Still in Remission from Spinach/Sunflower Seeds 3 Years Later

OM, Your right it has arginine in it but so does most or all foods. The link below shows the ratio of Lysine/arginine in most foods. As an example spinach has slightly more lysine in it than arginine. I stick with a diet higher in lysine.

If you have an issue with arginine you may want to take a look at this foods list if you havent already. On another note lysine is needed for healthy skin. Nuts and seeds contain the most arginine and dairy, cheese and red meats contain alot of Lysine. It really is all about the ratio.

http://www.traditionaloven.com/tutorials/l-lysine_rich_foods.html

                                      

        

                        ratio   weight   Lysine    Arginine

Spinach plant

109% 1.09

100g 3.52oz

178mg .0062oz

163mg .0057oz

Post Edited (twiggs) : 3/28/2013 10:54:31 AM (GMT-6)

Unfortunately, my recovery took a bad turn after 10 days of Spin/SF diet and just had a very bloody and mucus filled trip to the restroom.  Nothing changed in my diet and have been eating 1 cup cooked spinach as well as large amounts of sunflower and pumpkin seeds.  Not sure why this happened but it took the wind out of my sails :(

I actually eat 3-4 large TBSP of sunflower butter everyday-the good stuff with no sugar (Maranatha brand). Also, I crush all the seeds to dust before I ingest so I dont eat big seeds chuncks and im fairly certain that is not the problem.  Still taking Canasa everynight. 

Hope this is just a blip on the radar and of course, will continue to be vigilant with this diet.

You might try not eating the sunbutter,loaded with arginine,which makes nitric oxide.
I have a terrible time with excess arginine.
Old Mike

Thanks for the responses. I am not going to change anything drastic as I am only 10 days into this diet. Yesterday, I had no B or M so it is confusing. BTW-I track everything I eat and drink and nothing new except that I did have a spinach smoothie. I know many can tolerate this and enjoy it (twiggs, etc) however it caused painful bloating and gas for me yesterday. I hope it was that but not sure bloating and gas would cause B and M. Anyone know if it does?

DanthaMan-I rarely get D but when I do Slippery Elm powder corrects the problem effectively.

Not sure, Danthaman. Spinach is full of fiber (as we all know). I know that before I had these problems with U.P., I would eat a big plate of cooked spinach if I was constipated and it always helped with that the next day 100% of the time.

Sometimes with all this spinach and ground up sf seeds/butter I am eating, I get urgency (which is rare for me). This happened last week and I had tspn of Slippery Elm and was back to normal the next day.

the original poster of this thought that the spinach and seeds were helping because of the high magnesuim content in those foods.  It makes sense to me.  I had symptoms of low magnesuim for years prior to doing this and I can feel symptoms return if I don't eat enough of the seeds.  He also thougth that the Vitamin E in seeds could play as role as well. 

I have never had a problem eating seeds even if in a flare, but everones colon is different.  I did find though that daily spinach intake was to much for me.  It did increase the D which then increased bleeding.  I had to eat spinach every other day or every 3rd day when trying to get out of a flare.  In remission just 2 times a week.  The key is finding the right balance for you.

Do you guys think the vitamin K has something to do with it?

I wouldnt get to discourged yet.  3 weeks isnt really all that long.  For most of us using this diet it took longer in the beginning.  I can't recall exactly how long.  And since you've had so much improvement already maybe you can get to remission with it and more time. Maybe one thing to try - I also noted in the beginning that I ate carrots or sweet potatoes often in addition to a lot of spinach and SF seeds.

sore_guts said... I wouldnt get to discourged yet.  3 weeks isnt really all that long.  For most of us using this diet it took longer in the beginning.  I can't recall exactly how long.  And since you've had so much improvement already maybe you can get to remission with it and more time. Maybe one thing to try - I also noted in the beginning that I ate carrots or sweet potatoes often in addition to a lot of spinach and SF seeds. Sore_Guts, It seems your comments are spot on-I do need to give this diet time.  While I had a bad day on 4/1, I had a completely blood free day on 4/2 and 4/3 (nothing new to report, yet , for 4/4 :).  I basically upped the dose of spinach and SF seed butter/pumpkin seed powder and it has really helped.  I also stopped eating so much Gluten Free bread (according to my food log, the more GF bread I eat, more blood and mucus I have).  Nothing scientific but will see if there is any c orrelation.

Eph said...
protocol -- how much are you eating now?

Eph,

 

I have a SF seed butter sandwich and add an additional handful of ground up SF seeds or pumpkin seeds in the morning.  I have 2 bananas that I cut up and dip in SF Butter and then SF butter powder (from coffee grinder) for lunch.

I have about 1.5-2 cups cooked, organic baby spinach for dinner (this is a lot of fresh spinach-basically fills up my WOK to the top before it wilts down to 1.5-2 cups).  I add organic squash and zucchini/ organic red pepper and sauté in olive oil and fresh garlic.  I add organic Dijon mustard (very little) for taste.  For a treat between dinner and bed, I take a dairy free/gluten free chocolate protein bar and dip it in SF Butter-think Reese’s peanut butter cups because that is exactly what it tastes like.  This has been the amount that has seemed to work better for me.

Protocol - Wow! That's a lot of both! I may have to step it up to get the benefit you are seeing.

So I have ventured back to a little spinach after avoiding it for a long time. Seems to be going OK.

A couple of things might be helping

1) I have started supplementing a little molybdenum as I read that it helps with the sulfur pathways and I strongly suspect I have difficulties with metabolising sulfur and copper (please don't supplement this without a lot of your own research though, it can put other things out of balance)

2) No reheated spinach. Thinking back, a lot of the spinach I was eating was reheated. I have now learnt that reheating spinach can turn the nitrates into nitrites, this is damaging for babies less than 6 months old, given my sensitive body, being cautious, will only now eat freshly cooked, no reheating.

I think we have to be careful about excessive spinach intake though don't we, as it is a goitrigen? Could promote underactive thyroid?

As for sunflower seeds, not sure about going there. They are high in Omega 6 which is meant to be inflammatory and have a low ratio of lysine to arginine, which is likely to provoke an out break of cold sores for me (fever blisters).