This is something there is a lot of conflicting information around but if you look at the actual human outcomes we don’t see evidence for eliminating these things long-term unless you have an actual allergy to these foods.
If you’re one of the many who have eliminated, or considered eliminating, dairy, gluten, and soy, this episode is for you!
Kacey discusses why eliminating these things, may temporarily help to provide fewer triggers in the body, but, ultimately, you have to ask yourself why your body is being triggered by those foods, to begin with.
Remember to share this episode if this helped you today and please leave a review!
This is something there is a lot of conflicting information around but if you look at the actual human outcomes we don’t see evidence for eliminating these things long-term unless you have an actual allergy to these foods.
If you’re one of the many who have eliminated, or considered eliminating, dairy, gluten, and soy, this episode is for you!
Kacey discusses why eliminating these things, may temporarily help to provide fewer triggers in the body, but, ultimately, you have to ask yourself why your body is being triggered by those foods, to begin with.
Remember to share this episode if this helped you today and please leave a review!
[00:10] Kacey K: Welcome to the Simply Healthy You podcast, your place for overcoming overwhelm with your health to reach your fullest potential. I'm your host, Casey Kane and I am so pumped to have you here. I'm a recovering, burnt out high achiever who is diagnosed with an autoimmune thy condition by my early thirty s. I.
[00:27] Kacey K: Didn'T realize that running myself ragged in.
[00:29] Kacey K: The name of being superwoman and determined to achieve all the things in life was killing my body. I created this podcast so that you don't have to continue the struggle like I did for over a decade. I sat down, studied the data, and simplified what it means to prioritize your own health needs so that you can be the best for all the things on your to do.
[00:50] Kacey K: List.
[00:50] Kacey K: Everything you hear on this podcast I have tested and implemented in my own super packed life with my family to bring you the tips, tools and strategies that will keep your life simply healthy.
[01:06] Kacey K: Hello and welcome to another episode of Simply Healthy You. I'm your host, Casey Kane, an integrative health practitioner and certified Holistic nutritionist with a Master's in Psychology. And I'm here to bring you science based conversations to help you live a healthier and happier life today. You could guess from the title I am talking about why eliminating dairy, gluten, soy, corn, sugar, salt, whatever the hell it is that people are blanket telling you to eliminate from your diet is not actually going to do you any favors long term when it comes to your hormone, your gut and overall health. It's just not beneficial. We do not see the evidence to support these recommendations. This is something that there is a lot of conflicting information around and I thought it would be helpful to put this together as I was just having a conversation with someone the other day who said their daughter eliminated gluten and dairy and is feeling so much better and had all these sensitivities. And so I want to talk about that today because when we actually look at human outcomes, we don't see the evidence for eliminating these things long term unless you have an actual allergy to these foods. Where a lot of the conflicting information comes from is that there are lab tests that have shown things like dairy and gluten being particularly air quotes, inflammatory, but when we look at human outcome data, we don't see that, actually. Don't. Well, I'll talk about dairy because it's a little bit different from the other things on this list here. I know what you're going to say though, Casey. I eliminated dairy and gluten and soy and whatever, and I do feel so much better though, so what are you talking about? Because my lived experience tells me that I do better without these foods and I too experienced this effect when I first discovered my Hashimoto's, my autoimmune thyroid condition, and for a year or two it really seemed to be helping that's a long time. And if you've just eliminated it or you've eliminated it for a while even, it can seem as though you are doing a benefit to yourself because you're not experiencing the digestive distress that you might have had with that particular food. But over time, the effects wear off because eliminating these things, while temporarily, may help to provide fewer triggers in your body. You have to ask yourself why your body is being triggered by these foods to begin with. It is not natural for us to be when it comes to at least gluten and soy and corn and some of the other ones, it's not natural for us to have this sort of visceral reaction to it. Dairy is a different one. Most of the population is going to have that issue and I'm going to talk about that in just a minute. So you really have to think about like, okay, it might have resolved your symptoms, but did it actually resolve the underlying cause? Right? That's what I talk about all the time. We're looking at the underlying root cause of the issue. It's not natural for our body to be triggered by any foods like that unless we have an actual allergy. Right, this is an allergic reaction is very different than what I'm talking about here today. And I've talked about this a lot with my food sensitivity episodes as well. Food sensitivities can be overcome in most cases. They are not something that you need to live with and eliminate long term. So let's talk about dairy first because this one for many people may actually be the only one on this list that I would recommend that a client leave out or exercise extreme caution with long term. We don't need dairy for good health. I know a lot of the times, especially if you have kids, you've been told that your kids need to drink milk after they're not breastfeeding anymore or that they need animal based formulas and things like that if you're not breastfeeding. And this is just not the case. We do not need dairy for good health. There are lots of other ways to get the nutrients that are in dairy, even for calcium needs. There was a prospective study of about 96,000 people over 22 years that showed that milk consumption during teenage years did not actually protect against hip fractures later in life. And this is just one of the many that show dairy's long touted benefits for bone health are not actually true in any way. So, I mean, you can definitely look on PubMed and find numerous studies that will show you that dairy is just really not as great as we think it is. Plus, you have to keep in mind the saturated fat content that you are getting with dairy. And if cardiovascular disease is the top leading cause of death globally, then we probably want to be focused on reducing the risk factors for that versus trying to get some calcium through our milk. Right? So what is lactose? Lactose is a short chain carbohydrate or a sugar basically found in dairy products. In order for lactose to be processed by the body, we need the enzyme lactase. 75% of us are deficient in the lactase enzyme. I'm going to say that again so we can let it sink in. Because I know you probably have experienced digestive issues when it comes to dairy and you're still lying to yourself and telling yourself that it's not a problem for you and or you're just dealing with it. 75% of us are deficient in the lactase enzyme, which means three and four of us are going to experience gas bloating, digestive distress, altered bowel movements if we consume dairy. And I know you know what I'm talking about because I guarantee that most of you listening to this are part of the three and four. You might say to yourself that when you experience this that it's worth the pain. I know for a long time I lied to myself and told myself that because I love cheese and I love ice cream. But what you're actually doing to your insides is ultimately raising inflammation long term. In the beginning, it's just an irritation. It's not causing any long term damage. But if you consume dairy chronically, you're now chronically irritating and inflaming, which is going to lead to leaky gut issues. It's going to lead to gaps in your intestinal wall I've talked about in previous episodes and poor nutrient absorption overall. So is it really worth it to be consuming dairy all the time when your body is clearly sending you the flags that it does not agree with you? No, I wouldn't say so. Now we have seen some benefit to small amounts of fermented dairy like kafir or yogurt being consumed. But this is, again, small amounts. It's not making up a large percentage of your diet. And I think that we're talking about the fermented products because of the benefits to the microbiome. And that's a lot of what we're talking about here today is what's going on in your gut when you don't eliminate or do eliminate some of these foods. But I think if you're going to consume fermented dairy, you really need to look at the quality of those, right? It's very hard to get high quality yogurt. It costs a fucking fortune. And they can often be loaded with added sugar, which also negatively affects the gut. Right. So you got to kind of consider, is it worth it? At that point? That's a personal choice. So what about gluten? So we know dairy for about 75% of us is probably something that we just shouldn't be having regularly. Now there is a threshold there, right. With small amounts of dairy, some of us will not experience any symptoms at all. You just put a couple of drops of milk on your tongue, you're not going to explode with diarrhea. Right. But I think it's just finding that threshold for yourself. If you choose to continue to consume dairy and making sure that you're spacing out when you consume it, it should not be a daily thing. I often tell my clients with foods like that or any ultra processed foods, to space them out about two to three days apart from each other, so the body has time to recover and calm down so we aren't causing any long term damage. So what about gluten? Gluten? Gluten. Why that came out so weird. There has been so much talk about gluten in recent years, and it's really not where we should be spending our energy. Again, this is one that I eliminated for a long time, and I thought it was beneficial to me, and it wasn't. It didn't end up being beneficial. And I ended up having more gut issues from eliminating gluten than if I were to really pay attention to how I was eating gluten. So that's why I want to talk about here, if you don't know. Gluten is a protein that is found in three specific whole grains wheat, barley, and rye. Many gluten containing foods that we are eating are ultra processed, though very few people are eating whole wheat and whole barley and rye in the forms that they come from just cooking it like you would rice, right? Very few of us are eating it that way. So you're thinking, think of most forms of gluten containing foods are going to be bread and pasta and pizza and cereal and crackers and all of these things, right? And this is one of the main reasons why people feel so much better when they go gluten free. Anyone who eliminates a chunk of refined and ultra processed foods from their diet is going to feel better. They're ultra processed foods. It's very hard to get a lot of nutrients from those foods. They're very nutrient poor. So of course, if you are eliminating those, your body is going to feel better. And if you're additionally replacing them with whole foods, of course your body is going to feel better. Overall, you've improved the quality, the nutrient quality of your diet. Gluten is really only a problem for people with celiac disease in a very small additional percentage of the population who has a gluten sensitivity that won't go away with a healed gut. This is where food sensitivity testing can come in handy, which is one that I offer, but also just kind of looking at your dietary patterns, doing some food journaling and working on healing your gut. That's about one to 2% of the population, just so you know. A very small part of the population. Meanwhile, I think one of the last statistics that I looked at said somewhere about like 50% of the population is partially gluten free right now. It makes no sense. You might think, well, let me try eliminating it anyway, because what can it hurt? But we have seen that the microbiome of those who go gluten free without celiac disease actually declines their beneficial gut bacteria species and increases harmful strains like E. Coli and endobacteria. CA. It's endobacteria, which is another one, you might not have heard of it, but it's one of the ones similar to E. Coli that definitely causes some damage in there and can cause some serious digestive issues. No, thank you. I am not going to eliminate gluten and have to worry about disrupting my gut microbiome because of it. So it does actually hurt to eliminate gluten when you are not celiac, it will hurt your gut. So it's no wonder to me now, knowing what I know, that why going gluten free for all those years didn't actually help my thyroid disease and I was still experiencing gut issues. If you are someone who has thyroid issues, you will most commonly be told to cut out dairy and gluten. I just had a woman that I spoke with the other day who said she was just diagnosed with Hashimoto's and she said she's now being recommended to go gluten free. And it just fucking bothers me that endocrinologists are still telling people this, because one what basis do they have for that? Again, this is another one where in some people, it may have been triggering. And again, you have to think, we're not trying to just eliminate the triggers, we're trying to eliminate what's at the root of it. Why is the body being triggered? The trigger is a symptom. We do not want to just treat the triggers. And by eliminating gluten in the cases of even thyroid disease, you're just eliminating a trigger. Why is the body attacking the thyroid in and of itself? Why is the thyroid not functioning to the point that it is supposed to be? Right? It's all about identifying toxicities, removing those toxicities and improving deficiencies. Nine times out of ten, that's what it comes down to with every single one of my clients and any of the case studies, any of the certifications that I've done. It's all about removing toxicities and replacing deficiencies. And once we do that, the body is a lot calmer about everything. Literally about everything. This is what I would also say for corn and soy, who often end up on this blanket. Eliminate from your life list. Most of the time, corn and soy comes in ultraprocessed foods that's very few people are eating tofu or tempeh or edamame on a regular basis as their form of soy. You're usually getting soy in some kind of ultra processed food and it's somewhere on the ingredient list that you don't even recognize until you start looking for it. And then you go, oh, well, I can't eat this and I can't eat that. Same with thing with corn. How often are you eating just frozen corn, canned corn, corn on the cob, right? Versus something that was made from corn flour. So this is what I would also say for those. If your primary sources of these foods that you are eliminating is coming from a package, well, then you don't actually know one. If you are sensitive to those foods, it isn't a given that these foods are going to be inherently inflammatory or triggering for you, period. It's just not the case if they are triggering for you and you're like, no, Casey, I can't eat that, or I will be in extreme digestive pain, or I get brain fog afterwards. Like, I have some serious impacts after I eat that food. Then you need to dig deeper and get to the reason why. You obviously have some serious gut imbalance, and I imagine that is affecting a lot of other aspects of your life. It's going to affect your hormones. It's going to affect your overall health. What I want you to ask yourself when you are thinking about eliminating anything from your diet is, is it the ultra processed ways in which you are eating these foods? Are you only eating these foods in packages? Then it's not the food itself. It's the fact that you're eating it from a package. Does the same reaction happen when you eat the whole food form? If it does, then yes. I mean, we've got to temporarily eliminate that food, and you need to dig deeper and figure out why. How is your gut health overall? Do you have multiple foods that seem to have this impact on you? Oftentimes when I find clients who have eliminated dairy and gluten and all the things or whatever, it's because they have so many different things that are reacting with their system. And again, why is that happening? Right. How is your gut health overall? Probably not great if you're reacting to all of those foods. Is your body showing signs of nutrient deficiencies on top of the digestive issues so this can look like things like migraines and joint pain and weight gain and poor sleep and mood swings, painful and heavy periods? Yes. Gut health is directly tied to our hormone health. If you are not properly absorbing nutrients and also eliminating a ton of foods from your diet and not having a good variety of diet to get a good variety of nutrients, you're going to have some serious deficits there, and that is going to impact multiple aspects of your life and your health. There are times when I tell my clients to temporarily eliminate foods that are obviously very triggering to their system, because I'm not here to tell you I don't want you to be living in pain or suffering while we are trying to heal and figure out what the root cause is. Like, there's a reality that this takes time. And so there have been times where I say to a client, all right, keep that off the list for now, but let's figure out what's going on here, because this is not how it should be. And we focus on the healing process. We want the body to be able to focus on the healing process. And if you are eating things that are triggering for it, it's going to be focused on fighting that thing versus on your healing. Right? So we want to fix the sensitivities, and sometimes temporarily eliminating is helpful in that process. Most of the time, this is maybe a three month period. Unless it's a very extreme case, we might do six months while we work on the root cause issues, and then we begin a slow reintroduction period. Nine times out of ten, clients no longer have issues with those foods when they follow this method. And this isn't something I came up with. This is something that many gut health specialists, gastroenterologists, who are finally getting on board with. Looking at all of these symptoms that people have, I think gastroenterologists, they have, like the craziest, waitlist right now for appointments. You can call one, and it'll probably be three or four months before you get in to see them, because that's how many people are having these gut issues and are not getting the holistic approach that they need to figure out why they're happening. You're probably going to get diagnosed with IBS. IBD one of those things you're going to get slapped on with some kind of prescription that's either going to keep you from having diarrhea all the time or keep you from being constipated. They're going to tell you to have some fiber powder and call it a day. Like, that's all they're going to do. And that's not getting at the root cause of the issue, right? So nine times out of ten, clients no longer have issues with these foods anymore after we do this reintroduction period, after we do the gut healing protocol that is necessary for their specific needs. There is sometimes a case here and there where someone is always sensitive to just one random thing. Almonds. Like, just can't have almonds, and eliminating it almost entirely is most beneficial. Again, what I usually tell them in this case is just make sure if you are going to have this food, try to space it at least two to three days apart if you're going to have it multiple times in a week, or just have it on rare occasions. Otherwise, we have seen time and time again that eating a diverse amount of whole plant foods is what increases the health of our microbiome, which in turn increases our overall health and vitality. If you have or have been recommended to blindly eliminate foods from your diet, I can help you discover what the actual issue is so you no longer have to live without foods that you enjoy and get to healing the root cause. This comes into the conversation a lot when we are talking about hormones as well. I talk about hormones a ton, and I think that a lot of the times where I see people getting these recommendations is when they have hormone issues, right? I see a lot of women with thyroid disease, PCOS endometriosis, being told that eliminating these foods from their diet is going to help their hormones. And I just think that's a really backwards way of looking at it. Eliminating more things from the body when the body is clearly screaming that it doesn't have enough of the things that it needs is not a way to approach it. And that is why my approach has always been, let's add as much as we can to your daily routine, whether it is your diet, your lifestyle, your environment, let's add as many positive things we can to your life that will help support your body and support your healing, and then let's see what the problem is. Then let's dig deeper and look at what is actually going on here. And it's why in Simply Healthy Academy, the foundation is the same for everyone, because we are adding and most of us are not eating enough of the things that we need for our body to thrive. And so we always start with that foundation of adding all the things and then parsing out what the problems actually are, digging deeper, doing the lab tests, whatever it might be, for each client to be able to discover what the root is of the issue and be able to heal it from there. I very rarely have to tell people to eliminate things. Very rarely. And I think it's one of the things that my clients appreciate the most and is so refreshing because all they've ever been told before, especially when it comes to hormone issues, is that they need to eliminate things because this is just something that's inflammatory for thyroid people or whatever. I know that's what I heard. I read a lot of thyroid books that recommended those kinds of things. And again, we just don't see it in the human outcomes. We don't see it everywhere. We see things that happened in labs and happened in test tubes. And sometimes that information is helpful and sometimes it's not, and we have to be able to discern the difference. So thank you for joining me on this episode of Simply Healthy You. I hope that this was helpful to you. If you've been considering eliminating things or have eliminated things, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and leave a review. Share it with the ones that you love that could use this information. I greatly appreciate your support. As always, stay curious, stay healthy, and until next time, take care.
[20:35] Kacey K: Thank you so much for listening to.
[20:37] Kacey K: The Simply Healthy You podcast. If these episodes are resonating with you, go ahead and click that subscribe button.
[20:43] Kacey K: And leave a review with all the great nuggets that you're taking away from today's episode, I promise you I read every single one of them as your feedback is really valuable to me in creating future episodes.
[20:54] Kacey K: As your host, I look forward to having you join me for the next episode.
[20:57] Kacey K: But in the meantime, remember, keep it simple and eat more plants.