Speaker 1: really mean that you poop your your pounds away. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really have anything to do with losing weight, actually,
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth. And yet it is one
Speaker 1: of the hottest trends right now in America at least,
Speaker 1: if not the Western general. Where you you cut out
Speaker 1: a bunch of foods and then you add them back
Speaker 1: to see if there's something behind whatever is bothering you,
Speaker 1: whether it's irritable bowel syndrome, whether you get headaches, whether
Speaker 1: you get tired at three pm, whatever it is, you
Speaker 1: change your lifestyle temporarily, slowly add back all of the
Speaker 1: components that made up your lifestyle and try to identify
Speaker 1: the thing that was messing with you, and that's an
Speaker 1: elimination diet. And it's all the rage right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is uh, I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: controversies starry word. Sure, let's say it. It can be
Speaker 1: controversial in that. Uh. Sometimes someone goes through a doctor,
Speaker 1: orange nutritionist or some kind of health professional too for
Speaker 1: an assistance with something like this, But many times these
Speaker 1: days people will just do it themselves. Yeah mostly I
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, which isn't inherently bad. Um, if you
Speaker 1: if you do it the right way, you can learn
Speaker 1: a lot about your body and what foods work best
Speaker 1: for you. But it can also go wrong in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Uh, so let's let's get into it.
Speaker 1: That's my little caveat. I guess well, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: more about that later, right, yeah for sure. Okay, alright, So, um,
Speaker 1: you kind of hit upon how some people go to
Speaker 1: see like a nutritionist or a doctor to do an
Speaker 1: elimination diet, and that's originally where the whole thing started.
Speaker 1: This is an outgrowth of basically a medical procedure where
Speaker 1: if you say, I don't really feel very good, I
Speaker 1: my poops are all over the place. Um, I fall
Speaker 1: as equhile I'm talking to people, I get headaches. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling kind of anxious. There's a whole suite of of
Speaker 1: things that I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that I feel like is
Speaker 1: wrong with me, and I'm starting to suspect that it
Speaker 1: might have something to do with my diet. So I'm
Speaker 1: here to see you doctor nutritionist m D. And the
Speaker 1: nutritionists will say, what, chuck, I don't know what. What
Speaker 1: will they say? Maybe they'll say elimination diet. Yeah, they'll say,
Speaker 1: I propose an elimination diet. And uh that is the
Speaker 1: sort of middle of the road, legit way to do this. Again,
Speaker 1: most people do this uh d I Y style, and
Speaker 1: that's it's not necessarily a bad way to do it.
Speaker 1: But we're here to tell you how you should go
Speaker 1: about that. We're not doctors or nutritionists. A good point,
Speaker 1: but there are some pretty brainless steps that if you
Speaker 1: don't follow, you could end up you could end up
Speaker 1: making things work right, which is again why why this
Speaker 1: is originally a medical procedure that was kind of hijacked
Speaker 1: and done not that great all the time, But In
Speaker 1: addition to UM this elimination diet, which we'll go through
Speaker 1: in a second steps of it. UM, you you UM
Speaker 1: are probably also going to get a skin prick test
Speaker 1: where they will UM, well, they prick your skin to
Speaker 1: see if they get an allergic reaction from you or
Speaker 1: UM and or a blood test. But here's part of
Speaker 1: the problem, and I suspect that this is why some
Speaker 1: people do this on their own. The skin prick test
Speaker 1: is not an infallible test, and even a blood test
Speaker 1: for things like food sensitivities and food allergies are UM.
Speaker 1: I saw it. They give false positives around like sevent
Speaker 1: of the time, which that's not a test that's worse
Speaker 1: than chance. It sounds like, I mean, that's terrible. It's
Speaker 1: a terrible track record, if you'll remember back from our
Speaker 1: extreme really confusing false positives episode. So I think that's
Speaker 1: probably why some people do it on their own, is
Speaker 1: there's like, I don't need the blood test or the
Speaker 1: skiin prick tests. I can do this myself. That leads
Speaker 1: me into this statu you know of Americans think they
Speaker 1: have a food allergy when only three and four do.
Speaker 1: But just because you don't have a food allergy, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about allergy, sensitivities and intolerances. Uh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that like if you quit drinking and
Speaker 1: eating sugar and loading down with carbs, you're you might
Speaker 1: feel a lot better. Yes, And some people suspect that
Speaker 1: this is what's really behind an elimination diet because just
Speaker 1: just from the the attention that you pay to what
Speaker 1: you're eating or not eating and to your health in general,
Speaker 1: that it forces you to to to adopt that's um.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's gonna have probably a positive beneficial effect
Speaker 1: right that in and of itself, But that's not to
Speaker 1: say that it doesn't actually do something more than that. Um,
Speaker 1: And it has to do a lot with food allergies
Speaker 1: and sensitivities and stuff. And let's take a break and
Speaker 1: then we'll talk about all that. How about that great
Speaker 1: h so before we get going with allergies. I wish
Speaker 1: I could remember his name, But with that last story
Speaker 1: about the diabetes, I did have one listener right in
Speaker 1: after that episode and really kind of sent a very
Speaker 1: sweet and loving email about me and my health. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back and find out who it was,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know who you are. If you sent
Speaker 1: that and that did this is before even this weird
Speaker 1: false positive, But it meant a lot to me and
Speaker 1: and kind of kick me into gear even before that test.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great man, Yeah, it was very nice. Um.
Speaker 1: So back to allergies. We did a pretty good episode
Speaker 1: on allergies. Uh. We know that allergies are a defense
Speaker 1: against what it thinks is a harmful invader, whether it's
Speaker 1: a virus or some other kind of sickness. Um. But
Speaker 1: with allergies and food allergies especially, a lot of times
Speaker 1: it can get it wrong, and you can have your
Speaker 1: body can think it's wording off an invader that's not
Speaker 1: really an invader, right it it as far as you're concerned,
Speaker 1: it's the exact same thing. You can have an allergic reaction.
Speaker 1: Your body sends either T cells or immunoglobulin cells um
Speaker 1: that go to the site and say, oh, yeah, look
Speaker 1: we've got a foreign invader. You in flame, you start
Speaker 1: a fever, you make this stuff, make make everything itchy,
Speaker 1: and you have an immune response amounted. Now that's really good.
Speaker 1: Like you said, if there's like an actual pathogen or whatever,
Speaker 1: but an allergy is that mistaken identity. It's like strawberry
Speaker 1: is like, I'm just a strawberry, and they're like, that's
Speaker 1: what the last pathogen said exactly, I'm onto you, fraud. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they beat up the poor strawberry and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's dead from that point on. But the UM,
Speaker 1: But that's an allergy. It's it's just mistaken identity. That's
Speaker 1: the same body processes. It's the thing that's kicking it
Speaker 1: off shouldn't really be kicking it off. It's not a threat.
Speaker 1: But again, to you, it doesn't matter. You want to
Speaker 1: stay away from, Yeah, stay away from strawberries or eggs
Speaker 1: or soy or peanuts, um, because yeah, I can kill you.
Speaker 1: And one of the hallmarks of a food allergy in
Speaker 1: particular is it doesn't matter if you have a peck
Speaker 1: of strawberries or a bushel um, or if you just
Speaker 1: have a little nibble of a strawberry, you're going to
Speaker 1: have that allergic reaction. And you need to stay away
Speaker 1: from from strawberries altogether, because, like you said, it can
Speaker 1: be life threatening. Yeah, so that's an allergy. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: also you can also be intolerant or sensitive UM. Like
Speaker 1: when we did our gluten episode, a lot of people
Speaker 1: do not have Celiac disease, but they may be intolerant
Speaker 1: of gluten. Yeah, yeah, a non celiac gluten sensitivity, I
Speaker 1: think is what it's called, which is also called gluten intolerance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's a little bit different because that is an
Speaker 1: intolerance is triggered by your digestive system, not your immune system.
Speaker 1: So what this usually means is, uh, you're you you're
Speaker 1: lacking a certain enzyme maybe that is required to digest
Speaker 1: whatever food that you're sensitive to or intolerant to. Rather yeah,
Speaker 1: which doesn't sound like that would be really bad, Like
Speaker 1: you're just like, Okay, I'll just poop it out. But
Speaker 1: there's actually some compounds that are found in food that
Speaker 1: if they enter your digestive tract because you can't break
Speaker 1: it down, it can wreak havoc on you improve produce
Speaker 1: all sorts of horrible symptoms in you from pooping everywhere
Speaker 1: again um, from horrible cramps, bloating um, and then things
Speaker 1: that have to do with your mood as well, which
Speaker 1: sounds surprising at first and until you remember that there's
Speaker 1: like a gut brain connection, like um of the serotonin
Speaker 1: in your brain is actually produced in your gut. So
Speaker 1: when your guts going haywire because you've eaten something that
Speaker 1: you don't have an enzyme to metabolize, other things besides
Speaker 1: the serotonin production are happening and you might have um
Speaker 1: some sort of altered brain chemistry as a result. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Celiac disease is uh, it has it does have
Speaker 1: a component of immune system response. So that is that
Speaker 1: is not this. I mean that is a legit allergy. Right,
Speaker 1: so the yeah, but gluten sensitivity is is or gluten
Speaker 1: intolerance is is different. It doesn't have the immune system.
Speaker 1: But you're still hate in life because you just ate
Speaker 1: a pizza crust that wasn't made from cauliflower. And again
Speaker 1: now you're pooping everywhere. Right, then you have the third bucket,
Speaker 1: which is a sensitivity. And this is not something they
Speaker 1: have studied much. Um it says in our own article,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a mystery of medical science. But
Speaker 1: we just know that, you know, some people are like
Speaker 1: MSG makes me feel bad and I'm sensitive to it.
Speaker 1: That's everybody, right, Does that happen to you? I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I don't know when I've had MSG. I used
Speaker 1: to like put straight up MSG on my popcorn. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's really tasty stuff, but it's it can give you
Speaker 1: headaches and make you feel like there's a like a
Speaker 1: triveled claw grabbing the top of your stomach. Just all
Speaker 1: sorts of weird stuff. Yeah. I just remember, like for
Speaker 1: a while there, like Chinese food was the enemy of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was always like, man, I love Chinese food,
Speaker 1: but that Chinese food syndrome basically blaming it on ms G. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that UM basically accused of being kind of racist.
Speaker 1: Actually before that, like that Chinese food doesn't do that
Speaker 1: to to anybody anymore than than other foods, especially other
Speaker 1: foods with MSG. But you're not gonna attack a cheeseburgerburger exactly.
Speaker 1: It's not like you have freedom fries syndrome or something.
Speaker 1: It's always Chinese Chinese food syndrome. Yeah, it's this eye
Speaker 1: opening to see that from that other perspective. Chinese food
Speaker 1: syndrome rolls off the tongue, you know. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna give up my egg rol. So the other thing,
Speaker 1: no way, the other thing about UM sensitivities is that,
Speaker 1: like you said, it's it's understudied, not well understood, because
Speaker 1: you might eat some ms G one day and get
Speaker 1: terrible headaches and that that claw on the top of
Speaker 1: your stomach, and the next day you might have some
Speaker 1: ms G and be fine. And so they have no
Speaker 1: idea what it counts for having the headache and the
Speaker 1: claw um. And so it's it's something we'll probably know
Speaker 1: more about in the future, but for now, because we
Speaker 1: know so little about it. You'll often hear intolerance and
Speaker 1: sensitivity interchangeable. And this article is one of the few
Speaker 1: places where I saw them broken out a separate thing. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't remember how what our attitude was like
Speaker 1: when we did our gluten episode way back when. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was inclusive and welcoming. I hope so, because
Speaker 1: since Emily has become a gluten intolerant, there have been
Speaker 1: people that have like poop pooed that. And I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: if somebody, if somebody's eating something that it even if
Speaker 1: it's just their perception that it makes them feel bad
Speaker 1: and they don't want to eat it, right, who cares? So?
Speaker 1: So I saw this thing. I agree with you, no
Speaker 1: skin off your back, right, I know what is it
Speaker 1: that that bugs people like that? I really really wish
Speaker 1: we could get to the bottom of because I think
Speaker 1: it would clear up lot of stuff. If you if
Speaker 1: when you saw that, and I think everybody does it,
Speaker 1: you just get judgy and just irritated that that somebody's
Speaker 1: bought into something that you don't believe in or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say. Um, if you could step
Speaker 1: back and be like, oh, I'm just being or you know,
Speaker 1: well this is my going off. Um, I really think
Speaker 1: that would clear that up a lot. But it's just
Speaker 1: so easy to go with that, you know, I know,
Speaker 1: And I mean maybe it's for some of these people.
Speaker 1: It's just like not eating heavy breads and enriched flour
Speaker 1: and and the stuff that gluten is in. Maybe it
Speaker 1: just makes you feel better to not eat that stuff.
Speaker 1: That's that's fine too. I saw that the guy who
Speaker 1: basically proved that that non celiac gluten sensitivity was a
Speaker 1: thing back in two thousand and eleven. It's an Australian
Speaker 1: doctor named Peter Oh Doc, we'll just call him Doc
Speaker 1: Dundee Peter Gibson, Dr Peter Crocodile on the barbie with
Speaker 1: the Fosters slab as his full aim. But he um
Speaker 1: he proved that there was a gluten intolerance that wasn't
Speaker 1: immune based, right. He proved that this was around and
Speaker 1: when he did follow ups he found that actually, that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be the case, because in these placebo
Speaker 1: groups they still had the same kind of symptoms. And
Speaker 1: he now has taken it from gluten to something called
Speaker 1: fod maps. Have you heard of them? Frementable oglio die
Speaker 1: mono saccharides and Polly Yall's yeah, I don't remember ever
Speaker 1: talking about it before in my life. I just came
Speaker 1: across it in the last two days. I think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: my brain's shot to hell. But this um, these fod maps.
Speaker 1: They are a component that's a type of carb and
Speaker 1: it's found in gluten and some wheat products, but it's
Speaker 1: also found another stuff too, And so this guy has said,
Speaker 1: I think these are the actual culprit, not necessarily gluten. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have sea LEAs, it's gluten, But if you
Speaker 1: have gluten intolerance, he's saying, I think it's these fob maps.
Speaker 1: Which is that's great if you can narrow it down
Speaker 1: even further, But from the looks of it, it sounds
Speaker 1: like that means you've got a lot of other food
Speaker 1: that you can eat either rather than just pizza crust,
Speaker 1: you poor bastard. Yeah, and then the people in the
Speaker 1: audience of the convention hall say, is he saying fog hat?
Speaker 1: Free ride? Oh? Should we take a break and then
Speaker 1: talk about how to do an elimination diet? Oh wait,
Speaker 1: it's slow ride, you say, free ride? Yeah? I did.
Speaker 1: I confounded slow ride and free bird and just walked
Speaker 1: right past the third use of elimination. So I'm a
Speaker 1: little hippie. I'm going to sleep for the rest of this, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, So we'll be back right after this to
Speaker 1: talk about how to do this, okay, man. So if
Speaker 1: you want to do this yourself, I think you you
Speaker 1: kind of see o aid right already. Yeah, well, let's
Speaker 1: do it again. I recommend that you go see a
Speaker 1: licensed nutritionist. Do some research first. Make sure you get
Speaker 1: somebody who's really good, maybe an M. D um and
Speaker 1: say I want to try this, help me out and
Speaker 1: they'll help you out. Um. Or you can also go
Speaker 1: on the internet and just find some smoke who's done
Speaker 1: it before, published a book about it, and is now
Speaker 1: a multi billionaire because they did their own elimination diet,
Speaker 1: and now everybody's doing those two. Yeah, if you go
Speaker 1: to do it on your own, though, it take your time. Uh,
Speaker 1: this might take a month or two. Don't don't rush
Speaker 1: in there and be like, all right, I'm gonna eat
Speaker 1: chicken broth for the next month. Like there are safe
Speaker 1: ways to do it, and they generally involved four steps,
Speaker 1: which is planning, uh, the eliminating round, the reintroducing, and
Speaker 1: then evaluating. Okay, so hold on, before we go any further,
Speaker 1: just pinpointed how legally exposed we are right now. This
Speaker 1: is what we're doing. We're saying you were talking to
Speaker 1: somebody like we're encouraging it. So let's do this instead.
Speaker 1: Let's say Sally and Tom. Now let's say forget it.
Speaker 1: We'll say Sally and Tom, Brenda and Eddie. Brenda and
Speaker 1: Eddie are, um, they're going to do an elimination diet,
Speaker 1: and this is how they're going to do it. How
Speaker 1: about that? Great? That's genius, isn't it. So Brenda and
Speaker 1: Eddie are going to sit down. I thought it was
Speaker 1: salient Tom, and they say, well, they live next door
Speaker 1: each other there and they they partner swap, so they're
Speaker 1: into it. Uh. They said, we gotta plan this out first, honey,
Speaker 1: and she says, sure, dear, let's do this. Let's sit
Speaker 1: down and let's us write down a big list of
Speaker 1: our symptoms when we feel poopy butt, or when we
Speaker 1: feel super tired or whatever, when our uh, when we
Speaker 1: feel constipated, maybe, and then let's list out what we
Speaker 1: think might be some of these problem foods. And what
Speaker 1: we're really gonna do is start a journal before we
Speaker 1: do anything, and start writing down what we're eating, maybe
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks even, and how we feel
Speaker 1: after we eat stuff, and maybe we can sort of
Speaker 1: see a pattern start to emerge. Yeah, and you also
Speaker 1: want to write down the foods you're craving, foods you
Speaker 1: would feel like you would have the hardest time giving up.
Speaker 1: Apparently those are frequently the culprits. Yeah, I've heard of that.
Speaker 1: I even kids. I didn't know that actually, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a kid who's always wants to drink milk may end
Speaker 1: up having a dairy allergy. So it's basically just our
Speaker 1: our tendency to punish ourselves is what's behind this stuff.
Speaker 1: There's probably some evolutionary reason. It makes zero sense, but okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, maybe maybe it does make sense,
Speaker 1: because maybe that could potentially be a dangerous thing, and
Speaker 1: your body craves it, so it will then know that
Speaker 1: it's an allergen. I don't know, could be population control,
Speaker 1: maybe thinning the herd. That's all right. So if you
Speaker 1: made your list, you're keeping your journal, and you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, here's what I think the deal is. I
Speaker 1: think for me, it's sugar and dairy. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: eliminate for two to three weeks all dairy and all
Speaker 1: sugar from my diet. I'm gonna keep up with this journal. Um,
Speaker 1: I might have some sugar withdrawal. That'll be all right
Speaker 1: after a few days. And I'm gonna look at my
Speaker 1: my food diary at the end of this and I
Speaker 1: might have I might have to start over from scratch,
Speaker 1: or might say, you know what, I eliminated dairy and
Speaker 1: I feel great. Right, But since you eliminated, say, dairy
Speaker 1: and sugar, and actually it's with a lot of elimination diets,
Speaker 1: you do a bunch of them at once, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to do too many at once,
Speaker 1: So that's true. That's true. You're right, but um, so
Speaker 1: let's just keep it simple than sugar and dairy. With
Speaker 1: the caveat that you frequently will need to do more
Speaker 1: than that. But as you as you cut them out
Speaker 1: for like two weeks, you've given your body enough time
Speaker 1: to basically clear up any symptoms that you may have
Speaker 1: generated by eating this stuff. This is phase two because
Speaker 1: you've journaled, maybe done a little scrap booking, but that's
Speaker 1: still part of the same phase, maybe a pinterest board.
Speaker 1: Phase two is the actual elimination diet. Part of the
Speaker 1: elimination diet. Yeah, and if you're cutting out something like dairy,
Speaker 1: like all dairy, then you may need to uh and
Speaker 1: this is where it really helps if you're working with
Speaker 1: a health professional. You might need to supplement what you
Speaker 1: got from that dairy, whether it's calcium or vitamin D
Speaker 1: or whatever. This is one reason why we switched over
Speaker 1: to the Sally Tom Brenda Eddie an area because there's
Speaker 1: a lot there's a lot of things that can go
Speaker 1: wrong that you can accidentally do to yourself with an
Speaker 1: elimination diet, which again is why you should go to
Speaker 1: a professional for it. But Sally and Tom are doing
Speaker 1: their elimination diet right now. They've cut out sugar and
Speaker 1: dairy and they've made it to the two week line,
Speaker 1: and like you said, they feel great, right, And now
Speaker 1: you get to phase three, which is what's called challenge.
Speaker 1: It's the challenge phase. And what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: challenging your body with these foods that you've cut out
Speaker 1: to see if the symptoms will produce reproduce, right. And
Speaker 1: the way that you do that, I'm sorry, this is
Speaker 1: really tough to remember. The way that Sally and Tom
Speaker 1: do this is they wake up on the first day
Speaker 1: of phase three and they have a little bit of
Speaker 1: um milk cream in their coffee and they have um.
Speaker 1: They drink it and they sit around and they stare
Speaker 1: at each other. Maybe take the day off of work um,
Speaker 1: and then nothing happens, so they have a little more.
Speaker 1: They have maybe like a glass of milk with lunch,
Speaker 1: and then maybe they they just drink straight from the
Speaker 1: cow for dinner and they reintroduce dairy for that one
Speaker 1: day and then they stop again and then they spend
Speaker 1: two days back on the elimination diet like it was
Speaker 1: before and see what happens. And they say, over two days,
Speaker 1: that's enough time for these symptoms to reappear. And then
Speaker 1: you do the second step of this phase, which is
Speaker 1: you go to the sugar. Now you do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And this is a big key that I hadn't thought about.
Speaker 1: If you don't produce those symptoms from the first part
Speaker 1: where you do the dairy and everything's all good and
Speaker 1: then you move on to the sugar, that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you add dairy back in. You stay off of dairy
Speaker 1: for the rest of the diet. Everything that you quit
Speaker 1: as you challenge yourself, you still go back to staying
Speaker 1: off of it as you're doing new challenges, and you
Speaker 1: keep doing that until you've you've gone through all the
Speaker 1: food that you cut out, and then you've entered the
Speaker 1: final phase, which is the done with the elimination diet
Speaker 1: part of the diet. Yeah, and boy, it can get
Speaker 1: really confusing because like you've got to be really organized
Speaker 1: Brenda and Eddie do, because it could like it might
Speaker 1: be the coffee or the caffeine, you know, and you
Speaker 1: put the cream in it and you think it's the cream,
Speaker 1: but it was really the coffee to begin with, So
Speaker 1: maybe you should have eliminated coffee as well at the beginning. Uh.
Speaker 1: But it's also it's also can be very broad, like
Speaker 1: it's not like well, this one vegetable is the cause
Speaker 1: of all my troubles or milk is really what kills me.
Speaker 1: But I'm fine with cheese and every other form of dairy.
Speaker 1: Like it's probably a broader category like dairy in general. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a food group is what they still call them, just
Speaker 1: like when we were kids. Yeah, like, so, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: gonna cut out dairy, you're gonna cut out carbs, or
Speaker 1: you're gonna cut out so kinds of vegetables or like
Speaker 1: gooms or something like that, or maybe meat um or
Speaker 1: wheat whatever, But these are all considered food groups. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you might have like a little creamer in your coffee
Speaker 1: and then like cheese at dinner or something like that.
Speaker 1: And as when you're reintroducing the dairy food group, but
Speaker 1: because it could be as specific as a type of cheese,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of difference between fresh cheese
Speaker 1: and you know cheese it's been cave aged for five years.
Speaker 1: That could actually make a difference in your sensitivity to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Or is is chuck uh lactose intolerant or does he
Speaker 1: get poopy butt when he eats a pint of sugary
Speaker 1: ice cream? All in one sitting you know, right, which
Speaker 1: again is another reason why you want to UM why
Speaker 1: a lot of people will cut out more than just
Speaker 1: a couple of food groups. And then when they when
Speaker 1: they challenge, you've gotta you gotta keep it pure like that.
Speaker 1: I think that's what you're saying, right, You don't want
Speaker 1: to mix sugar and dairy together when you challenge your
Speaker 1: body again in during the elimination diet. Correct. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and I think maybe I was just trying to speak
Speaker 1: to to like, you know, if I half a pizza
Speaker 1: and a pint of ice cream, that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: I am dairy intolerant. That maybe means that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: eat four pieces of pizza. I need a big thing
Speaker 1: on ice cream. I got you, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's an overdose of dairy, which is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as like, m dairy really messes me up.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you brought that up because that's actually
Speaker 1: again that's a distinction between UM uh an intolerance or
Speaker 1: a sensitivity and UH an allergy. You remember, with an allergy,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much of the food you eat,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have reaction. With a sensitivity, UM and an
Speaker 1: intolerance too little amounts. Can you can slide by with them?
Speaker 1: And that's actually one of the things that people find
Speaker 1: out with elimination diets is Okay, I'm sensitive to to dairy,
Speaker 1: but I've found that I could I can actually have
Speaker 1: one slice pizzas. When I have that second or third
Speaker 1: one that I begin to poop everywhere. Yeah, Or like alcohol,
Speaker 1: I can have a glass of wine and I'm fine.
Speaker 1: What I'm allergic to is nine gin and tonics, Like
Speaker 1: that's why, that's why I have poopy butt. Right, That's
Speaker 1: not why I have poopy But I'm just saying in
Speaker 1: general everywhere that that was Eddie and Tom talking. Oh
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah. Here's another cool thing though, if you
Speaker 1: already have other allergies have nothing to do with food,
Speaker 1: you kind of have a head start because a lot
Speaker 1: of times they're I don't know code morbid as a word,
Speaker 1: but uh, like if you have a latex allergy, it's
Speaker 1: you could also be allergic to like certain vegetables or fruits,
Speaker 1: and they have you know, there are lists where people know,
Speaker 1: like doctors know, hey, latex is also sort of co
Speaker 1: morbid with apples. Let's say, so, do you eat apples.
Speaker 1: Are you allergic to latex? That might be a problem.
Speaker 1: Isn't that fascinating? I looked up I was like, well,
Speaker 1: why why do they you know, I think it's called
Speaker 1: um co. It's not more abid what cross reactive? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called the cross reactive food. And they they don't know.
Speaker 1: They just know that if you have a latex um
Speaker 1: if you have a latex allergy, you're probably very allergic
Speaker 1: to say bananas or something too. So that's that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's nice that there's still new mysteries out there that
Speaker 1: people are looking into. When you have a latex allergy
Speaker 1: and they ask you that at the dentist in doctor
Speaker 1: and you do have one, does that mean they dig
Speaker 1: into your mouth with their bare hands? Uh? I know.
Speaker 1: I think there's non latex gloves. I think nitrial gloves
Speaker 1: is non latex. Why don't they just use those all
Speaker 1: the time? Then they probably do just out of you know,
Speaker 1: keeping it cheaper and just everyone always asked though, still,
Speaker 1: do you have a latex allergy? Yeah? Because I don't
Speaker 1: think it's just the gloves. It can be like an
Speaker 1: intubation tube or there's a lot of latex going on
Speaker 1: and it has a do with an enzyme that's in
Speaker 1: natural rubber which makes its way into latex, which so
Speaker 1: you're really allergic to. If you go to the proctologist
Speaker 1: and ask if you have a latex allergy and you
Speaker 1: say yes, then your doctor has another alternative. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, No, Actually I don't
Speaker 1: you know what a proctologist does. Oh did you say proctologists? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do. Okay, shall we move on? That was that
Speaker 1: was rough? All right, Let's talk about the how this
Speaker 1: can go bad. Um. It can go back in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Like we said, if you eliminate something
Speaker 1: that your body needs, a certain vitamin or something, and
Speaker 1: you eliminate all that, then your body might become deficient
Speaker 1: if you don't add something back in that will help
Speaker 1: make up for that. Or you sent a very interesting article,
Speaker 1: uh about something that I never heard of called orthor
Speaker 1: rexia or the thing that everybody we know has right now,
Speaker 1: do you think yeah, to some degree, yes, I totally
Speaker 1: do so orthorexia this um uh, this very brave woman
Speaker 1: wrote this article orthorexia colon how my clean eating turned
Speaker 1: into anorexia and orthorexia Even though it's not recognized by
Speaker 1: the d s m IS basically, but is recognized by
Speaker 1: the National Eating Disorders Association. Is kind of UH is
Speaker 1: kind of taking UM label reading and nutritional label reading
Speaker 1: and and thinking about what you're eating to the most
Speaker 1: obsessive level possible. It's a it's it's it's an eating disorder,
Speaker 1: but rather than being UM zoned in on calorie restriction
Speaker 1: like traditional anorexia UM and weight loss, it's an obsession
Speaker 1: with healthy or clean eating. And if you look around,
Speaker 1: if you realize this, you're like, there is this is all.
Speaker 1: This is all over the place. Like look around on
Speaker 1: the internet and see how many foods are labeled like toxic,
Speaker 1: Like this is a toxic food. Strawberries are toxic and
Speaker 1: you smack your hand as you try to take a
Speaker 1: bite of it or something like that. Or there's something
Speaker 1: called the plant paradox diet, which is like tomatoes are
Speaker 1: toxic like gooms or toxic like the just the way
Speaker 1: that people look at food now it's either good or bad.
Speaker 1: It's pure or it's toxic. It's healthy or it can
Speaker 1: kill you. This is very much where um orthorexia is rooted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and with this woman in particular, Um. She wrote about
Speaker 1: her her journey through this and how it was getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse and how her friends started to notice
Speaker 1: like she would go and she said she spiraled into
Speaker 1: a total panic if she happened to eat something that
Speaker 1: was quote unquote bad. Uh, And it was just completely compulsive,
Speaker 1: like reading and rereading uh these nutritional lay bowls. Um
Speaker 1: feeling really anxious if you're if you're not reading these things,
Speaker 1: and it actually led to anorexi at her friend UM
Speaker 1: stepped in and said, hey, listen, I think you need
Speaker 1: to like get some help here. Things are getting a
Speaker 1: little out of hand. And luckily, uh, this woman in
Speaker 1: this case at least was listened, went to a health
Speaker 1: professional and they confirmed that she had had uh had
Speaker 1: morphed into anorexia. Right the way that it had morphed
Speaker 1: inn anorex is because she had whittled down her list
Speaker 1: of acceptable foods to such a small degree that she
Speaker 1: was becoming malnourished because there was so few types of
Speaker 1: foods that she would allow herself to eat. And I
Speaker 1: guess a byproduct of that was just inadvertent calorie restriction
Speaker 1: and like major weight loss too. But again she wasn't couldn't.
Speaker 1: She wasn't obsessed with um, her weight. It was good
Speaker 1: food or bad food, pure food or toxic food that
Speaker 1: and that distinction, and then becoming like obsessed with that,
Speaker 1: like thinking about that kind of food and foods you
Speaker 1: should avoid and and um, she points out, apparently one
Speaker 1: of the kind of accepted criterias that like you obsessively follow,
Speaker 1: like like fitness or nutrition experts or self proclaimed experts
Speaker 1: on like social media or something like that. And I
Speaker 1: think just in addition to obsessing about good food versus bad,
Speaker 1: it's just obsessing about food in general, and it begins
Speaker 1: to take over your life and you change your life.
Speaker 1: Like she was saying, she just stopped going to parties
Speaker 1: because she knew that it would be weird if she
Speaker 1: didn't drink or she didn't eat a slice of birthday cake. Um,
Speaker 1: So she just stopped going to those kind of social
Speaker 1: functions and eventually after a while, stopped getting invited to
Speaker 1: him too. So it had like a major effect on
Speaker 1: her life as well. It is extremely sad, and you're right,
Speaker 1: she was brave for writing this. Her name is Hannah
Speaker 1: Matthews and the article was orthor xia, How am I
Speaker 1: clean eating? Turned into anorexia in self. I think it
Speaker 1: was right, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. One of the
Speaker 1: other good things though about an elimination diet um in
Speaker 1: our own article that they point out is is one
Speaker 1: good side effect is, uh, it just makes you really
Speaker 1: pay attention to what you're eating. And that's always good
Speaker 1: if you're like keeping food journals and trying to clean
Speaker 1: up your diet, even if for something that ends up
Speaker 1: being a psycho somatic food reaction, which is a thing.
Speaker 1: Um that's okay, and those psychosomatic food reactions are real.
Speaker 1: I mean, just because it's not a physiological response doesn't
Speaker 1: mean your body doesn't go a certain direction because you think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna eat this slice of bread and
Speaker 1: it's gonna make me feel like crap. It's like a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But paying attention
Speaker 1: to your diet in general can be a positive result
Speaker 1: of one of these, so Brenda and any out with God, right,
Speaker 1: that's the thing is, like, yes, there are positive benefits.
Speaker 1: There's also pitfalls and pratfalls, and some of them can
Speaker 1: be substantial, like accidentally ending up malnourished or accidentally triggering
Speaker 1: UM an eating disorder in yourself. Um, And so again
Speaker 1: this is why it's good to go see your professional.
Speaker 1: But but I think the fact that there's just so
Speaker 1: many people who have just come up with their own
Speaker 1: elimination diet and like blog about it and now have
Speaker 1: like licensing agreements with hot dog companies because you're allowed
Speaker 1: to eat hot dogs on this elimination diet, which makes
Speaker 1: zero sense. Um, it's like a it's a it's just
Speaker 1: to me, it's a symptom of a larger death of
Speaker 1: of expertise that that we're going through. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be an expert at anything. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be actually to know what you're talking about. It's a
Speaker 1: good way to say it. You can start a blog
Speaker 1: or a website or an Instagram and people follow what
Speaker 1: you're saying, even if you like, I have no idea
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Yeah, and then like this stuff you're
Speaker 1: saying isn't backed by any research or peer view or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I realized, like, you can look at what we
Speaker 1: do from a certain perspective and be like, that's pretty
Speaker 1: rich that you're even bringing this up, Pal, But we
Speaker 1: like that we're not experts, but we defer to experts.
Speaker 1: Typically we like there are research is based on stuff
Speaker 1: that experts have come up with, are people who know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about have come up with And this
Speaker 1: is very largely like some dude just came up with
Speaker 1: his elimination diet, and now you know, ten percent of
Speaker 1: the country's trying it themselves and the hopes that it
Speaker 1: will it will finally change their their life in some
Speaker 1: positive way. And um, I don't know it was that
Speaker 1: the Hannah Matthews orthorexia article really kind of was eye
Speaker 1: opening to how I view food too, Like it's definitely, um,
Speaker 1: like my attitude towards food has changed, that there's definitely
Speaker 1: something you just shouldn't need, that it's better food that's terrible,
Speaker 1: and and like that, you know, stay away from that.
Speaker 1: And I realized, like I think about food a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's not just I want to eat, but also
Speaker 1: I should stay away from this or whatever. And it's
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people are kind of
Speaker 1: moving in that direction, just kind of developing unhealthy relationship
Speaker 1: with food. But then I asked myself, so what I
Speaker 1: just should stop paying attention to just eat whatever. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you based on history when I do
Speaker 1: that I tend to get a little tubby, a little
Speaker 1: unhealthy and unhappy by a little. Yeah, a little, I
Speaker 1: mean like a lot. Right, So that points me to
Speaker 1: this direction that there's a third thing. There's some underlying
Speaker 1: thing that has to do with my relationship with food
Speaker 1: that I've not gotten to the bottom yet. But just
Speaker 1: obsessing over healthy food versus toxic food or whatever, it helps,
Speaker 1: Like I definitely eat better and I feel better than general.
Speaker 1: But if you're still thinking too much about something, if
Speaker 1: something that shouldn't be as big a component of your
Speaker 1: life is a big component, then it suggests that there's
Speaker 1: something else there that you haven't gotten to the bottom of.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking to you specifically, Brenda and Eddie. Somewhere
Speaker 1: between you and me there is a healthy middle ground,
Speaker 1: and that's probably Jerry. That's right. It always comes down
Speaker 1: to Jerry Chuck. That's right. Have you got anything else? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I will say though that um for all you Billy
Speaker 1: Joel fans, and I very much purposely said Brenda and Eddie,
Speaker 1: So save your emails, okay, Well, also save your emails
Speaker 1: because now I know even though I had no idea
Speaker 1: until just now, I said Sally and Tom because I
Speaker 1: have no imagination. Yeah, well know that great Springsteen song
Speaker 1: Sally and Tom ride west Man. That's pretty believable, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is it a real song? No, Springstein certainly saying about
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But that's that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: That was believable joke. Uh. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about elimination diets, um man, they're they're out there.
Speaker 1: But go see your nutritionists. That's our advice. And since
Speaker 1: I said nutrition, this is time for listening, may you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is uh not so much a listener mail
Speaker 1: as it is a little shout out to our friends
Speaker 1: at COED. That's right. So everyone, if you are not
Speaker 1: hip to co ED, let us fill you in. Because
Speaker 1: back in two thousand nine, oh man, it's been a while.
Speaker 1: Back in I think two thousand nine, COED, which is
Speaker 1: the Cooperative for Education, said hey, guys, we've got this
Speaker 1: cool um ngo down in Guatemala where we see to
Speaker 1: it that as many indigenous Guatemalan kids get educations where
Speaker 1: otherwise they wouldn't, and we want to come show you
Speaker 1: what we got. So we ended up going down there
Speaker 1: and did a two part episode about what we saw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was really cool, and they've been We've
Speaker 1: been kind of working with them off and on through
Speaker 1: the years to help raise awareness. And I think my
Speaker 1: favorite thing about their organization is how specific their mission is. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not They're they're literally trying to educate kids because
Speaker 1: they think that is the basis of pulling people out
Speaker 1: of the cycle of poverty. And they're right, because it's working. Uh.
Speaker 1: And right now they have something going on called the
Speaker 1: Thousand Girls Initiative and they are trying to keep literally
Speaker 1: one thousand girls in Guatemala from dropping out of school
Speaker 1: because education is really what it takes to break the
Speaker 1: cycle of poverty everywhere, but especially in UH in rural Guatemala. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from their research, they found that um, something like twelve
Speaker 1: years of education is what it takes to break the
Speaker 1: cycle of poverty in Guatemala, but that the average rural
Speaker 1: Guatemalan has about a one and twenty chance of getting
Speaker 1: twelve years of education. So what they do is they
Speaker 1: have a several a number of programs set up, but
Speaker 1: one of them is where you are sponsored and you
Speaker 1: bought your paying in as a kid, You're paying into
Speaker 1: this book fund and you get your books up front.
Speaker 1: But then as you're paying in over time, and it's
Speaker 1: enough that even like UM, some of the poorest of
Speaker 1: the rural Guatemalan families can can pay for this um.
Speaker 1: When the books run out, you can replace them from
Speaker 1: this fund that you've been paying into over time, or
Speaker 1: if the books stay good, you can buy more books
Speaker 1: that you didn't have before, or things like computers and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And so kids who would have normally
Speaker 1: had to drop out of school and work in the
Speaker 1: fields with their families now have a chance to stay
Speaker 1: in because they're not costing their families as much by
Speaker 1: going to school, so their families can invest in their
Speaker 1: kids education. Yeah, you can sponsor one of these students
Speaker 1: for eighty dollars a month, or if you want to
Speaker 1: only pay forty dollars a month, you can do that
Speaker 1: because they will pair you with another sponsor. And all
Speaker 1: you have to do is go to Thousand Girls Initiative
Speaker 1: dot org or just go to the co ed page.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of great ways you can take part.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's it's one of these things
Speaker 1: where you are literally like, I'm sponsoring this girl. That's
Speaker 1: her name, there's her picture, and she's going to get
Speaker 1: to go to school now because is I'm pairing up
Speaker 1: with someone else and throwing forty dollars a month their way? Uh?
Speaker 1: And it's it once again. Thousands girls initiative dot org
Speaker 1: can mean anything more worthwhile, agreed, man um, So go
Speaker 1: check them out and if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us in the meantime, you can hang out
Speaker 1: with us at our home on the web. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot Com, where you'll find links to all
Speaker 1: of our social media accounts, and you can also send
Speaker 1: us an email. Just send it off to Stuff Podcasts
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.