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Hi!

I'm planning on doing a very strict low food reward elimination diet starting on January 1st. Despite the fact that I've been 95+% paleo for about a year now, I still have some issues including mild acne on my thighs and upper arms (perhaps ketasoris pilaris; will ask my doc next time I see him). As a child I used to be allergic to both tomatoes and milk. I'm also allergic to shellfish. Often when I eat certain apples or nuts my mouth and lips feel irritated. So I plan on eliminating the following foods from my diet:

  • gluten / vegatable oils / soy
  • dairy (including butter)
  • eggs
  • legumes
  • fruit
  • nightshades (including spices)
  • nuts and seeds (including coconut)
  • FODMAPs

My questions are:

  1. Can (wild) salmon be somehow problematic if I'm allergic to shellfish? What about canned sardines/anchovies?
  2. Are there any other foods I should be aware of that can cause issues?
  3. Is there any reason to only eat ruminant meat and exclude pork and chicken? My meat sources are: grass-fed beef, pastured lamb, pork and chicken.
  4. The only supplement I take is 5000IU of Now Foods Vitamin D3 daily, thoughts?
  5. What about sauerkraut? Organmeats? Vinegars?!

It will pretty much be meat and some greens plus the occasional tuber cooked in tallow or homemade Kerrygold ghee I suppose ...! I will also try to follow Dr. Kruse's leptin reset protocol; big breakfast, no snacking, alot of sleep etc.

Please share your experiences!

edit: I should have mentioned the low food reward is for losing weight. Although I've been paleo for a while now I still haven't been able to drop the last pounds of fat I'm carring. Low food reward + elimination kills two birds with one stone I hope.

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Thought about histamine intolerance? – Bruno Dec 19 2011 at 16:31
I often find including a diary actually helps... – AndyM Dec 19 2011 at 17:13
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why low reward? Low reward is mainly for losing weight. – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Dec 19 2011 at 19:36
I had the upper arms/ leg rash and mine is definitely caused by dairy. a drop of milk in tea will bring up the bumps in about two days. – sophie Dec 20 2011 at 5:05
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Most people who're on a diet as restrictive as you have some severe autimmune or digestive problems like Crohn's or UC. It's real hard to stick to a diet like that just to lose weight or get rid of acne/psoriasis. I recommend you don't do it cold turkey: do it in stages. Get rid of gluten & dairy first, wait 2 weeks, then eggs & legumes, etc. It took me 2Y to eliminate eggs and nuts and I have to say: Dang, Robb Wolf is right! – Namby Pamby Feb 9 2012 at 22:36
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6 Answers

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I'm allergic to all of the same things as you, but I've found that I don't react to oranges, so I can still get a good amount of vitamin C and some extra potassium from them. (Read up on latex-fruit syndrome). Potatoes may technically be a nightshade, but I get no reaction from them, whereas tomatoes, peppers etc. will make me itchy a few hours after eating them. Good quality meat of any species works fine for me, but too much tropomyosin from seafood tends to cause a slight reaction, with shellfish being far more dramatic than fish. I've been eating pounds of sole and cod lately without issue.

Roasted treenuts seem to be fine as the allergenic proteins are denatured. Egg whites get me, but egg yolks cause no reaction and have all of the most important nutrients anyway.

You're gonna want at least 1/4 lb of liver per week as per usual.

I'd recommend supplementing with 1/4 tsp of calcium citrate and 200mg of magnesium glycinate just in case. Also salt a few meals if you don't already.

If you construct meals consisting of 1 piece of fruit you don't react to, 1 lb of correctly-fed/wild meat of your choice (that you rotate) and 1 tuber, you will have a very nutritious diet without any reactions.

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A very sensible approach. Sounds good to me and I'm not allergic! – Nance Dec 19 2011 at 19:23
The satiety is also through the roof, so fat loss is still easy if you choose lean meats. 1-3 yolks a day for EFAs btw. – Travis Culp Dec 19 2011 at 19:26
I think eliminating nuts (regardless of preparation) is a good idea, because they do cause problems/allergies for a significant number of people, and it's easier to do the elimination diet right the first time then have to redo it again later. – Sara S. Dec 19 2011 at 19:26
It's pretty easy to test some out by simply chewing a handful of them for a while and spitting it out if you start to get a reaction. I find that few roasted ones cause problems, but that macadamias are the least offensive. The difference between a raw nut and a roasted one is massive though. He's not missing out on much without the nuts though, so it's not a big deal if he doesn't eat any at all. – Travis Culp Dec 19 2011 at 19:35
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I'm going to second the liver here if mild acne is a concern. My acne problems (KP & roseacea) seem much less if I'm getting in some liver. – jj Dec 20 2011 at 21:12
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  1. I don't know.

  2. You mentioned gluten, but you didn't mention non-gluten-containing grains like sorghum, etc. I'd probably eliminate all grains to be safe.

  3. Uncured pork seems to be somewhat inflammatory, and causes an aggregation of platelets in the blood, or something like that. There was something about that in a recent Wise Traditions article. And chicken tends to be relatively high in Omega-6 fats, at least if it's not pastured. So rudiments like beef, bison, lamb may well be better.

  4. If I had to choose one supplement, it would be fermented cod liver oil (perhaps the blend with high-vitamin butter oil as well). I think the line between "supplements" and "food" is rather blurry, so it's hard to answer this question in the abstract. I don't see anything wrong with taking vitamin D3, though, if you're not getting enough sunlight to meet your vitamin D needs that way.

  5. I don't see why organ meats would be a problem. About cabbage and vinegar, I don't know. If you're avoiding FODMAPs, you'd want to avoid unfermented cabbage and apples, etc. But when cabbage becomes sauerkraut and apples (etc.) become vinegar, I'm not sure to what extent the FODMAPs are eliminated. Good question.

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If you're allergic/intolerant to dairy I would cut out the ghee for the duration of your elimination diet, for the reason that it's better to be safe than have to redo the whole 2 months.

Otherwise, your plan sounds almost exactly what I'm doing. I eat well-cooked greens, grass-fed ground beef, and either sweet potato or butternut squash for breakfast and dinner, and a salad with fish for lunch with coconut oil and apple cider vinegar for dressing. It was making me have more omega-3 than omega-6, so I've added in some chicken meat once a week. I've also been eating beef and chicken stocks, kombucha, water kefir, and home made sauerkraut. When I can I eat liver or kidney (beef if I can, otherwise I settle for chicken), maybe a couple times a month. And I found a chocolate I can eat with no reaction, so I eat that about once every week or two.

If you're at all sensitive to gluten, I'd be careful to make sure any vinegar you use or tea you drink it gluten-free. And watch out for herbs, too, as they can be cross-contaminated.

As for macronutrients, I find that the above plan does well for me except I'm lower in thiamin and folate than the software suggests.

Unfortunately I don't have experience on whether apple cider vinegar or sauerkraut cause FODMAP problems. More importantly, though, is whether they cause FODMAPS problems in you... so maybe you can eliminate them at first, and then see if you can add them back in after a few weeks.

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In my experience salmon caused similar problems to shellfish, but tuna, mackerel sardines didn't. But then in my experience my allergy to any of them disappeared when I went Paleo. I doubt you'll see anything signficant from cutting out pork and chicken, though you can try if you like. I'd say including organ meat would be important both to make things interesting and cover nutritional bases - similarly make some use of the bones. That ought to be sufficient - if you have to eliminate those then it may not be worth doing. I don't really understand the low-reward part. I'm not aware of that having been related to allergies nor does your plan seem particularly low reward.

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Same here. Low reward and acne ? – Huray Dec 19 2011 at 17:22
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make sure you are enough fat, eating fatty cuts of meat, i would suggest keeping at least egg yolks as park of your diet......... http://www.drlwilson.com/articles/HEALING%20LIFESTYLE.htm

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For question 1, being allergic to shellfish doesn't make you allergic to fish, or vice versa, especially if your allergies are anaphylactic (not just "irritation", if it is might just be the iodine). For peace of mind, I would book an appointment for allergy tests (with an ALLERGIST not a naturopath, no offense any among us). You could find that you are allergic to some shellfish but not others- my boyfriend can eat prawns, shrimp, oysters, canned tuna, and muscles, but if he eats any other fish (salmon, halibut, sole, trout, cod, lingcod) or scallops, he immediately starts swelling up and we have to get the epi-pen ready. If you are unclear about what you are or are not allergic too, you should go get testing first and foremost.

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