Red Meat

Question
Evelyn
Do you think I could be intolerant to red meat?
I am 50 with very poor digestion and a big bloated belly-although I am not obese.I even jog and lift weights.
I have been low carb for a year now but not losing weight just maintaining.
I take digestive enzymes,probiotics,ginger,peppermint-whatever to ease the discomfort.
BTW I have been checked inside and out but no medical conditions.
Recently a lightbulb went off and I am thinking maybe the problem is not carbs but red meat? I usually have a small portion with a meal every day.
Thinking back,my Dad and uncle both died fron colorectal cancer.
My research indicates red meat iconsumption is indicated in this cancer.
Back before I was married with children I couldnt afford to eat a lot of meat and I didnt have the problems I do now.
I am going off the red meat for a couple weeks to see what happens.
Any thoughts appreciated,or possibly you could point me to an internet group that is not vegetarian just no red meat.
Thanks!


Answer
Dear Barry,

I don't think it is that simply about an intolerance to red meat. Digestive problems with bloating point to a weakened digestive system, which could be specifically related to protein processing. I would need to know whether you suffer from flatulence or rather constipation to give you more specific dietary advice or (herbal) remedies. What you do need to know already is that, ironically, meat is very easy to process (despite the fact it takes a while to disolve in the peptic juices) and this, in combination with other taxing foodstuffs, eventually makes for a sluggish system, from which you are suffering by the sounds of it. It is important to distinguish between process and substance. More will follow.

Once your system has weakened, you will find yourself at the end of a lengthy compensation phase. To prevent the early manifestations of imbalances within the metabolic processing from setting fast in serious malignancies you have to take new stock. This is what discomfort (or dis-ease) fundamentally serves. There is no perfect diet or perfect health. The trick each person must learn is to know what one needs at each given phase or circumstance of their life.

You might like to look at your condition as having developed to wake you up to a new kind of awarness (self-consciousness). Diet can be a great portal to spiritual development. When it is said that your body is a temple, they mean that it can house many divine forces and sacred truths, if you care to invite them in. Food can help show up underlying higher purpose to your life, in the way it uses physical paths and makes manifest in form and substance.   The time may have come for you to review your life-style from a new angle.

The first and foremost thing you need to do is to review your diet meticulously. Even after cutting out all the common junkfood (greasy and sugary), excess coffee/black tea/ alcohol, all sodas and snacks that come pre-wrapped or -packaged, there may be many i's left to dot and t's to cross. It can be very beneficial to start with a light detox-fast (vegetable juices, lemonjuice and clay, a week). But this is a separate subject. A more serious fast (under professional guidance, with enemas) generally clears up your complaints fairly miraculously, and the amount of "slugs" (and more often than not, an array of worms) flushed out will show you how imperative it may be to change your lifestyle or adopt new habits.

Often it is not the ingestion of meat, specifically, which causes your imbalance, but the quality of the meat and the method of preparation. Naturally, it is well known that meat can be a very easy source of nematoid and bacterial contamination. However, it is only literally intolerated by (kidney patients and) long-term vegetarians who have lost the facutly of digesting meat for a different intestinal flora. All other "intolerance" is down to wrong combinations. This will cause acidic conditions which promote fermentations and slugs.  Eventhough, blood which is highly acidic is already a manifestation of underlying processing problems, it can serve you well to use an alkaline diet as a red thread. You will, also, need to choose your method of preparation wisely (gentle, slow cooking in general. No deep frying, minimise deepfrozen products as much as possible. Preferably no microwave!). There are plenty of websites informing you on which foods fit into such a diet, for example you could start on About, at Alternative Medicine: altmedicine.about.com (subject alkaline acid diet).

There are some foodstuffs which can help normalise, like the anti-fungal properties in the pectin of apple skins - which proves an apple a day can be helpful. Yoghurt and acidophilus milk stimulate the intestinal flora and must be used daily. Again the quality is important. Absolutely sugar-free. Mustard or horseradish aid digestion of proteins. Certain herbs aid digestion too, and have been traditionally used as condiments for that reason: carraway, anise, fennel, lovage,, dill, chevril help "lighten the load" of carbohydrates especially. Peppermint, sage, thyme, rosemary, savory, oregano, and parsley activate the digestive processes in general. The working of these herbs may well pale in the face of  meat, in your condition, but traditionally they often accompany meat dishes as pre-processing aids that work from within you. Cups of lemonbalm tea, or chamomile tea after dinner are also good aids. A teaspoon of honey daily has medicinal qualities - use sparingly and respectfully: only the raw - organic kind has beneficial properties.

Even wholewheat bread can be hard on your system, actually, if it has already become too sluggish. But we have to start somewhere. No white bread, brown bread. Try sourdough. Often a yeast infection underlies gut problems (which red meat worsens, if not causes directly). Choose the highest quality in all you eat. Each bad morsel is taxing. The quality is measured in subtle ways (literally imponderables). For example, it is the light and warmth (captured by the silica) in the grains which will benefit you: this is only retained in bio-dynamic bread.

Vary your grains (not only wheat). Very often, wrong use of carbohydrates is the seedbed for many a digestive problem.  Museli is the "rawest" form of grain you can get. It will take time before you can benefit fully from this solar boost if your system is weak (presoak at least 1-2 hrs or overnight in yoghurt). Start off with popped amaranth, perhaps. Millet and barley are very good for your system. Go easy on rice, try quinoa and grits or kamut bulghur, or spelt couscous. Choose wholefoods, nuts, fresh vegetables and fruit as gifts from Mother Earth to your personal world. Move away from thinking in terms of fuel or bio-chemistry alone.  Spring is a great time for young salads (many types of lettuce leaves, with bean sprouts and sunflower/pumpkin seeds). Steam root vegetables  or make soups packed with more than 5 veg. Sauerkraut juice is very good for you, while coleslaw might be far too heavy. Carraway seeds are not traditionally added for nothing to cabbage or bread. Include, seaweed, sea fish, and bean sprouts in your diet. A cup of green tea a day could be good. Whole pieces of fruit over juices and smoothies. Make that body work! Ensure complete proteins by making the right amino-acid chains. Train up your body to derive more protein from your carbs. But for this you need original, honest plant matter.

The weakened system may, also, well have difficulties with pulses (soy) and the cabbage family (broccoli and cauliflower, the flower part or Brussel sprouts the easiest to digest out of all of them). Tests show that chemicals used in farming especially make cabbage very hard to digest - so try to shop organically.

Western attitudes (for want of a better word - but also rife in the east) are causing much damage by considering our health on a cellular level, and in terms of molecules and calorie-bites.  You have to look at a diet as a healthy way of eating in an effort to vitalise. Another crucial aspect of this is how your food is produced. If you want to look at the smaller picture, the details (separate elements), consider the effect of chemicals, how animals are kept (hormones, stressful conditions), genetic engineering on the one hand and stellar/cosmic influences on the other: everything has a subtle effect, but all subtleties become form. I am convinced many intolerances are related to this aspect and science will present more factual evidence to support this. Right now your belly is a pot with too much of a hash in it,  it is being chaotically stirred (by energies).

The catabolic, destructive forces, which break-down food go hand in hand with the anabolic ones. If one of them is not working well enough, the other's work is rendered pretty useless. You must therefor keep your break-down processes in tip top shape. We tend to lean towards the anabolic ones, though, with our convenience and affluent diets. They end up fattening us up and clogging us up. Too much of a good thing...

You need to try to understand that you are, also, fed by a cosmic stream. Once this can no longer flow through you, you will become weak in your most vulnerable spots first. Health is not about exercise and diet in any abstract of isolated sense. These are merely paths to a higher purpose.Temperance and wise choice are meant to be noble qualities to help you stay on the straight and narrow path, which becomes dogmatic and stingent if you don't see the beauty, joy and wonder in plain, honest, natural food. Chosing a foodstuff because you like it is not a reliable method, until you have cleansed your palate and retrained your attitude to nourishment.

Finally, rest assured that the natural course of human development will cause, more often than not, changes in a person's diet around 50. Especially in the male this is marked (considered odd) with less obvious changes to mark a new phase as compared to the female menopause.  Most markedly is the gradually decreased need for protein. It is common that red meat is the first to become reduced. Often lovers of raw-cooked meat will start to want their steak better done. This all has to do with how food becomes less of a physical matter. The need to "build body" is no longer appropriate. We have come to the stage at which we need to nurture mind and refine soul. Think of our mortality, not just our temporary energy. Your appetite, desire, and hunger should have been cultivated into fine tastes and appreciation by now; gut instinct should have become finely tuned into intuition. If not, you will begin to notice where you still have work to do in the first ailments of  the average person on the "other side of the hill".

The problem with probiotics and enzymes taken as supplements is that you are fragmenting your diet into separate constituents and individual nutrients - losing the sense of stream. In addition, ensure you eat in peace and with reverence.  We have developed table manners, because we are not meant to graze. Take time to cook and shop: we are not meant to go out (and hunt) when we are ravenous. We are not pigs at a trough: for humans  there is more to eating than having a soup with all the necessary nutrients. Why do we have teeth, tastebuds, metabolic organs and intestines? Each point to the subtle PROCESSES our body needs to engage in, all linking up our different parts into one WHOLE (organs/limbs/body, soul, spirit). The truth is, we eat to ensoul.

There then, some food for thought for you as requested. For more precise dietary advice I need to know more about your current diet and specifics on your digestive problems. Don't hesistate to run any new findings by me after 6 weeks of no meat (you should know by then if meat was the problem).
Keep thinking in processes: enjoy the journey. You'll get there in the end.
Take care,
Evelyn.  

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