Still in Remission from Spinach/Sunflower Seeds 3 Years Later

Kiss520 I love your response time :). Thanks for the info. I am still on meds and almost getting rid of all symptoms so I think I will continue for a few months on meds and magic cure (spinach+sunbutter).

Cant thank you enough and the guy who discovered this cure. I did leave him a note but never heard back. Hope he is doing well.

Kiss520 Oh great... All the best for the new job.

This diet makes sense to me. Sunflower seeds are full of the vitamin E, which is a strong antioxidant, plus there is a research behind it, proving to heal ulcerative colitis. Spinach is high in beta-carotene, which is again very healing. Both of them also very high in magnesium.
By the way, in Russia ulcerative colitis is very rare. Maybe it is because Russians love sunflower seeds. It is a traditional snack for hundreds of years.
By the way Almond butter is high in vitamin E and magnesium too.
As for spinach, if somebody can not stand it, you might try kale instead. It has even more beta-carotene and vitamin C.
For those who just can't eat sunflower seed butter/almond butter and spinach/kale at all, I would suggest to take natural vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C (sodium ascorbate buffered form) and chelated multi-minerals and see if after a week or 2 you feel better.

lookforcure - I've read that UC is primarily a western disease.  Our diet is so laden with preservatives, pesticides and other garbage that it makes sense.  And our stressful, work-focused lifestyles probably doesn't help either.

I appreciate the suggestion for supplements but should tell you that the guy who discovered the benefits of these foods tried to replace them with supplements and was not successful - his symptoms returned.  For some reason, eating the actual food is key.   

sunny76 - You're very welcome.  I'm thrilled to hear yet another success story.  I hope you continue to get better.  If you ever get tired of making your own sunflower seed butter, I did see that you can buy Sunbutter on Amazon. 

lookforcure said...
This diet makes sense to me. Sunflower seeds are full of the vitamin E, which is a strong antioxidant, plus there is a research behind it, proving to heal ulcerative colitis. Spinach is high in beta-carotene, which is again very healing. Both of them also very high in magnesium.
By the way, in Russia ulcerative colitis is very rare. Maybe it is because Russians love sunflower seeds. It is a traditional snack for hundreds of years.
By the way Almond butter is high in vitamin E and magnesium too.
As for spinach, if somebody can not stand it, you might try kale instead. It has even more beta-carotene and vitamin C.
For those who just can't eat sunflower seed butter/almond butter and spinach/kale at all, I would suggest to take natural vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C (sodium ascorbate buffered form) and chelated multi-minerals and see if after a week or 2 you feel better.

I have a walk-in pantry full of every supplement they sell. Although some work quite well in remission to make things even better, few work in a flare. Vitamin E, yep have lots of that.

I eat

Almond Butter, Sunflower Seeds, protein, fish oil and spinach.

Just had a soft landing coming off Prednisone after taking ABX ( mistake ). What works for me is the seeds: 1-Psyllium Seed Powder, 2-Sunflower seeds, 3-Harvest seeded bread and ALA.

I hate sunflower seeds but this brand is very delicious.

www.goraw.com/products/Sprouted_Sunflower_Seeds

I can answer that for her.

It is recommended to eat cooked spinach. There are a couple reasons for this. One, cooked is not hard on your gut like raw spinach is. Two, when you cook a green such as spinach you concentrate it therefore eating two cups of cooked spinach is really quite abit if you were to see it uncooked. The result is getting alot of vitamins and minerals etc in the cooked version.

Steve

Brian -  I didn't see Steve's response before I replied, but we're basically saying the same thing.  Most people need a substantial amount of spinach in the beginning stage to start seeing a difference.  You could try smoothies and see if you have success, but you may find you need more of it to see results (then you should switch to cooked).  You'll want to watch your reaction to having raw spinach - you may find that you want to have it cooked so you don't feel really bad.  When I first started the diet, I ate fresh spinach and discovered quickly that my bowels were not happy with that.    I switched to cooked and didn't have such a bad reaction.

How in the world can you eat seeds?!?!? If I even look at a seed my colon gets hysterical! I can see eating nit butters but wow you are lucky. I miss eating nuts. I had to give up being a vegetarian because of seeds and nuts. I can't even eat beans!

Hello Forum Peeps!
For the past -2+ years I have been in remission, which I attribute to my daily devotion to spinach and olive oil. I eat olive oil every day (usually 1-3 tbs depending on how I feel) in my oatmeal, and spinach salads whenever I get the chance. Spinach is what I think really pulled me out of my first flare, and olive oil keeps the inflammation at bay. So anyway, after reading this thread I decided to try the Sunbutter, but after about 7 days of eating it, it basically sent me in a downward spiral where some pain and blood has returned. I wish it were the miracle ingredient I hoped, but I just wanted to make my experience known -- it's not helping! I was glad to see an earlier post by Old Mike who said it didn't work for him either. Too bad because it's yummy.

On another note, on Friday I'm going in for a check-in colonoscopy (my second ever) and am kind of freaking out about the idea that the trauma from the prep is going to send me into a real flare. Reading the posts on this forum is comforting because I know there are other people out there dealing with this beast - I will think of my friends on here who know what I'm going through as I chug 64 ounces of Gatorade solution.

Here's hoping we each find the things that work for us!

okay so sunflower seed butter is what you eat correct?

Also if you are eating the spinich as a salad any suggestions on the best dressing?

I will say if you follow my posts that my origional and only remission was when I ate massive amounts of a salad I grew this past summer and ironically was the first summer that I ever grew salad. At the time I was taking a product called Garlcin and was convinced that my issues were bacterial in nature. To make a long story short I took garlicin and at the time I was doing so was eating tons of this salad that I got overwhelmed with in my garden and never put two and two together till this post from Kiss came about and then it hit me in the head like a brick. OMG it was all that salad I ate this summer! Let me say this that I ate this stuff like my dad would say "till it was coming out of my ears". The perfect symptom med free summer ended and of course my garden died out and the salad stopped and bam I went into a flare again which is about 6 weeks ago. I am going to keep eating spinach but will add salad back daily soon and of course grow that magic stuff again next spring promply!

Steve

My update.

This sunflower and spinach diet worked for me!

I was off my Lialda and was in the beginning of a flare-D only.  After a couple of days on the diet I did pass some blood and after that white streaks in the stool.  O.k., enough of the gross graphics. These symptoms only lasted a couple of days and I didn't have any other side effects.

Things were pretty normal on day 10. I even passed the popcorn and spaghetti test.

I ate both frozen and canned spinach and I'm down to about a third of a can now.

I hope this info will help others. Yes, it was kinda scary in the beginning but I did keep in mind the other success stories.

I'll update again if there is anything to add.

itsalive! - Great news!  I'm so happy to hear about your success.

boumboumbambino - I'm sure any brand of sunflower seed butter would be okay.  Initially you'll need to do 3-4 tablespoons of sunflower seed butter per day and 1-2 cups cooked spinach per day.   Eat this amount until your symptoms are gone.  Do not stop taking your medications until all your symptoms are completely gone.  Only then should you can consider tapering and then stopping meds, but you need to make sure the diet is working and your symptoms are gone first.  Good luck and let us know how things go.  Remember that you will likely get worse for a while.  Be prepared to give the diet a month to see success.