can't even tolerate Pure Foods ghee?

[erika]

Well, I am mystified by my latest gut challenge.  I was surprised when I first went paleo that dairy products turned out to be by far my biggest problem, since I'd been eating them with no issues at all up until the Horrible Virus that started all my health problems 18 months ago.  But ghee seemed to be fine -- as one might expect.  I ate ghee with no problem for six months (Purity Farms brand).

A month or two ago, I began experiencing my very characteristic "dairy" symptoms (a tight, short-of-breath feeling in my chest, some redness and itching in my face) on days when I know for a fact I hadn't had any dairy other than my usual ghee.  I had recently opened a new jar, so I thought maybe it was just a bad batch.

So I spent a ton of money on some Pure Indian Foods cultured ghee -- the one that Sarah recommends, that's supposed to be batch-tested to be completely free of casein.  Had a big dollop on my broccoli last night... major chest tightness today, to the point where I'm going to have to go take a Benadryl.

What gives??? What's left in the ghee that I could possibly be reacting to? Does anyone else have this problem?

[EJ]

Hmm I don't know why you're reacting to it. But clearly you are. So stop using it for now. Focus on taking care of your gut and maybe try some probiotics to get some good things going. You can always try the cultured (or not) ghee later.

These things happen. Maybe you've been stressed and that has led to a leakier gut than normal. We might never know why we react to foods-but it doesn't mean it's permanent (necessarily). So focus on healing for a while, then try it again. In small amounts (some people find they can tolerate anything up to a point).

Try other healthy fats in the meantime-olive oil is fantastic on broccoli

[MindyK]

The Pure Indian Foods website says "This product is batch-tested to contain less than 0.25% lactose, less than 6.0 ppm casein, and less than 5.0 ppm gluten." So even though there is very little lactose, casein, and gluten, your body could be still reacting to it... Are you going through a stressful time? Sometimes stress can cause flairs that you wouldn't normally have.

[erika]

Yeah, this fall has been really stressful -- it's been non-stop alternation between colds and post-viral crashes for two months.

It just seems so unfair. The sicker I get, the less energy I have to devote to cooking everything from scratch, but the more important it becomes to do EXACTLY THAT, or I'll get trapped in a nonstop spiral down the drain. I felt so amazing when I first went paleo this spring; I really thought my health problems were solved for good. But I see now that there was a confluence of positive factors -- the days got longer and sunnier, my husband took the kids out of town for a vacation and I stayed home and basically slept the whole time I wasn't working, the stressful routine of the school year was over... as these factors fall away, one by one, it's becoming clear that eating paleo, on its own, is not enough to keep my chronic health issues at bay.

[Erin]

There are several people I know that don't do well with ghee despite their best efforts and trying several brands. :/

[melrito]

I cannot tolerate pure Indian foods ghee either due to the casein, however I can tolerate the Pure Indian Foods CULTURED Ghee (which is batch tested to be free of casein and dairy proteins) without problems. I know others who also cannot tolerate ghee, but can tolerate the cultured ghee.

[erika]

I finally found the explanation for my problem! It turns out to be pretty bizarre.

My allergist discovered that I have the "alpha-gal" allergy. This food allergy is transmitted by tick bites (I said bizarre, right?) and causes allergic reaction to a particular oligosaccharide nicknamed alpha-gal for short that is found in all mammal-derived food products. News stories usually call it the "red meat allergy" because it usually shows up as a reaction to beef or pork, and then may expand to all mammal meats as well as dairy. So far I'm the only person I can find any record of who started with a reaction to dairy -- probably because I was a vegetarian when the problem started, and for six months thereafter.

In fact, I only started eating meat again when I did the elimination diet to try to pinpoint my allergies.

I felt fantastic for the first few months of paleo, during which time I was mostly eating chicken and fish, because I didn't even know how to cook red meat. Once I started adding in lots of beef and pork, I started feeling tired, flu-ish and achey, just like I had pre-paleo, although I was mostly avoiding the obvious allergic reactions because I had cut out all the dairy except ghee. (Alpha-gal is present in ghee to some extent, because it's carried by fats.)

The allergist said that I could start having anaphylactic-type reactions to mammal meats at any time, so it was better just to avoid them (plus there's some initial evidence that if you do that for a couple years, the allergy may go away!) Now that the red meat is back out of my diet, I feel so much better. Even though my IgE antibodies were only keying in on the alpha-gal from dairy sources, I suspect that the other classes of Ig antibodies were hard at work fighting off this "danger" even when it came from meat.

Just goes to show, the answer isn't always "paleo harder".

[ahlife]

Dec 15, 2014 9:37:47 GMT -5 melrito said:

I cannot tolerate pure Indian foods ghee either due to the casein, however I can tolerate the Pure Indian Foods CULTURED Ghee (which is batch tested to be free of casein and dairy proteins) without problems. I know others who also cannot tolerate ghee, but can tolerate the cultured ghee.

Where do you find cultered ghee in India ?