None of the contents should be construed as medical advice, but are a summary of our thoughts on managing our personal health. We hope this is helpful as a starting point in your own health research. Never go off your medications without talking with your doctor, especially steroids, which can cause sudden and dangerous complications. That said, with a medical community that effectively accepts the incurability of autoimmune disease, we felt compelled to find our own answers apart from conventional medicine. There are many more “functional medicine” doctors around nowadays that can help guide you, than were around when we were searching for answers 15 years ago. Find one that promotes real, whole foods for nutrition (not fat-free, artificially sweetened, or vegan). Perhaps in another 50 years, autoimmune disease will be recognized in the medical community, no longer as a mystery, but as a normal and correctable bodily response to excess toxins and lack of nutrients…
Compiled by Jerica Cadman
Ulcerative Colitis – Matt’s Gut-Healing Strategy
Ulcerative colitis is a terrible disease that will not get better on its own and will not get better with the drugs that conventional medicine has to offer. It may go into remission for a time, but many of the long-term risks and side effects of the drugs are even scarier than UC itself, if that is possible.
We have come to believe that this is a lifestyle issue. Poor diet, poor stress management, and yes, of course, genetic tendencies, all play a role. Experts believe that 90% of chronic disease is due to environmental (non-genetic) factors. That’s good news for the person who has UC, because with proper motivation and knowledge, you can change your environment and help your body heal.
That said, there is no magic cure. There is no diet that will fix you overnight. Matt’s disease took an entire shift of mindset and lifestyle to overcome. And even after that, it still took years for complete healing to occur. But without that commitment and change, he would still be on drugs, at risk of long-term complications like cancer and liver disease, permanently dependent on the medical system, and he probably would not have a colon by now, if he was alive at all. It took a lot of change, but it was worth it to have his life, his energy, his body, and his happiness back.
How did he do it? Blindly, at first. Here is the short version of what we have learned over the past 15 years of dealing with autoimmune disease:
A New Focus
We focus on minerals, digestibility, and good food sources. We eat lots of (colorful) sea salt, pasture-raised non-processed animal fats, cod liver oil, homemade bone broth, and fermented foods like yogurt, lacto-fermented beets, kombucha, and lacto-fermented sauerkraut, kim chi, and other vegetables. We eat organ meats a couple of times per month. We eat bone broth at least several times per week. We eat generous amounts of pasture-raised lard and butter.
Most of our calories come from animal products. Why? Because they are more nutrient-dense and easier to digest than most plant-based foods. We have proven it. When Matt is sick and his gut is rejecting everything, he can still eat animal fat and some animal protein. We eat a pretty generous amount of carbs, but we have active lifestyles (farming!) that can afford that. In fact, Matt needs some easy-to-digest carbs like potatoes, white rice, and oatmeal. We do eat some white flour, but we try to source non-enriched and organic without bromides, bleach, and other harmful chemicals.
A Time of Healing
Matt went through a period of about 4 years during which he was very strict and diligent to manage his diet in order to allow healing of his gut. At the time of this update (2021), he has been medicine-free for over 10 years and is able to be significantly less strict when out or at friends’ houses, etc. You may find that you also have to go through a period of strict “fasting” in order to allow healing and regrowth of beneficial intestinal flora. There will be good, healthful foods you cannot tolerate yet, but may be able to in a year or more. Patience and diligence are essential. The longer you’ve had symptoms, and the more surgeries you’ve had, the more likely it will take more time to completely heal. There may be foods you can never tolerate again due to scarring and permanent changes to the gut flora because of antibiotics, though you may be able to achieve perfectly normal stools, lifestyle and weight.
What We Gave Up
We eat what you might call a very “clean” diet with a strong emphasis on nutrient-density and digestibility. Here are some things we work hard to avoid:
Pasteurized and/or homogenized milk
Skim milk
Powdered milk (this includes whey products found in most protein shakes, and is also found in many brands of yogurt, even organic, sometimes unlabeled)
Food dyes
Trans Fat
Soy Products (except fermented and non-gmo)
Artificial Preservatives (real preservatives like vinegar and lactic acid are actually good!)
Vegetable oils (canola, soy, etc)
Refined sugar
Excess sugar (as in soda, juice, even “organic”)
Artificial sweeteners (xylitol, sucralose, aspartame, Splenda, etc)
MSG
Artificial flavors
Fortified foods (artificial minerals and vitamins sprayed on before packaging)
Raw Vegetables (non-fermented)
Whole Grains (non-fermented)
Genetically-modified foods
This can be achieved only by preparing most of the food we eat at home. Even among organics there are many icky additives because conventional food wisdom believes that excess sugar is fine, whole wheat is best (see below for more info refuting this idea), and animal fat is bad.
Most of the food that comes into our house comes as its raw, unprepared self: raw meat with the bone and the fat still in it; vegetables that are not pre-seasoned, pre-cut, or irradiated; fat is not hydrogenated and is solid at room temperature; milk is raw and full-fat and comes from cows that were eating mostly grass. In our grocery cart, you find lots of ingredients, not many prepared foods. They are not only healthier because you have control over what’s in what you eat, but you save money even when buying super high-quality supplies.
We avoid fortified products because the synthetic vitamins (which are literally sprayed on before packaging) in noodles, breads, cereals, etc, can interfere with normal mineral assimilation. For someone with a diseased intestine, efficient mineral assimilation is critical, since mineral absorption may already be compromised. This means that almost all store-bought bread/cereal/cracker/tortilla type products are not healthful. It is best to make one’s own desserts and baked goods with real fat, whole sugar (and less of it!), and real salt.
Matt rarely eats whole grain breads or raw vegetables (aka no salad). He cannot digest them efficiently unless they are fermented. If he eats white bread, it’s usually homemade and often sourdough, made with unenriched flour that I special order from a health food store. Store-bought bread and pasta are chosen for their lack of processed ingredients, or made at home. Matt has tried sourdough whole grain and sprouted whole grain products, and can eat those on occasion, but definitely not daily. Eating unfermented whole grains are partly responsible for Matt’s second severe hospitalization. (We did not realize how indigestible unsprouted whole grains are.)
We limit sweets. We do desserts about once a week, and for those I try to use whole, traditional ingredients like coconut oil, butter, or lard, unrefined sugar, and unenriched white flour. I strive to either find low-sugar type recipes or I will significantly reduce the amount of sugar that the recipe calls for. Sweets are addictive and sometimes you must wean yourself away from craving extremely sweet foods. I have had lots of luck reducing the sugar in conventional recipes by as much as 2/3 the original amount, and they turn out just fine!
We rarely drink soda of any kind. Diet or natural or otherwise. There’s nothing good about it. It’s not even tasty enough to warrant keeping your chronic disease. You will eventually stop craving it.
Matt follows his cravings, but doesn’t binge on junk food. When he craves salt, he eats salt. When he craves spicy, he breaks out the cayenne. When he wants carbs, he eats extra oatmeal, potatoes, or bread. When he wants fat, he eats butter and cheese. He drinks raw milk as much as he feels like. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes not at all. It took several years to be able to tolerate a lot of fresh milk because of the sugars. Yogurt was not usually a problem, but if you’ve developed a dairy intolerance, don’t push it—just stay away from the dairy until your gut heals.
We eat very few GMOs. I (Jerica) believe a major part of his recovery stems from eliminating genetically-modified foods (GMOs) from his diet. This is accomplished by reducing the processed foods, not eating out, and eating pasture-based meats that are raised on non-GMO feed. It has been proven that rats develop ulcerative-colitis-like symptoms when fed a GMO diet. Smaller studies have shown similar results with pigs fed GMO grains. It is important to identify the sources of GMOs in the diet and get rid of them. The primary source of GMOs in the diet is via conventionally-raised livestock.
What We Do Now
1. Syntol AMD. It’s a pro/pre-biotic–the best on the market, and Matt has seen substantial improvement from it. Start slowly–one capsule per day for at least 3-4 days…then step it up to 2 capsules per day for another 3-4 days and so on…probably all the way up to 5 capsules twice/day (10 capsules per day). If you give this pro-biotic 2 or 3 weeks, I believe that you will see dramatic effects–the longer you take it, the better it gets.
Some prominent physicians are starting to say that Crohn’s has recently been determined to NOT be an auto-immune disease, but is actually a bacterial problem. You must correct the bacteria to make your immune system function correctly.
2. Fermented foods. Real yogurt! Try to find full-fat, unsweetened “plain” yogurt, preferably “cream top” that does not have powdered milk added to it. Add raw honey if you like… Fermented sauerkraut, lacto-fermented beets, kimchi, kombucha, etc. Matt will sometimes take a shot of raw apple cider vinegar (another fermented food) to stimulate digestion before meals. During his recovery, he would do this during bouts of heartburn and it helped most of the time.
3. Supplement iron and/ or liver. Matt tends to be anemic and has to keep his hemoglobin levels up by taking iron daily. Another good source of iron and minerals is chicken livers.
4. Cod Liver Oil. Green Pasture’s brand cod liver oil is a fermented, minimally processed source of fat-soluble vitamins including A and D. These are very healing to the gut and help reduce inflammation and restore normal immune function.
5. Eat lots of animal fats (preferably pasture raised). They aid digestion, heal the intestine, and contain nutrients not found in abundance elsewhere in the food supply, like vitamin A, D, K, E, and many others. Pasture-raised animals are going to be richer in nutrients and lower in toxins and threatening pathogens.
6. Get plenty of exercise, sunshine, and sleep. Exercise keeps Matt’s immune system in check. Even during a terrible flare-up, he would go for a run to sort-of make his body stop attacking itself. Sunshine and fresh air reduce stress, help the body to produce vitamin D. We were not created to sit still all the time. Take a walk. Plant a garden. Do something outdoors every day. Wear yourself out physically so you sleep deeply, and allow yourself the time you need to rest, especially during the healing phase. Protect your sleep patterns by reducing blue light and maintaining a consistent sleep schedule.
7. Magnesium oil on bottoms of feet. If you’ve been under a lot of stress, or have muscle cramps or soreness, applying magnesium oil to the bottoms of the feet can be helpful. Oral magnesium supplements can have intense laxative effects and are best avoided.
8. Research vaccines. I know this is so very controversial, and there are many scary diseases that conventional wisdom advises us to vaccinate ourselves against. But vaccines are designed to prompt an artificial immune response. And that doesn’t always go exactly as planned. We believe the onset of Matt’s disease is related to a series of vaccinations he received prior to international travel during college. It’s worth considering that using vaccines is not without risk, especially for someone with a history of autoimmune issues. Do lots of research about them.
Closing Remarks
It’s important to remember that it’s not just organic that counts. You can find organic lollipops and soda at every major grocery store nowadays. Food should be nourishing and digestible, especially for those at risk of disease or malnutrition. For someone who has a chronic disease, it is especially important to keep nourishment on the front burner. If you don’t have access to good meats, milk, and fat, you probably need to limit the sweets and the junk more than usual because sweets deplete your nutrient stores.
More Info:
A great source of information on what real nutrition looks like is the Weston A. Price Foundation. This was our go-to source for learning how to eat again and overall, remains our food philosophy today. Like any resource, you have to discern what is useful and true. Some of their info is just out-and-out wacky. Sift through it and find what makes sense.
A couple of great therapeutic diets for healing diseased intestines are the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD Diet) and the Gut And Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet. Matt did better on SCD than GAPS, and followed SCD strictly for about 3 years, at which point he felt healed enough to resume a normal (but now clean and nourishing, complete with fermented foods, animal fats, organ meats, and bone broth!) diet.
Be in tune with your body. There is no magic diet that works for everyone all the time. The idea is you need to heal the damage, improve the gut flora, increase digestibility, and emphasize natural nutrients that make sense for the human physiology. No, you cannot get all the vitamins and minerals you need from vegetables alone, so beware of vegan and vegetarian regimens. Better to let animals eat the vegetables and pack them into nutrient-dense, highly digestible form for you to then eat.