‘Recipes for the Endometriosis Diet’ by Carolyn Levett

I better do this now, before I get too tired again.  Last December, I was looking for a way to control my disease.  I was desperate enough to try anything except pregnancy.  I stumbled upon a website (www.endo-resolved.com) which talks about healing through diet.  It makes perfect sense, and the cookbook was only $23.  I figured if it didn’t work, it only cost about as much as a regular cookbook, so I ordered one.  It took a while to get here, because they are printed to order, but it was worth it.

At first, I only made the recipes that sounded yummy to me.  Since I don’t like beans, zucchini, eggplants, and quite a few other things that are common throughout the book, it didn’t take long for me to run out of recipes.  I switched to just going through the book cover to cover.  Using this method, probably about half of the recipes are very tasty, and the rest are either nothing special or I just don’t like them.

In addition to hundreds of recipes, the book has a section to explain what foods to avoid, and why.  The foods are wheat and other gluten grains, red meat, dairy, refined sugar, caffeine, soy, processed salt, fried foods, tinned and frozen packaged foods, and food additives such as artificial colorings, flavors and preservatives.

Wheat is a contributing factor to the overgrowth of Candida yeast (which thankfully I do not have a problem with).  Wheat also “appears to aggravate the symptoms of endometriosis.”  Wheat contains phytic acid, which impairs the absorption of minerals, calcium in particular.  Finally, many women with endometriosis also suffer from celiac disease, so wheat is just not a good option for them.

Our bodies produce chemical messengers called prostaglandins.  There are different types of prostaglandins, and they have different functions.  One in particular, F 2a or series 2 prostaglandins, is responsible for increasing inflammation.  Red meat and dairy contain cortisols, which promote the production of these bad prostaglandins.  It follows that red meat and dairy promote inflammation in the body.  Since endometrial lesions cause inflammation (and this is half of the problem with them), it is a good idea to cut red meat and dairy from the diet if you have endometriosis.

Meat and dairy are also rife with hormones, unless you buy from a hormone-free source.  Most people know about rBGH by now (bovine growth hormone), but another hormone I have recently learned of is rBST.  rBST is given to dairy cows to force them to go into heat.  It stays in their bodies in small amounts, and is excreted in their milk and their feces.  The hormones from feces are then assimilated into the grass that they eat, and each year they are injected again, causing a buildup of the amount of hormone that stays with them, and that’s in their milk.  Since endo is greatly dependent on the balance of hormones in our bodies, eating anything containing hormones is ill advised.

Refined sugar causes a few problems, and not just for women with endo.  It lowers your immune system, upsets your digestive health, feeds Candida yeast, causes hormonal imbalance, and “will increase menstrual cramping as well as aggravate PMT.”  I used to have IBS-like symptoms at least once a week, for years.  I could never pinpoint what caused it, because my diet in high school and college (and after) was just so terrible that it was probably everything.

I would be walking around Walmart, for instance, and suddenly get very very hot.  I came to realize that meant that I had half an hour to get to a bathroom.  I would have watery diarrhea for 20-30 minutes, sometimes longer, and then feel awful for hours afterwards.  Often, I would get sick multiple times that day.  Since going on the endo diet, my IBS has all but disappeared.  If I have too much sugar I will get sick, but at least now I know what causes it and can avoid it.

One important note about refined sugars:  high-fructose corn syrup has been shown to cause more weight gain than regular sugar, and the weight is harder to shed.  Producers of this chemical are trying to change the name to corn sugar, as the dangers of HFCS are becoming more well known.  If you can do one good thing for your health this year, it will be to cut out HFCS/corn sugar completely.

Caffeine increases estrogen in the body, which is the last thing anyone with endo needs.  According to Carolyn Levett, “drinking more than two cups of coffee daily may boost your estrogen levels and could worsen the symptoms of endometriosis, as well as problems with breast pain.”  Caffeine from coffee is also linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, miscarriages and birth defects.  Mentally, coffee contributes to insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks and depression.  Decaf is really no better, as petrol-based solvents are used in the decaffeination process.  Do you really want to drink something related to what runs your car?

Soy is a horrible culprit of many things.  The funny thing about soy is, most people that I have talked to about it will defend it viciously, and they really have no idea what they are defending.  I am not sure if it is because soy is such a convenient alternative for protein and people are just afraid of what they can eat if they can’t eat soy, or if it is something else.  Quite honestly, soy is awful no matter who you are.  Here is the list of bad things soy does from the book.

“1. High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc.  Phytic acid in soy is not neutralised by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking.  High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.
2. Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders.  In test animals soy containing trypsin inhibitors caused stunted growth.
3. Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.
4. Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer.  In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
5. Vitamin B12 analogs in soy are not absorbed and actually increase the body’s requirement for B12.
6. Soy foods increase the body’s requirement for Vitamin D.
7. Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein.
8. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
9. Free glutamic acid or MSG, a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing and additional amounts are added to many soy foods.
10. Soy foods contain high levels of aluminium [British author] which is toxic to the nervous system and kidneys.
11. The various negative effects of soy weaken the immune system.”

One thing the list leaves out is that aluminum is a poison, and thought to be carcinogenic.  This is another reason that soy is such a problem; it is processed in aluminum vats.

A few more quotes:

“Two isoflavones found in soy, genistein and daidzen…were said to ‘demonstrate toxicity in estrogen sensitive tissues and in the thyroid.”

“When we first questioned the safety of soy, representatives of Protein Technologies told us that they had:

‘Teams of lawyers to crush dissenters, could buy scientists to give evidence, owned television channels and newspapers, could divert medical schools and could even influence governments.'” (from http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz)

For further reading about soy, check out the book in this post’s title, as well as ‘What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause’ by Dr. John Lee, and ‘Endometriosis – Healing Through Diet and Nutrition’ by Dian Mills.  Not all soy is bad, and I will get to the differences and the good kinds of soy in my next post.

Processed salt is the common iodized table salt that is bought in bulk.  A much healthier form of salt is sea salt.  Sea salt has natural iodine, so it doesn’t need additives.  It does not go through the same extraction, recrystallization, and iodization that is so necessary for processed salts.  Foods in their natural states are always healthiest.

Fried foods, margarine, and hydrogenated fats are really just not good for anyone.  Processed foods fall into this same category, and additives are awful.  Many additives that are approved by our FDA are illegal for use in other developed countries because of the known perils to our health.  The food coloring red #40 is a prime example.  It has been shown to be a contributing factor to autism in children, and is thought to be carcinogenic.  Most European countries have outlawed it, but our FDA has not.  I don’t know what the big deal is with colorful food anyway–most of the stuff I make is some shade of brown or yellow.  It is tasty and good for me, so whey should I care what color it is?

Next time I will go over the foods that I actually can eat, and the foods that are particularly good for anyone suffering from endo, or with a fragile immune system.