Reintroduction Insight

[dkmwf9]

I feel very well versed in answering most Whole30 questions I get, but yesterday I was stumped by one involving reintroduction. When I was explaining how I will bring each food group back into my diet one at a time to see how I react, my sister asked me "won't they all make you feel bad because you haven't had them in so long?" For example, when vegetarians go off meat and have it again for the first time they don't feel fantastic. I never believed it was because their body wasn't designed to handle meat properly, but just because their body got used to never having it. 

 

Am I to assume if having a slice of cheese on my burger leads to some kind of negative response by my body that it is because my body has never been good at processing dairy, or that it is no longer good at it after I eliminated it from my diet for 30+ days?

[sstrayer]

My mother-in-law asked me the same question the other day!  I didn't know how to answer it.  I hope someone chimes on this one!  

[Staggolee41]

Same here! Very curious myself, would love to get some insight.

[ladyshanny]

If you removed, say, nightshades and then reintroduced them and you had an autoimmune condition, even though nightshades (peppers, tomatoes etc) are generally considered healthy for most people, you may have a reaction that other people, not sensitive to nightshades wouldn't have. 

 

When we consistently eat something which is an irritant for us, our body tries to protect itself.  One of those protection methods is by developing a thick mucosal layer in the gut/intestines to try and protect them from the irritant. When you stop eating irritating foods, that layer is sloughed off because it's no longer needed. Then, if you introduce something like dairy or grains that are irritating to you, you'll notice.  Sometimes it's dose-dependant and some people's "dose" is pretty small to get a reaction.

 

It's not necessarily equivalent to vegetarians who start eating meat.  When you don't eat animal proteins for a long time, the gut bacteria that digest it are basically starved off and the gut biome changes. When a vegetarian starts eating meats again, they may need to "seed" their gut with the correct bacteria for digestion of animal products.  This is not the case with dairy or gluten or soy.  There are no specific gut bacteria needed for digestion of them. They just either hurt you or they don't.

 

Hope that helps.