Rant that I’m probably gonna delete later but I got my IVs again this week and an assistant who has been working with my and similar illnesses for twenty years stuck around during the IV to chat, and we both just got very angry about medicine and food and need to put this somewhere.
It genuinely fucks me up how hard it is to get information about some extremely basic medical issues from reliable sources even in a country with „good“ healthcare, and how the prevalence of diet-based medical grifts makes it even harder to then get that information to people without looking like you’re trying to sell them shit.
Like, there is genuinely so much bullshit in food nowadays, and there always has been ever since companies realised that they can add indigestible preservatives and filler to increase volume and shelf life of their products while adding no calories and avoiding regulation because of this general thought that these substances will just pass right through the average person. They don’t. They don’t get broken down, but that just means that they keep doing what they have been doing. A lot of the preservatives you see are either sugar substitute polyoles like sorbitol or xylitol or long chain polysaccharides like modified starches or gums, and them being hard to break down is why they can be used as preservatives, but also why they will fuck up your gut.
Sorbitol for example plugs up enzymes like fructase and can’t be digested by bacteria, all while also drawing in moisture, so it gets used to keep prepackaged baked goods fresh and soft while also not promoting mold growth. It does the same shit in your small intestine - it draws in moisture, plugs up enzymes, and doesn’t get digested. If you’ve ever read about the sugar free haribos, that’s sorbitol. There used to be H2 breath tests for sorbitol but nobody does them anymore cause EVERYBODY IS SORBITOL INTOLERANT. IT‘S ALWAYS A POSITIVE ALL IT TELLS YOU IS YOUR DAILY LIMIT IF YOU WERE TO EAT IT WITHOUT FRUCTOSE, WHICH YOU MOST LIKELY WONT.
But it only has to be declared as an additive. Every juice being stretched with apple juice doesn’t have to tell you that apple juice has a high natural sorbitol content, even higher in modern varieties bred for longer shelf life and transport stability. Depending on the country it doesn’t have to be declared at all below 1%, but 1% matters a lot in a substance that causes digestive distress at as little as 5 grams a day.
Writing in-depth explanations like this for everything would take too long and that’s honestly part of the problem. Who the hell has the time to inform themselves on all of them?
But saying „hey if you have constant digestive issues you should cook stuff at home from scratch“ is 1. classic diet grift shit and 2. completely ignorant of the reality most people live in. I work part time in part because I personally can’t avoid having to do this, and the fact that I can still afford to live is the exception, not the norm. And on bad days I barely have the strength to cook after work so then what? A lot of the time you just have to make the choice to eat the thing that you’ll regret tomorrow and take something for the symptoms and keep going, and then eventually your gut flora is fucked and you’re getting more intolerant and can’t afford to fix it, and probiotics alone aren’t enough to keep the bacteria around either and then you either gotta go on a long long journey to fix your gut biome and hope you never have to take antibiotics while doing so, or you’re forced to just accept the IBS diagnosis because it’s easier to blame people’s health issues on individuals than the companies who are shredding your digestive system in the name of maximum profit.
kianamaiart
germansingergirl
origamiaround
titsay
