Maize starch, Sodium Metabisuphate and validation at home

[Regenallotment]

Blimey what a week!

After months of elimination diet, AI diet and feeling really well on it.

I’ve had a recurrence of gastro symptoms, IBS type looseness, scared to fart type days. Heightened anxiety. Aches and pains.

First bout followed some Kokos coconut yogurt that we can only assume the maize starch (quite high in the list). triggered this.

Second bout included a swollen tongue, pain in joints that haven’t hurt for weeks, this followed Aldi gluten free sausages. Cue darling hubby rifling through the wheelie bin to find the label and googling ’could I be allergic to’ each ingredient in turn and hey presto we get a hit on symptoms and it’s in bold as an allergen on the packet. Have to say I was warned ….just grateful someone had cooked tea when I rolled in exhausted from work and didn’t question what I was being fed.

One good thing has come of this, I perceive a slight alteration at home. hubby has quite clearly altered his mindset towards all this from, ‘high maintenance orthorexic wife who makes a fuss about food’ to ‘shit I’ve been married to you 22 years and we’ve been feeding you poison that’s made you even sicker.’ For this Sodium metabisuphate, I thank you 🤣 the other bonus is I never have to eat aldi sausages again either win win! 🦋💚🦋

[Buddy195 Administrator]

I’m so glad that you’ve located a key ‘culprit’ in your elimination quest Regenallotment.

[Regenallotment in reply to Buddy195]

thanks Buddy195 it feels like a win!

[Hedgeree]

Hi Regenallotment,

It's good that you've worked out what can cause you some of the digestive issues you've been experiencing.

I'm sure you're doing lots of 'googling' now 😊 I too found out the hard way that it's best to avoid sodium metabisulfite (E223) It's used as a preservative in a lot of food ingredients.

I had a very horrible experience and consequently lost a lot of weight after getting ill from an overload of sulphites; too much concentrated juice and dried fruit and trail mix. I was too scared to eat much for a month or so and ended up living off plain baked potatoes and organic lentils.

I've always read labels but if you do eat much processed foods you'll need to look out for certain E numbers;

Sodium metabisulfite (E223)

Sulfur dioxide (E220)

Sodium sulfite (E221)

Sodium bisulfite (E222)

There are others!

Generally I avoid anything with sulphur or 'ite' added to the ingredient list.

Although I mostly experienced digestive issues, wine makes me wheezy now so I can only drink gin! 🤔😊

Edited to add;

Sulphites also occur naturally in some fruit and vegetables. With you mentioning coconut yoghurt I think I'm remembering correctly but coconuts also contain naturally occuring sulphites.

Rapeseed oil is another one that I avoid. It contains sulphites also.

Just in case you have an issue with tinned mushy peas I react to the blue colouring in them (E133)

Best wishes.

Take care.

[Regenallotment in reply to Hedgeree]

thanks Hedgeree Iwasn’t aware of so many sulphites, especially in the fresh/unprocessed department … I too am a trail mix muncher 😬 can you recommend any reading?

[Hedgeree in reply to Regenallotment]

Hi Regenallotment,

I mostly did lots of online reading around the subject but I did bookmark some websites that I found useful. So I'll have a trawl through my bookmarked pages and see if I can find them for you. I'll add them in a reply to your post later today.

You may find that if you reduce your intake of sulfites for a time you may be able to tolerate small amounts in your diet later.

It is overwhelming particularly when it makes you so unwell. I was really scared and was off food for a while (all I felt I could tolerate was plain baked spud and organic lentils as I mentioned earlier) till I worked out through elimination what was wrong with me.

Best wishes.

[Hedgeree in reply to Regenallotment]

Hi Regenallotment,

Sorry for the delayed reply, having a few technical issues. I had a good search through my bookmarks. As most of them are quite dated you'd be better off doing a new search possibly with the focus on sulfite sensitivity or intolerance.

I don't have an asthma diagnosis and from my understanding it is usually those with asthma that can develop an intolerance to sulfite so I think I'm in the minority.

When I first got very ill it was all digestive issues but sometimes now I get wheezy after accidentally eating foods with high levels of sulfite so I know when I get 'sulfited'. I tend to avoid sulphites as best I can.

Hope these links work alright? I found previously that lots of the research is USA or Australian and also some differences in spelling - sulphites others use sulfites.

allergyuk.org/

webmd.com/allergies/sulfite...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

allergy.org.au/patients/oth...

Hope the above are useful?

Take care.

[Regenallotment in reply to Hedgeree]

thanks so much, I’ll have a good read. Asthma is in the family, I had inhalers as a child and weirdly had to see a night doctor. Few months back after having a wheezing attack. Lots to learn. Really appreciate your time looking at this for me 🦋💚🦋

[Hedgeree in reply to Regenallotment]

I realise you probably can't remember but do you know what you'd been eating the day before or leading up to when you had the wheezing attack at night?

Initially I thought I was having a severe bout of food poisoning but I started with very strange eggy smelling belching (sorry if this is too much information!) which was continuous. So it was this that helped me to start googling and so eventually working out what was going on with me.

It was scary as I was so ill so I'm happy to help you if I can.

Best wishes.

[Regenallotment in reply to Hedgeree]

We were dog sitting for a beautiful golden retriever, so I blamed poor Alfie. But… could have been food and nope, not a clue what I’d have eaten. Thanks so much, it’s fascinating unlocking all this stuff. 🦋💚🦋

[Jaydee1507 Administrator]

Well done on making dietary progress. I do know how that feels having been made ill for years not knowing how to work out what I was actually intolerant to.

The Koko yoghurt issue is one is not uncommon apparently. I was seeing a nutritionist while I experimented with that and she told me it triggered quite a few of her patients. It is one of the cheaper coconut yoghurts with a lower % of actual coconut in it. Can recommend the Nush almond yoghurts or spreads. Not cheap, but nice for a treat.

It's nice getting validation from people close to you. Really happy for you and long may it continue.