Probiotic Farting

I've never really been an excessive farter. There are always foods that are commonly problematic for almost everyone, but as a health-crazed, vegetarian teenager I read Diet for a Small Planet and discovered proper digestion is all about food combinations to create whole proteins out of incomplete proteins. So if you eat beans, you should eat dairy with them. Hey, I can do massive amounts of sour cream with my wheat-wrapped, deep-fried bean burrito! The Paleo-Hashimoto's diet restricts not only wheat and oils, but beans and dairy so that solved any issue I might have had with incomplete proteins.

I've always thought farting was a sign something was not quite right with one's digestion. Lack of digestive enzymes or hydrochloric acid? Impaired liver function or intestinal mobility? The question is always what is causing it? Food? Stress? Chemicals? Besides the typical fart-producing foods, eating while stressed is never good for digestion and eating foods laced with chemicals is suicide. If I get anywhere near certain essential oils I get severe intestinal cramps so it would make sense that any number of unknown environmental contaminants might have an effect on my digestive tract. Fortunately, my digestion is rarely effected by much.

Unfortunately, I started farting yesterday. Out of control. Yeah, I thought this might be too private a confession to share, but I see it as a AIP diet tale of caution. I was worried. I had added back allspice to a dish filled with onions. Although neither is absolutely restricted on the AIP diet there was a short note that both might be an issue for some. I hope it's not allspice and I don't know how I'd live without onions. Then it dawned on me...

According to Girl Alive farting is a sign your probiotic bugs are in the house and farting is the by-product of bacterial breakdown of food during the digestive process. I'm not sold on the farting is a normal, healthy process theory. Long ago I wrote another post on farting: medieval people thought farting was demonic possession. I'm more inclined to believe this than the beneficial bacteria theory. If anything, it's a sign of gut flora imbalance. The satanic bugs are working too much or too little.

 

Then I had an epiphany of sorts. Sauerkraut is cabbage. It is most definitely a fart-producing food. As a cruciferous vegetable and especially in it's difficult-to-digest raw state, eating it would incite even the laziest of beneficial bugs into a satanic frenzy. This sauerkraut is as raw as those bugs are alive. This made me ponder the origins of sauerkraut. Was fermentation a solution to make eating cabbage more socially acceptable? Probably.

Cabbage is also a goitrogenic or a thyroid-suppressing food which is another reason people experiencing hypothyroidism should be cautious when eating cabbage. I've never really liked cabbage in any form and that should be a clue for me. I'm not eating more than 2-3 tablespoons of sauerkraut a day, but I'm thinking I've added too much.

I'll be really happy when this diet is OVER.