inflammatory ingredients in food?

I don't know how many of you are concerned about GMO foods or have read about certain oils that are inflammatory. I believe I'm in a flare at this time, and it has me thinking over time about the stuff I put into my body.

My question is, at work I eat out, and I have noticed that when I am flaring, I can only eat a few of the places that I can eat when I'm well. The place I can eat (and survived off of at lunch for about 2 years before) is a little small business mexican food place next door where I order the exact same burrito that has things like potato, moderate amount of beef, mexican cheese and some small slivers of peppers inside.

The list of places that cause me trouble while flaring is numerous, but I figured maybe I could mention one and get your feedback. Subway, while not the worst, always gives me gas/mucus when I'm flaring. I don't know if anyone else gets this, but I actually start getting gas and a wet ass before I've even finished my meal. I know this could probably be an inflamed colon's way of pushing things through, but then again, when I eat my little burrito I don't get this anywhere near as badlyI actually don't get it at all from the burrito.

I wanted to focus on the ingredients in Subway Italian bread - because I get this no matter if I get coldcuts, meatball, or tuna fish for that matter, so I've kind of isolated it to the bread.

This is the list of ingredients in subway italian bread:
taken from: http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/menunutrition/Nutrition/frmUsIngredients.aspx


ITALIAN (WHITE) BREAD Enriched flour (wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, sugar, contains less than 2% of the following: soybean oil, fermented wheat flour, yeast, salt, wheat protein isolate, wheat gluten, dough conditioners (acetylated tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, potassium iodate, amylase [enzymes]), sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, lactic acid, sulfites, mineral oil. Contains wheat.

Of the list, SOYBEAN OIL, WHEAT, POTASSIUM IODATE stick out to me. I tested negative on a blood test for celiac a year prior to finding I have UC. I find Potassium Iodate interesting as I read about that to protect the thyroid regarding exposure to nuclear fallout.

Any ideas why subway bread would disagree with me? I also think some of the other places that bother me when flaring tend to be greasy food (and again my mind goes to oils...what kind of cheap, indigestible oils were used to cook the food).


Please let me know your thoughts. I've told my GI about the mucus and he doesn't seem to care. Only if it's bad enough then I can go on steroids etc. He said it "sounds like IBS" not UC. From doing google searches, it seems to me that not only UC people get mucus issues and I really am starting to believe that there are inflammatory and indigestible cheap oils being injected into our foods.

Post Edited (doors12) : 5/18/2011 9:36:45 PM (GMT-6)

Mineral Oil is a laxative. I don't really eat subway, it always smells sour to me and the meats are very low quality. Perhaps it is the meats and not the bread that get to you? I know tortillas contain lard, I try to avoid them.

Next time order the same toppings in a Subway salad instead of the bread sandwich and see if any difference.

*raises hand*

I am ashamed to admit that I used to eat at subway, thinking that it was healthy for me ( both prior to and after my diagnosis ). The recent news about the ingredient doesn't really come off as a surprise. There are many of these lurking in our everyday foods, so it's just a matter of time before a few more come out of the woodworks.

It's hard to fathom why they just banned azodicarbonamide just now, particularly when the health risks were always known. Europe and other countries seem to have some semblance of intelligence when it comes to regulating these ingredients, but over here, it's kind of "let's test it on the human population" before we come to any conclusions.

It is indeed in the realm of possibility that it caused your flare. I wouldn't discount it one bit. My rule of thumb now is to just eat as naturally as possible. Why wait until we start regulating more ingredients like these?

Edit: news story for anyone that's interested

Post Edited (StealthGuardian) : 2/6/2014 3:25:47 PM (GMT-7)

if you are having the reaction within 1/2 hour, it has got to be some type of systemic allergic (histamine?) reaction. It can't be topical in your colon that fast, and it can't perturb gut microbiota that fast.

what I read about azodicarbonamide is that its most frequent adverse effect is respiratory, so that might line up with histamine-type reaction or allergy.