Do you know the colors of your rainbow? Poop edition.

[menomena]

So.

It has come to my attention that even if you pass the beet pee test (i.e. no pink pee) if your poop is red, you've failed. In this same conversation, it was related that not everyone poops green after eating spinach, nor poops orange after eating carrots.

Question: how technicolor is your/your children's poop? Does this correlate to stomach and/or gut problems? (Specifically, stomach acid, I'm thinking...).

How about when eating beans or nuts? Do they come out mostly whole, or undigested bits? Or is this evidence of ineffective digestion?

When eating grains, is there ANY evidence of what you've eaten in your poop after the fact (not just whole grains, but even broken up bits)?

EVERYONE poops out corn kernels, though, right?

I know I have extremely low stomach acid. Everything that should taste sour tastes sweet to me. Kids too. When pregnant with Lily, I had such TERRIBLE reflex/heartburn that I ate bottles and bottles and bottles of tums and MoM. I know that didn't help my situation.

Currently, I take B2, B5, B6 & B12, Vit C, zinc, biotin, Mo and Folate. I drink water kefir. I take CLO. I was taking Betaine, but ran out and didn't replace it.

I usually pass the beet test via pee, with it only being sort of faintly peachy. I always have bright red poo after. BRIGHT.

Come to think of it. DD2 finally ate some beets the other day. Her pee was not red in the slightest and her poop was dark, but not RED. DD1 has peachy pee but RED poop (not as red as mine, though). However, both of them poop green w/greens and orange with carrots. As do I. I thought everyone's poop sort of ebbed and flowed, color-wise, with what they'd been consuming.

Please, enlighten me!

*Deep sigh* I have so, so, so far to go on this journey. I was hoping to TTC around Christmas. Perhaps not.

[Theloose]

We were kinda technicolor a year or two ago, but both dd and I are pretty uniform now. Not even obvious beet poop - it was blatant last year. The only undigested chunks dd gets now are from raw carrots and pumpkin seeds. I think that's largely a chewing issue combined with a hard food? No grain issues whatsoever. Definitely did have those at our low point though.

Sour stuff was really yummy for me last year (low point, digestion-wise, including beet pee) and now it makes me pucker up. Dd still loves raw rhubarb, despite the massive poop improvement.

Just saw the title of the thread

And I can't answer about corn right now, but I don't remember ever seeing them, even when I was eating it.

[Chinese Pistache]

Originally Posted by menomena

So.

It has come to my attention that even if you pass the beet pee test (i.e. no pink pee) if your poop is red, you've failed. In this same conversation, it was related that not everyone poops green after eating spinach, nor poops orange after eating carrots.

I used to have red pee from beets and also bms, but not now (after a couple years of gut healing). I eat them regularly and have no color change.

Question: how technicolor is your/your children's poop? Does this correlate to stomach and/or gut problems? (Specifically, stomach acid, I'm thinking...). Yes, dd used to have a lot of color changes with food. After eating chili, for example, it was like she hadn't digested it at all. Same smell, same color, similar appearance. Now, I don't notice as much of an issue. Though every once in a while, she'll have a paler poo, which I know is related to lack of bile?? I'm not sure what it means.

How about when eating beans or nuts? Do they come out mostly whole, or undigested bits? Or is this evidence of ineffective digestion?

Beans, in the past have come out whole, but her gut is much better now, so she doesn't usually have any bean pieces. Ds (1 yr) does have pieces, and he also reacts to beans, so we aren't giving them anymore. He also has pieces of grape and cherry skins. He's little still, so I don't know if this is a gut issue or any every-baby issue. I try to limit those fruits though because I worry that could *cause* gut damage.

When eating grains, is there ANY evidence of what you've eaten in your poop after the fact (not just whole grains, but even broken up bits)?

No evidence.

EVERYONE poops out corn kernels, though, right? I don't, but then, I haven't eaten them in ages.

I know I have extremely low stomach acid. Everything that should taste sour tastes sweet to me. Kids too. When pregnant with Lily, I had such TERRIBLE reflex/heartburn that I ate bottles and bottles and bottles of tums and MoM. I know that didn't help my situation.

Currently, I take B2, B5, B6 & B12, Vit C, zinc, biotin, Mo and Folate. I drink water kefir. I take CLO. I was taking Betaine, but ran out and didn't replace it.

I usually pass the beet test via pee, with it only being sort of faintly peachy. I always have bright red poo after. BRIGHT.

Come to think of it. DD2 finally ate some beets the other day. Her pee was not red in the slightest and her poop was dark, but not RED. DD1 has peachy pee but RED poop (not as red as mine, though). However, both of them poop green w/greens and orange with carrots. As do I. I thought everyone's poop sort of ebbed and flowed, color-wise, with what they'd been consuming.

I do have darker, somewhat looser stools when I've been eating a lot of vegetables, both cooked and raw. I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. I look forward to hearing mre replies!

Please, enlighten me!

*Deep sigh* I have so, so, so far to go on this journey. I was hoping to TTC around Christmas. Perhaps not.

.

[menomena]

Oh wow. Thanks so much both of you! I look forward to more replies, too.

My next question is: what can I do to improve my digestion, beyond what I'm already doing? I fear I am looking down the barrel of SCD or GAPS. But we can't do eggs or nuts or seeds. And I did paleo already (for over a month) and Lily got worse b/c we OD'd on amines (way too much almonds (only safe nut, at least I think it's safe), dried fruits, EVOO and coconut).

ETA: Shannon, I continue to be inspired by/with you. Do you have a summary of where you've been, where you are now and what you did to get there. I have been closely following all the detox stuff since it came into the boards in January, but I don't know that I've pieced together a coherent narrative for you.

[ASusan]

If I'm the one with gut problems, my BMs are fairly uniformly brown - sometimes light or sometimes dark. I can't recall seeing a color in there.

DS, the one who reacts to what we eat, has multi-colored BMs. Chili - which he loves - comes out looking like chili. I can see beans (black and kidney) and quinoa, which is the grain I add. It even smells a bit like chili . Corn is always visible, and I even left it out of the last chili recipe, but he gets it in curry, which DH makes with mixed frozen veggies (even in the middle of veggie season, but, hey, he cooks and DS likes it). Curry comes out yellow and smelling of curry.

My urine does sometimes smell like what I've had - coffee, in particular, or garlic.

: to me for introducing smell to this thread. I've always wondered about the smell of DS BM, and my urine as being problematic.

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by menomena

Oh wow. Thanks so much both of you! I look forward to more replies, too.

My next question is: what can I do to improve my digestion, beyond what I'm already doing? I fear I am looking down the barrel of SCD or GAPS. But we can't do eggs or nuts or seeds. And I did paleo already (for over a month) and Lily got worse b/c we OD'd on amines (way too much almonds (only safe nut, at least I think it's safe), dried fruits, EVOO and coconut).

ETA: Shannon, I continue to be inspired by/with you. Do you have a summary of where you've been, where you are now and what you did to get there. I have been closely following all the detox stuff since it came into the boards in January, but I don't know that I've pieced together a coherent narrative for you.

Digestive enzymes were good for me, for a while when things were really bad. Otherwise, I think I've been lucky in that my gut was more or less healthy before all this (the only time I failed the beet test was post dd, though there was a slow buildup of issues starting about in college) and somehow I don't think we have significant gut bacteria issues. We have all the risk factors, but none of the issues . So I've been mostly just healing the mess that I created with elimination diets and that's a LOT easier than cleaning up a lifelong mess, it seems. A bunch of my story pre-january is in the yahoo group foodlab. There might be bits and pieces here on mdc, but I tend to shy away from posting life history in a public/google-able forum. Now that I feel more helpful than whiny, I'm happy to share what worked

[menomena]

Perhaps I need to either explore digestive enzymes again (I did them for awhile. My brain is a sieve and I am not retaining if they helped or why I stopped them). Or, just get really good about always having (homemade LF) sauerkraut or pickles or whatever around.

I think I'm going to actually finally make an appt with a local ND. I just need to bounce my entire history and symptoms list off of one person in one sitting and see where that gets us. I think I can extrapolate whatever I learn for myself for DD1, since she appears to be a mini-me in regards to her food issues. (Though she is a mini-DH in the looks department.)

I know that FAILSAFE messed us up majorly, nutrient-wise. Ironically, it was FAILSAFE that finally cleared her eczema, but we went off of all supplements and dropped all the nutrient-dense fruits & veggies we'd been eating before. We did more or less strict failsafe for nearly 3m (with a sals and amine challenge in there). We had a really hard time recovering from the amine challenge, so we sort of bagged failsafe and got into detox. [Prior to FAILSAFE, I'd done EDs, TEDs, BED, with probiotics throughout.]

I think maybe it's time for me to see if the ND can order me some tests that my NP couldn't. Perhaps pertaining to various vit/mineral levels. Perhaps stool testing to see if I've got some parasite issues, or something.

Wheels are turning...

(Still strongly considering SCD. I can live off of homemade broth and water kefir, right? :roll)

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by menomena

Perhaps I need to either explore digestive enzymes again (I did them for awhile. My brain is a sieve and I am not retaining if they helped or why I stopped them). Or, just get really good about always having (homemade LF) sauerkraut or pickles or whatever around.

I think I'm going to actually finally make an appt with a local ND. I just need to bounce my entire history and symptoms list off of one person in one sitting and see where that gets us. I think I can extrapolate whatever I learn for myself for DD1, since she appears to be a mini-me in regards to her food issues. (Though she is a mini-DH in the looks department.)

I know that FAILSAFE messed us up majorly, nutrient-wise. Ironically, it was FAILSAFE that finally cleared her eczema, but we went off of all supplements and dropped all the nutrient-dense fruits & veggies we'd been eating before. We did more or less strict failsafe for nearly 3m (with a sals and amine challenge in there). We had a really hard time recovering from the amine challenge, so we sort of bagged failsafe and got into detox. [Prior to FAILSAFE, I'd done EDs, TEDs, BED, with probiotics throughout.]

I think maybe it's time for me to see if the ND can order me some tests that my NP couldn't. Perhaps pertaining to various vit/mineral levels. Perhaps stool testing to see if I've got some parasite issues, or something.

Wheels are turning...

(Still strongly considering SCD. I can live off of homemade broth and water kefir, right? :roll)

My worry with SCD/GAPS is nutrient deficiencies. The SCD messed me up - I think I was too restricted on top of the SCD restrictions. In GAPS, she talks about the importance of *not* avoiding foods unless it's an IgE reaction. She says to go ahead and eat the intolerance foods. I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, but it's so hard to serve something, *knowing* it will cause a reaction.

But yeah, with such persistent poop issues, it sounds like gut bacteria are a significant part of the problem for you. That's where SCD/GAPS starts to make sense in my mind.

[menomena]

I do worry about nutrient deficiencies, again. But, I wonder, if I go into it with the mindset that it's a protocol that I'm going to follow. I'm going to do the intro and then the next and the next and the next stage, just as presented and not fret about every little thing...

Perhaps I need to get IgE tested. The only testing I've had is the Meridian Valley labs (theoretically IgE and IgG). I came back positive to sesame seeds and that's it. But we'd been everything-free for so long, I don't know that it was valid. I have a very severe and relatively quick (within a few hours) rxn to cashews and that was reported as an non-reactive food. I had something in a meal a friend made me on Sunday. She claimed it was soy, dairy, gluten, etc free but within a few hours my stomach hurt and I was crazy gassy for a few days. If it had been gluten I would have had diarrhea, so I'm assuming it was soy or dairy. Anyway, that's my long winded way of saying even though I possibly don't have any IgE allergies, there is no way I'd just go ahead and eat some of those foods. PB and (non fermented) lentils give me instant and painful reflux. The benefit does not outweigh the risks, I guess is the bottom line for many of these foods. Still pondering...

[Wugmama]

No help here, just

~Tracy

[Chinese Pistache]

We've done a lot less than others when it comes to gut-healing. I only just started making kefir and bone broth a few months ago. However, for about 2.5 years, we've been doing probiotic capsules, Vit C, CLO, glutamine capsules and multi vit. We did enzymes intermittently, but I finally stopped because they just made me feel horrible. It was like taking a stool softener/laxative everyday. Not good. For over a year and a half, maybe more, I've added things like milk thistle, b vitamins (but with folic acid), zinc, calcium-magnesium. I've not done anything to prove tolerance or not, which I guess is bad, since I'm just popping pills. However, it's more likely that I'm not getting enough nutrients as opposed to too few (the only ones I really monitor are vit D and vit A). I feel like complete elimination of allergens has been very important for us (we deal with IgE and IgG). Even though we avoid a lot of foods, I don't feel like our diet suffers for it. If anything it's better (less processed junk), though I do wish we could enjoy nuts and seeds (and who knows, we might be able to, I'm just too scared to try them).

[mamafish9]

Sadly, this thread fascinates me, LOL!

I have uniform poops that don't change color when I eat tons of green/red/orange things. And I don't think I have any undigested food, although I haven't looked that closely either. DS, on the other hand, has lots of undigested food bits and varying colors in the rare occasions he eats colorful food.

My current hypothesis is that my gut is actually pretty healthy, and that DS did fine in the first 18 months because he was almost EBF. It's when he started eating food himself (and preferred foods that really challenge his system), that he rapidly depleted his nutrient stores and began reacting to casein, gluten, sals... So we need to build back up his nutrient stores and figure out how to support his system so they don't get depleted again.

The most interesting thing though, is that those of you with low stomach acid find sour foods taste sweet. Is THAT why DS is horking raw goat's milk kefir? (Which I think is pretty darn sour tasting)...

[Theloose]

I'm not convinced of the sour=low HCl connection. Dd passes the beet pee test, but her poop is a little red, sometimes. I don't think we do that great with beets specifically though, so I'm not sure it's a fair test. Other than that (and the raw carrot and pumpkin seeds) her poop is pretty uniform and so long as she's getting magnesium, not too constipated. All in all, pretty good. As I said before, she LOVES sour stuff. It's definitely a measure of *something* but I don't know what.

We lead field trips at a farm for preK-1st graders, and sample raw rhubarb in the garden. Half the kids tend to love the sour-ness, and the other half can't handle it. I'd chalk it up to personal preference if the difference in taste over time weren't so dramatic for myself...

[ASusan]

Originally Posted by whoMe

Half the kids tend to love the sour-ness, and the other half can't handle it. I'd chalk it up to personal preference if the difference in taste over time weren't so dramatic for myself...

Yes, this. I was surprised at how sweet lemon water is to me now. I have no pucker response to it whatsoever.

[Thing1Thing2]

Wow -i didn't realize my question about red poo would spark a whole conversation! This is soooooooooooooo interesting

[kjbrown92]

I thought the pooping red after beets was normal. When did it come to light that it wasn't? I must have missed that conversation. All of us pee clear after beets. At least DD2 and I have darker poop with a red tinge (not bright red though) after beets. I'll have to ask the rest of the family to look. That'll go over well.

When we were eating corn kernels, they came out whole.
I remember from DD2's diapers that black olives came out relatively undigested, and raisins (which were quite disgusting, because they plumped up in there - YUCK!!). With potty training, I don't get to look at poop as much as I used to (thankfully). Oh and red plastic frogs don't digest either.... Though DD2 does call me in when it's a strange color - sometimes very pale, sometimes orange-ish.

[menomena]

Well, perhaps it's within the range of normal/healthy if your poop turns a bit reddish. ours, however, is bright red and the entire toilet water turns red as soon as the poop hits it. it's crazy (and if it weren't poop, i'd probably take a picture). Okay, ew, I just grossed myself out.

[mamafish9]

Originally Posted by kjbrown92

I thought the pooping red after beets was normal. When did it come to light that it wasn't? I must have missed that conversation. All of us pee clear after beets. At least DD2 and I have darker poop with a red tinge (not bright red though) after beets. I'll have to ask the rest of the family to look. That'll go over well.

I think I'm the one that started the red poop rumor . I can't find where I originally read it, but here is another link.

Originally Posted by menomena

Well, perhaps it's within the range of normal/healthy if your poop turns a bit reddish. ours, however, is bright red and the entire toilet water turns red as soon as the poop hits it. it's crazy (and if it weren't poop, i'd probably take a picture). Okay, ew, I just grossed myself out.

ROFLMAO...

[Theloose]

if you look up beeturia, it's beet pigment in pee and/or poop. In theory, if your HCl is decolorizing the pigment in your stomach, it shouldn't be making it too the poop. Maybe some slight color is normal if there were chunks of beet in the stomach and the outside decolorized but the inside didn't? And then as it gets further digested, the red inside of the chunk is exposed but now you're in the small intestine so you don't have the HCl anymore?

[WuWei]

From the link, "Oxalic acid preserves the red colour to the colon, otherwise it is decolourized in non-beeturic individuals by non-enzymic processes in the stomach and colon." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7493168

Basically, concurrently consuming foods high in oxalates will keep poop red, regardless of HCl.


oxalic acid
a poisonous, dibasic acid found in various fruits and vegetables, and formed in the metabolism of ascorbic acid. In plants the acid is present in the form of oxalate.
The commercial acid is highly toxic and if ingested should be neutralized by the administration of lime water (calcium hydroxide solution) or other convenient source of calcium, which reacts with the acid to form insoluble calcium oxalate.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedic...in+oxalic+acid



Foods high in oxalic acid: Oxalic acid/100g food
Parsley (1.7 g)
Chives (1.48 g)
Purslane (1.31 g)
Cassava (1.26 g)
Amaranth (1.09 g)
Spinach (0.97 g)
Beet leaves (0.61 g)
Carrot (0.5 g)
Radish (0.48 g)
Collards (0.45 g)
Beans, snap (0.36 g)
Brussels sprouts (0.36 g)
Garlic (0.36 g)
Lettuce (0.33 g)
Watercress (0.31 g)
Sweet potato (0.24 g)
Chicory (0.21 g)
Turnip (0.21 g)
Broccoli (0.19 g)
Celery (0.19 g)
Eggplant (0.19 g)
Cauliflower (0.15 g)
Asparagus (0.13 g)
Endive (0.11 g)
Cabbage (0.1 g)
Okra (0.05 g)
Onion (0.05 g)
Pea (0.05 g)
Tomato (0.05 g)
Turnip greens (0.05 g)
Parsnip (0.04 g)
Pepper (0.04 g)
Rutabaga (0.03 g)
Cucumbers (0.02 g)
Kale (0.02 g)
Squash (0.02 g)
Coriander (0.01 g)

http://www.dataguru.org/misc/aquariu...xalicAcid.html

Oxalic acid found in spinach, chard and beet greens binds up the calcium present in these foods, making it unavailable for the body to use. It doesn't, however, affect the absorption of calcium in foods served at the same meal.
http://www.dataguru.org/misc/aquariu...xalicAcid.html

I believe that red beet poop is ok. Just eat something with calcium along with it. Perhaps toss a lime into the juice.


Pat