Diet and Food Discussions Part 2

PICKLES AND GREEN OLIVES! Goodness! What a weird first sentence! I started craving Kosher dill pickles and greem olives back in October. I rarely ate these and didn't have any in the house. I bought some and started eating them, but rinsing them off to get rid of some of the sodium.

I started having really good days with fibro! I also found that my blood sugar (I'm diabetic) was lower, too. I didn't put two and two together until last month. I started wondering why I was doing so well. After all, the only thing I was doing differently was eating dill pickles and olives. I googled it and pickles and olives help with pain and the olives also help with diabetes! I was amazed and had no idea.

Some people with arthritis use pickles to help with pain and the thing in green olives that makes them a little bitter acts like ibuprofen.

Winter is my worst time of the year. The cold weather does a number on me and I'm usually taking 2,400 mg of ibuprofen and 4,000 mg of Tylenol each day just to be remotely comfortable. Now I am taking 1,200 mg of ibuprofen and sometimes 1,000 mg of Tylenol and feel much, much better! When the weather was warmer, I was only taking 600 mg. of ibuprofen and no Tylenol. (I need to take ibuprofen because I have ankylosing spondylitis and I don't want that to flare up.)

So, I wanted to let you all know about this.

Sherrine

Theresa, I've been laughing about it for a couple of months! I never ate pickles and olives before but was only satisfying a craving. I still don't know why I craved them in the first place.

I always would have to take ibuprofen and Tylenol in the middle of the night but now I don't plus I only take them once or twice a day along with my muscle relaxer. I can't believe it either. I've had fibro for 27 years and have never taken so little for pain.

I also would have to take an insulin shot before dinner but now I don't need it! My blood sugar was going way too low once I started eating the pickles and olives so I stopped the insulin injection. My blood sugar is great without it.

Google it and you will see for yourself. That's how I figured it out. This is from the Livestrong.com site.....

"Anti-Inflammatory Phytochemicals
Olives and olive oil reduce inflammation, a culprit blamed for chronic diseases such as arthritis, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. A compound in olives called oleocanthal prevents the body from making inflammatory enzymes -- the same way non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs work, according to "Arthritis Today." As a result, pain and sensitivity may diminish. Strongly-flavored olive oils, like those from Tuscany, have the highest level of oleocanthals."

Some people drink pickle juice for pain relief but I won't do that because of the sodium. So, I rinse both the pickles and olives with water before I eat them. This reduces the sodium.

As always, everything in moderation. I only will eat two serving of each a day but that seems to be enough. I might drop down to one serving a day in a month or two and see how I am. Right now I'm happy as a clam.

Here is a good link about olives.

www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=46

Sherrine

Depends on what you buy. It tells you on the bottles what a serving size is.

Thank you! I'm sure happy about it.

Sherrine

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That is interesting about your eyesight going down with sugar....

I know that a good diet is so important, yet I too struggle with it. I did notice last winter when I was fighting a really bad flare, that if I ate some carrots, I would feel better, better than I felt if I didn't eat anything. Our bodies must be starving for vitamins and minerals.

Diet is not the key to "all" healing! I have Crohn's disease and have had it nearly all my life. It runs in my family. I can't eat away the genes I got.

I'm legally deaf. My nerve endings died. Diet wouldn't have stopped that...again it's genetic.

I could go on and on. I eat a wonderful diet of fresh fruits and veggies, take supplements to add to what I'm getting from my foods, etc. I'm very proactive when it comes to my health but yet I still have these problems.

Curing MS with diet? You most likely had food sensitivities that gave you similar symptoms of MS and that's why you were helped. MS is a disease of the nervous system and it's an autoimmune disease.

Sherrine

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Replying to Momof2,

I've never been much of a cook (I always want to try pizza for Thanksgiving and my great idea is met with nothing but jeers!) and now that I've got so many physical problems, the realization each night that I have to pull something together never fails to lower my spirits...I'm a vegetarian and my husband isn't, which doesn't help, either.

It's just the 2 of us, though, so it's easier to just do as I please. I put a little more effort into it when we had kids living with us.

So, I'll admit that I shop at the grocery store deli for his meat fairly often, more often than not. If I'm feeling fairly all right I might make him meat loaf or something with chicken breast tenders (like pour soy sauce over them ;) or haul some fish sticks out of the freezer. I figure he could do some of the work and have more variety if he really wanted to - and when he does, he really gets into it and gets creative, unlike me. He says he'll be the cook after he retires - - YAY!

I eat the same thing almost every night, which I know isn't ideal. But when you cut out not only meat, but also whole grains and raw food for the most part (digestive issues) it's hard, especially when you want to follow the path of least resistance! I have canned black beans and cheese in a flour tortilla, rice, and frozen veggies. I'll substitute a potato for the tortilla now and then.

It's easy!

Debbie

Thanks Michelle, that does give me some good ideas for my grocery list!😊

I have started juicing in the mornings. I usually juice carrots, cucumber and apples. Even if you have digestive problems, or I should say, especially if you have them, juicing is great. It helps me have more energy in the mornings and starts the healing process.

For lunch I try to have a salad or I will bring something home made. I have been cooking 2 or 3 meals on Sundays to get us by during the week as that is easier than trying to cook when I come home from work. Some of the meals I make are:

Tuna casserole. I use potatoes, not noodles and make my own white sauce instead of the 'cream of' soup.
Curry Lentils over Basmatti Rice
Scalloped potatoes, you can add other stuff to this.
Stir Fry - a good way to get those veggies in
Soups of all kind, veggi, chilli, what ever
Enchilada Casserole
and so forth, I also like cooking veggies in coconut milk and curry, and serving over boiled rice noodles

Along with this I have been trying to limit my gluten and sugar, take good vitamins, probiotics and fish oil. I was feeling really good. Then a couple days ago I bought some cookies - I can't believe how bad I felt yesterday. Got pretty sick. Today I still am fighting it somewhat along with the headache. That will teach me. It is really hard to stick to such a strict diet, but, for me anyway, it is so important.

Also, my kids eat meat too so I will cook it for them and I will just eat the side dishes. It has been really hard for me to get those meals done too as sometimes it is all I can do, but by really putting effort into juicing and eating better, I have more energy, feel better and then it isn't as hard.

I love to cook but don't cook as much because I'm alone most of the time so it seems like a wasted effort. But I do love a good breakfast. I make omelets, scrambled eggs, or poached eggs for breakfast. I add a slice of toast and fresh fruit...always strawberries and either grapes or cherries, depending what is in season. I do boil eggs up on Sunday for my daughter and make one extra for me. If I'm in more of a hurry, I'll toast and butter an English muffin, add salt and pepper, slice the egg and layer it on the muffin. This is my version of an Egg McMuffin. I then pop it in the toaster oven for a minute or two so the egg warms up. Easy! By the way, my cholesterol is excellent and have never found that eggs raise it.

Lunch for me is more a snacky affair. I used to be a huge snack fan but find if I snack a little at lunch, it satisfies that urge. I'll have maybe a nectarine for lunch or a pop corn mini-bag. Sometimes I'll heat up a couple of spoonful of con queso sauce and dip one ounce worth of tortilla chips in it or I dip celery in a sour cream onion dip.

Dinner. On Mondays and Tuesdays my daughter comes for dinner. I double everything that I make. This gives me left-overs plus lunches for her. It really doesn't take much more effort to do this.

When I make casseroles, I double the recipe too. I have two 1 1/2 qt. casserole dishes. One of the dishes I spray with Pam and the other I open a Baggie plastic bag and put inside that dish. (The Baggies were the first plastic bags and they come with twist ties. I use them for quite a few things!). Then I load the food in the casseroles, cook one for dinner and freeze the other. I twist the bag shut and freeze overnight. The I take the dish out, remove the frozen casserole, remove the Baggie, and then vacuum seal it. It will keep for up to two years in the freezer this way! If you don't have a vacuum sealer, you can leave it in the Baggie and put the whole thing in a freezer bag. This way you aren't keeping your dish occupied forever. :smile/wink: When it's time to cook the casserole, I just take it out of the plastic, spray Pam in the original dish and pop it in the dish.

I have a tuna casserole, hamburger noodle casserole, and a meatloaf in my big freezer. I've done this with rigatoni casserole and chicken divan, too. So. If I'm not having a good day, I still can have a good dinner for my daughter and all I have to do is is add a veggie or salad. This makes life easy for me.

Sherrine