Category Archives: Vegetarian Diets

Gluten Free Diets and Healing, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Inflammation and Healing Diet, Performing Artist's Health, Vegetarian Diets

Chronic Tendonitis is Often a Warning Sign of Poor Digestion and Malnourishment

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New Options for Relieving Chronic Pain and Muscle Weakness

”All diseases begin in the gut.” Hippocrates (460-370 BC)

Imagine: You are a successful professional musician, having spent your entire life mastering your instrument. You however, are fighting a difficult struggle—you have chronic tendonitis, embouchure weakness, or other debilitating problems that make performance a constant struggle. You have researched thoroughly and tried every physical therapy treatment—chiropractic, massage, yoga, Alexander Technique, muscle balancing, Rolfing, etc., etc., etc. You are even eating a very healthy diet—but you continue to have recurring problems that are manageable only with a strict regimen of physical therapy treatments. Is this you? When chronic pain is ongoing, a digestive disorder may be to blame.

This was my story. Although I had been playing professionally and teaching for more than 25 years, I had spent much of that time in pain. Beginning in my late teens and 20s, I experienced musculoskeletal inflammation and early symptoms of digestive troubles such as flatulence—a sign of poor digestion. I relieved my pain through physical therapy-type approaches common to the field of music—you name it; I did it! In my late twenties and throughout my thirties, I was constantly “chasing” pain from practicing and performing. When I would solve the discomfort in one area, another area would become irritated. At 40, I developed acid reflux and in the fall of 2001, at 45, I became chronically ill with an inflammatory condition in my spine that left me with debilitating pain in my shoulders, fingers, arms, and hands. As my illness worsened, my embouchure shook uncontrollably and I suffered from chronic diarrhea and malabsorption. I thought would not survive.

Ultimately, I was diagnosed with a long-term digestive problem, intestinal damage, and malabsorption—all the result of Celiac disease (an intolerance for gluten grains), and surprisingly, following the common low-fat, high-fiber nutritional dictates. I found the answers to healing through a dramatic change in my diet, adopting the principles of Dr. Weston Price, whose research on healthy cultures worldwide during the 1930s led to the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org), a foundation that helps people understand accurate dietary principles of human health and is helping to improve the food supply in our country.

I knew the problems I suffered were common not only to musicians, but to people in all walks of life as our country’s food supply has drastically changed since the 1950s. I decided to help others have access to this life-saving information by writing a book with Dr. John Turner, the chiropractor who helped me recover who is a former national qualifying gymnast, and Sally Fallon, the founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Our book is called Performance Without Pain: Healing Pain, Inflammation, and Chronic Ailments in Musicians, Athletes, Dancers—and Everyone Else (New Trends, 2006).

In my book, we discuss what foods cause digestion problems and chronic ailments. We also discuss the vital necessity of eating traditionally raised foods, adequate amounts of vitamin A and D and traditional fats—fats that people ate for 1000s of years. Without these foods, digestion and nutrient absorption can eventually be severely compromised.

We also cover the importance of traditionally cultured foods that promote healthy intestinal flora, without which our foods are not broken down properly and unhealthy bacteria can thrive in the intestinal tract causing bacterial fermentation and intestinal damage. When the intestinal tract becomes damaged, undigested proteins can “leak” through the intestinal wall, causing an immune system response and inflammatory chemicals to continually circulate throughout the body. For musicians, dancers, or athletes, this can lead to a predisposition to injury and inflammation.

From his research, Dr. Price established a set of dietary requirements necessary for optimal human health that involve nutrient-dense, easy-to-digest foods with adequate traditional fats from pastured animals and wild-caught fish. These include:

•    High-vitamin A and D foods—for instance cod-liver oil, egg yolks, liver
•    High quality traditional fats—butter, coconut oil, lard
•    Bone-broth soups made from chicken, beef, or fish.
•    Traditionally cultured foods such as kefir, yogurt and homemade sauerkraut and pickled beets.
•    High quality proteins—meats, raw dairy, poultry, eggs, and fish—from animals eating their natural diets.

Through this approach, I reversed my acid reflux and intestinal damage, and provided my body with the nutritional elements necessary for building health. I am now recovered and vibrantly healthy! For the first time in 25 years I have had no pain or inflammation in my body for over four years. My embouchure is completely strong and I have excellent stamina.

Although finding high-quality foods and changing your diet may at first be complicated, your health is your most important asset. The dietary principles that Dr. Price found that supported optimal human health were the permanent answer to healing my digestive tract, and therefore, my long-term pain. The exciting news is there is a growing movement of people across the country that is turning to these same foods to improve chronic illness of all kinds.

For more information about our book and seminars see www.perfoprmancewithoutpain.com or our new ebook on acid reflux diet.

Digestive Disorders and Healing Diet, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, High Fiber Diets, USDA Dietary Guidelines, Nutrient Deficiencies and Degenerative Illness, Vegetarian Diets

Is a High-Fiber Diet Really Healthy?

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A Review of the Important Book: Fiber Menace

By Konstantin Monastyrsky
Ageless Press

The striking cover illustration of Fiber Menace—a cereal bowl full of gold screws—primes the reader for its startling message: the USDA-endorsed high-fiber diet has a disastrous effects on the digestive system.

Fiber Menace describes major health problems that can develop from eating what’s considered a modern healthy diet high in fiber from grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes and even fiber supplements. The author details how high-fiber diets cause large stools which stretch the intestinal tract beyond its normal range–eventually resulting in intestinal damage–and a drastic upset of the natural bacterial flora of the gut. The end results manifest as hernias, hemorrhoidal disease, constipation, malnourishment, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease.  He also provides numerous medical references to show that high-fiber diets do not confer the benefits claimed for them.

The author of this book is a brilliant professional man who suffered a life-threatening illness from years as a vegetarian living on high-fiber foods. Konstantin Monastyrsky was trained as a pharmacologist, but after immigrating to the US from the Ukraine, pursued a career in high technology. He worked in two premier Wall Street firms: as a senior systems analyst at First Boston Corporation and as a consultant at Goldman-Sachs & Co. He has also written two best-selling books in Russian: Functional Nutrition: The Foundation of Absolute Health and Longevity, and Disorders of Carbohydrate Metabolism.

Monastyrsky explains that human teeth are fashioned to chop flesh and that our digestive system is built to handle mainly protein digestion, with only small amounts of fiber. When we eat too much fiber, digestion lasts longer and fermentation occurs, damaging the bacterial flora and causing problems such as bloating, flatulence and enlarged stools, leading to constipation or diarrhea, IBS and diverticular disease.

One fascinating chapter of Monastyrsky’s book details the problems with drinking too much water. Drinking the recommended eight glasses of water a day may cause problems such as mineral depletion and imbalances, which can contribute to digestive disorders, kidney disease, degenerative bone disease, muscular disorders and even cardiac arrest from electrical dysfunction. Paradoxically, overconsumption of water may also cause constipation.  When too much water is added to a high-fiber diet, the fibrous foods swell and ferment in the intestinal tract, leading to gas, bloating and other uncomfortable effects.

Traditional peoples did not drink large quantities of water. Instead, they stayed hydrated with milk, fermented beverages and bone broth soups, which have incredible nutrient qualities and do not upset the body’s homeostasis.  Plus, traditional peoples consumed plenty of fat, which renders much more water during metabolism than proteins or carbohydrates.

I was very interested with this author’s perspective as I also suffered a life-threatening digestive illness and recovered through eating a nutrient-dense diet, which happens to be a low-fiber diet. For years, I ate lots of fruits and vegetables—mostly raw—ate tons of grains and faithfully drank eight glasses of water daily. I ate some meat and dairy but avoided fat— and definitely no butter! I developed severe intestinal damage from undiagnosed Celiac disease and a hiatal hernia. The material presented in Fiber Menace makes me wonder whether my digestive disorders—which led to intestinal damage and severe malnutrition–may have been caused by all the fiber I was eating, rather than gluten intolerance.

For those who worry about getting enough nutrients without eating raw vegetables and fruits, the author reminds us that nutrient-dense animal foods contain concentrated nutrients because the animals spend their whole lives chowing down literally bushels of fresh green grass and other plant matter. The result is meat and fat containing all the vitamins and minerals found in fresh produce, not only in more concentrated form, but also one that is easy to digest.

Fiber Menace gets a Thumbs Up, but the book is not without flaws.  The book becomes repetitive in the later chapters in the descriptions of various diseases caused by eating the way the doctors tell us to.  Monastyrsky’s audience would have been better served with a concise presentation of what to eat. He is firmly in the WAPF camp, recommending butter and small amounts of cod liver oil, but in this book he fails to emphasize the healing effects of bone broths, fermented foods, medium-chain fatty acids and liberal amounts of the fat-soluble activators A and D. (His book in Russian, Functional Nutrition, does emphasize these foods, and Monastyrsky tells us that he will be translating these sections into English and posting them at fibermenace.com.) The author does warn his readers not to eat anything that your great, great, great, great grandparents wouldn’t eat . . . but our grandparents did include high-fiber foods like grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables in their diets. They could do this without ill effects because they knew how to prepare these foods by soaking and sour leavening or, in the case of vegetables and even many fruits, by cooking and because they did not weaken the mucosal tissue by following a low-fat vegetarian diet.

Monastyrsky warns readers of problems when switching to a low-fiber diet. It is important to gradually cut down on fiber and make sure you are getting adequate fats and foods that build the intestinal flora. As stools are smaller, the urge to go to the bathroom will be less pronounced, so it is very important to pay attention to the “urge” signal; otherwise stools may harden and cause constipation. Interestingly, he points out that a healthy stool is easy to pass, rather small in diameter and is mostly composed of bacteria leaving the body rather than protein residue—the human digestive tract is design to digest proteins completely. He stresses the fact that it is not necessary to consume fiber to have regular stools as we have been led to believe. Some of the healthiest cultures had very little fiber in their diets.

Dr. John Turner, DC, CCSP, DIBCN, who lectures with me on building health through traditional nutrient-dense foods notes that, “my training as a physician included many hours of nutrition, but fiber was only mentioned in regards to the effects of a deficiency.  Never once did any of my professors consider the possibility that too much of what has always been considered a ‘good thing’ could have such harmful or far-reaching consequences.  The author’s detailed description of the trauma imposed to the gastrointestinal mucosa by the expanding fiber is a vivid reminder that returning to the basics of GI function and logically thinking through what our bodies actually are designed to do with the food we eat, should be the first step on anyone’s journey to recovery from digestive disorders. Thanks to the insights in this book I have slowly begun to change my approach to common patient symptoms, which I traditionally would have treated by suggesting increased fiber and more water to correct!  So far the results are promising.”

Many thanks to Konstantin Monastyrsky for writing this important book.

Review by Kathryne Pirtle

For more information about our book and seminars, see www.performancewithoutpain.com.

Allergies, Digestion and Healing Diet, Children's Health, Gluten Free Diets and Healing, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Vegetarian Diets

How Effective are Gluten-Free Diets?

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Beyond a “Gluten-Free Diet”

Harnessing the Power of Traditional, Nutrient-Dense Foods—
the Keys to Maximizing Treatment Success for Digestive Disorders

Healing from any long term digestive disorder is a very complicated issue. For Celiac disease, eliminating gluten is, of course, the first step to recovery. However, following this protocol alone may not be entirely effective in helping to overcome intestinal damage and the resulting long term malnourishment that ultimately may lead to many more serious health problems. While avoiding gluten is essential, to build optimal health where nutrient absorption has been severely impaired, a nutrient-dense diet is the only approach that will lead to true healing.

This was my experience. I am a professional clarinetist with a national career. Although I had been playing professionally and teaching for more than 25 years, I had spent much of that time in pain. Beginning in my late teens and 20s, I experienced musculoskeletal inflammation and early symptoms of digestive troubles such as flatulence—a sign of poor digestion. I relieved my pain through physical therapy-type approaches common to the field of music—you name it; I did it! In my late twenties and throughout my thirties, I was constantly “chasing” pain from practicing and performing. When I would solve the discomfort in one area, another area would become irritated. At 40, I developed acid reflux and in the fall of 2001, at 45, I became chronically ill with an inflammatory condition in my spine that left me with debilitating pain in my shoulders, fingers, arms, and hands.

Ultimately, I was diagnosed with a long-term digestive problem, intestinal damage, and malabsorption—all the result of Celiac disease. I then strictly followed a gluten-free diet. In fact, after my diagnoses, I ate only meat, eggs, vegetables and salad, fruit and olive oil—I ate no sugar or grains. My pain disappeared within a month, but six months later, my illness worsened and I suffered from chronic diarrhea. I thought would not survive.

What was I going to eat? I had cut out all the offending gluten foods plus sugar and didn’t even eat grains. My diet should have been completely therapeutic for Celiac disease but yet, I was still very ill as my intestinal damage had profoundly affected nutrient absorption.

I found the answers to healing through a dramatic change in my diet, adopting the principles of Dr. Weston Price, whose research on healthy cultures worldwide during the 1930s led to the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org), a foundation that helps people understand accurate dietary principles of human health and is helping to improve the food supply in our country.

I learned that my diet was severely lacking in the foods and nutrients necessary to healing my digestive tract and malnourishment and that many of the foods I ate were difficult to digest—especially the raw vegetables and fruit—and were not healing to the intestinal tract. In fact, my low-fat, high fiber “healthy diet” was actually killing me!

I discovered that in order to maximize the nutrients I ate, that all the meat, eggs, dairy, poultry that I consumed needed to come animals eating their natural diets—ie. the cows had to eat grass, the chickens needed to eat bugs and worms, and the fish needed to be wild caught. I found these foods by locating a farm co-op that delivered these foods to our area through www.realmilk.com. The nutrients in naturally raised foods are immensely higher than even “organically” raised and especially factory farmed foods.

The first powerful food that I learned would help me recover was homemade bone-broth soup—traditional soup that people had made for thousands of years. I have eaten a bone-broth soup every day for the last seven years. There is a South American saying “Good broth raises the dead.” Good bone broth soup is loaded with easy-to-digest nutrients that will give the intestinal tract all the elements needed for repair and improvement of absorption. It is made by taking high quality chicken, beef or lamb bones, skin, tendons and ligaments–and simmering them in water with a little vinegar or wine for 12-36 hours, and then straining it. Soups can then be made by adding meat and vegetables to the broth and the broth can also be used in countless other recipes for added nutrition.

Next, through studying Dr. Price’s work, I found that all healthy cultures ate foods naturally high in vitamin A and D—such as cod liver oil, liver and egg yolks. They also consumed liberal amounts of traditional fats such as raw butter, cream, coconut oil and lard—fats that people had also eaten for thousands of years. Without both adequate vitamin A and D and traditional fat, you will not be able to absorb the nutrients in your food and your digestion can eventually be severely compromised. Thus, without adequate vitamin A and D and traditional fats in my diet, I was literally starving and chronic diarrhea was one of the symptoms. In fact, in historical records of expeditions to Antarctica and the lives of Indian tribes, when only lean meat was available, people starved to death.

I began to consume high-quality cod liver oil and butter oil (see www.greenpasture.org for more information). I also added raw butter, coconut oil, raw cream, egg yolks daily and liver twice a week to my diet for the first time in my life. Little did I know that adding fat and vitamin A and D were also the missing links to recovery.

I then learned the importance of traditionally cultured foods—like whole-fat, raw-milk kefir, homemade sauerkraut and beet kvass—that promote healthy intestinal flora and supply enzymes, without which our foods are not broken down properly and unhealthy bacteria can thrive in the intestinal tract causing bacterial fermentation and intestinal damage. When the intestinal tract becomes damaged, undigested proteins can “leak” through the intestinal wall, causing an immune system response, such as chronic inflammation and food allergies.

From his research, Dr. Price established a set of dietary requirements necessary for optimal human health that involve nutrient-dense, easy-to-digest foods with adequate traditional fats from pastured animals and wild-caught fish. These include:

• High-vitamin A and D foods—cod-liver oil, egg yolks, liver
• High quality traditional fats—butter, coconut oil, lard
• Bone-broth soups made from chicken, beef, or fish.
• Traditionally cultured foods such as whole-fat kefir, yogurt and homemade sauerkraut and pickled beets.
• High quality proteins—meats, raw dairy, poultry, eggs, and fish—from animals eating their natural diets.

Through this approach, I reversed my intestinal damage, and provided my body with the nutritional elements necessary for building health. I am now recovered and vibrantly healthy! For the first time in 25 years I have had no pain or inflammation in my body for over six years.

Although finding high-quality foods and changing your diet may at first be complicated, your health is your most important asset—your health is your wealth! The dietary principles that Dr. Price found that supported optimal human health were the permanent answer to healing my digestive tract, and therefore, my long-term malnourishment. The exciting news is there is a growing movement of people across the country that is turning to these same foods to improve chronic illness of all kinds.

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle