Varieties of digestive experience

[nancylebov]

Fruits and veggies aren't the best thing for everybody:

So then I did some poking around and discovered the mostly-unknown-in-the-U.S. disorder called fructose malabsorption. Apparently, about 30% of the population in Western nations has it to one degree or another. Thirty percent! With rare exceptions, that usually doesn’t mean we can’t eat any fruit sugars, but that we have to know what our limits and triggers are. This covers not just fruits or their derivatives (including everyone’s favorite chewtoy, HFCS), but also many veggies and beans. (Does Michael Pollan know about this?) And in some cases, it can lead to problems digesting wheat and dairy, too.

Addendum: schemingreader chased some links, and found that 30% of westerners have non-specific abdominal complaints, but not specifically fructose malabsorbtion.

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And more poking around still uncovered a condition called salicylate sensitivity, which we auties (among others) can also be subject to, and which covers the triggers I have that aren’t accounted for above. Guess which foods are highest in salicylates? Yes, that’s right — pretty much every produce item that’s not on the FODMAP list. (And Donna Williams, an autistic author based in Australia, says documentation exists that veggies are being bred these days with extra salicylates, which are supposed to protect against cancer.) Not to mention tons of nonfood stuff like aspirin and ibuprofen, and most commercially available shampoos and soaps. Holy frigging gluten-free donut holes, Batman. Maybe there’s a good reason some people resist chowing down on ten-foot piles of produce — we don’t just get a little farty eating undercooked broccoli stems, we turn our tummies into skin-covered Cuisinarts doing it, no matter how many times we try over and over again to “get used to it.”

Oddly enough, though, beans don’t bother me at all. Not even if I eat them with pickled cabbage slaw. I’m weird, I know.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

This is misleading. I followed that 30% number to her citation, which was a Wikipedia article, and then followed the footnote, to this article (graciously supplied in full by someone really kind!) In the western world, 30% of people have non-specific abdominal complaints, not fructose malabsorption! The fructose malabsorption number may be a lot higher than people think it is, but it's not 1/3 of the population! The article covered all carbohydrate malabsorption, including lactose intolerance, which is much better documented.

I do not think this is a reason for MOST people to stop eating fruits and vegetables! The blogger herself cites the famous orthorexia essay. I'm glad she figured out her own situation, but I don't think that means the rest of us need to stop eating broccoli. (Unless it upsets your stomach, I mean!)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for tracking that down.

I think the main point is to experiment to find out whether some foods might be a problem if you've got digestive issues, not to give up fruit without checking.

I was just told about someone who can handle fruit juice but not fruit because he can't handle that much fiber.