[Standup2me]

The more I read about food safety, the more I realize how toxic processed foods can be

Has anyone ever stopped eating processed foods?

How did you do it? Cold turkey or weaning off?

If so, did it have any impact on mood/meds etc?

I have never tried it before. Although I have heard cutting gluten out of your diet is helpful at trying to alleviate some of the affects of depression. However it takes a while to notice the difference because gluten takes a while to get out of your system.

I did eliminate caffeine from my diet about a month ago. I haven't noticed any differences without it yet, other than the withdrawals for about the first week.

[Standup2me]

I did caffeine about a month ago too.

I did find it helped me to sleep better at night, but that was it

[BinaryMan]

I did. Surprisingly enough I did so before I even knew I had an illness so I can not tell you about it's effects on meds and so forth. However I know I started to physically feel better. I no longer have body aches like I used to and I am no longer almost constantly hungry.

I did not do this willingly. I want to say 95% of my diet was processed foods before meeting my GF. After moving in together my GF forbid me to eat processed foods anymore and started cooking for me from scratch. Her cooking is REALLY GOOD so my resistance died quickly. I hardly ever missed the processed stuff. I might get a craving for PizzaRolls, Doritos or other snacks on occasion but those times are few and far between.

One caveat: Mountain Dew is my one weakness. Nectar of the gods it is. Can't give it up.

[Dix888]

My mother was an RN & a "health nut." She made all our food home-made: bread, everything. We picked our fruit out in the countryside, in the mountains etc. (my father was a geological surveyor so we moved around, lived in all regions). We had fresh squeezed OJ every morning. But I was still super manic. At college, I worked on a Mennonite goat farm. Organic. Made my own yogurt from the goats' milk. Ate all that healthy fresh picked Mennonite food. But was super manic & would crash to horrible illnesses with high fevers & strep throat, etc. That's my story. Everyone is different! I think a healthy diet is important but from all I've read (tons), bipolar disorder is a genetic brain condition.

Originally Posted by Standup2me

The more I read about food safety, the more I realize how toxic processed foods can be

Has anyone ever stopped eating processed foods?

How did you do it? Cold turkey or weaning off?

If so, did it have any impact on mood/meds etc?

[~Christina]

I gave up processed food when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia almost 5 years ago.
It makes a huge difference for me ... all around I feel better and mood wise also.

[Happy Camper]

Yes, canned tuna, hamburger, and condiments are the only exception. Huge decrease in overall hunger throughout the day.

I've been playing around with my diet finding what works, and I've come to learn that I have a lot of food allergies that I wasn't previously aware of. These can cause their own distinct mood swings, wide spread inflammation, lethargy, and a lot of low level symptoms that aren't obvious.

I believe my digestive tract was made susceptible to inflammation when I was taking Tylenol pm daily for insomnia, on my Doctor's advice. Apparently this increases intestinal permeability and allows all sorts of food/drug particles into your bloodstream, to which your body reacts to, gets inflamed, and ultimately damages itself, while creating antibodies to react to these particles anytime they're detected again. It weakens your whole body and mind. I believe this has played a significant role in my severe intolerance to psych meds and odd mood reactions to nsaids and sleep aids.

I had what I thought was acne all over my shoulders, back, and butt, but because it mostly cleared up when I stopped eating gluten and dairy (due to the allergenic protein called casein contained in dairy) I'm going to ask my doctor about celiac disease. I think this was actually a rash and not acne, afterall. There has to be a reason I've never felt quite right.

[venusss]

Almost.

I notice that too much of processed food sends me mood of the whack.

I can't claim I eat healthy (I mean, I am good cook, but very eastern european and most my recipes consist of "fry it and add some bacon to it), but I am trying to eat real food. I love cooking so it makes it easier. Fast food doesn't taste as good once you try to make things at home and learn to alter the taste to suite you well.

[Twigs92]

I've always had an intolerance to fried food, now any fried or fast food, or even like oil dressings give me bad stomach cramps. I can't eat a lot of gluten without feeling dire, and I'm not a big fan of dairy. I never thought of this linking with my mood, I'll watch out for this. Normally I eat fish, veggies, fruit, toast etc. Chocolate is my one weakness. I'll look out for this though as I never thought of it being related to my mood, like consumption of the above metioned affecting it. If it did I could only say that it makes my mood worse, however I can still be depressed or manic despite this.

[Happy Camper]

Well things cooked in vegetable oil, or just straight up coconut oil, give me a horrible sense of burning and inflammation throughout my body. It feels like acid in my veins. I also get irritable when this happens.

Ambien, tylenol, Ibueprofen, decaf tea, and a few other things make me extremely giddy and euphoric/hyperactive, and my thoughts speed up. Often I end up crashing into despair and thinking of self harm.

I really think what im consuming is ending up in places where it shouldn't be. I think the mood crash some foods cause is a result of my brain down regulating or flushing out whatever chemicals are making me ecstatic, and so it makes me feel the opposite of how I was, for a brief time. That I recover from this, back to euthymia, I think, is further evidence I was never bipolar to begin with.

[Dix888]

And mania & melancholia were documented by Aristotle in about 300 BC. Also, n 1686, Swiss physician Théophile Bonet named “manico-melancolicus” and linked mania and melancholia. Far before any processed foods were developed

Originally Posted by Standup2me

The more I read about food safety, the more I realize how toxic processed foods can be

Has anyone ever stopped eating processed foods?

How did you do it? Cold turkey or weaning off?

If so, did it have any impact on mood/meds etc?

[hamster-bamster]

Also, how do you define processed? I eat Amish farmers' cheese every day, and it is expensive. Decades ago I knew how to make my own farmer's cheese which would be an order of magnitude cheaper. I plan to go back to it once I figure out where I will be hanging the cheesecloth-wrapped sack of cheese-in-the making.

I am not trying to reap any health benefits, though - I don't doubt that the Amish put wholesome unadulterated ingredients in their product. The plan is just to cut the costs - $5 roughly each little tub. Well, maybe I will feel emotionally healthier looking at a big batch of cheese preparing in my little kitchen. Maybe I will feel hpier and proud knowing that I am making a staple product myself. But these are all indirect benefits to emotional wellbeing. I would go on to say that when you cook for yourself - the effort you put into caring for yourself - you prepare an invisible emotional feast, too. So I see emotional benefits and cost cutting in cooking from scratch. But to believe that I would somehow feel better because the homemade farmers cheese is chemically better than the Amish farmers cheese looks like magical thinking to me. And then we go back to the questiob - what is processed food? With examples it will be easier to illustrate how fuzzy the term is.

Doritos
Kale chips made at home
Kale chips sold at a farmers market
Kale chips sold at Whole Foods
Kale chips sold at a regular grocery store
Dry pasta bought from a regular grocery store
Dry japanese buckwheat pasta bought from Trader Joe's
Quick oats
Soup made with dry porcini mushrooms and pearl barley
Any mass-produced cow dairy as opposed to small batch produced sheep and goat dairy
Etc.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Dix888

And mania & melancholia were documented by Aristotle in about 300 BC. Also, n 1686, Swiss physician Théophile Bonet named “manico-melancolicus” and linked mania and melancholia. Far before any processed foods were developed

Wow! So the attribution of the discovery to Kraepelin is wrong and off by two centuries?

[almondjoy]

My husband and I stopped eating fast food and processed foods a while ago. Instead, we started shopping for organic foods (even organic ketchup!). It was hard to do and meant reading labels for additives etc, but in the end we actually lost weight and started feeling better in ourselves.

[roads]

Thank you so much for asking about this, Standup2me. Unprocessed food is a big part of my staying healthy & giving my meds the best chance to help me.
I'm allergic to so many preservatives, dyes, fillers, etc. that I quit all processed food and try to stay with organic (hard to find everything I want & I'm so jaded I don't believe that what stores put in the Organic aisle isn't there just because it's labeled "natural.") Organic is expensive too.
So probably 80% of what I eat is unprocessed organic. The rest is unprocessed and never frozen, except for the extremely rare time or two I may eat out. Mostly I eat what I buy from local farmers and green grocers (I'm vegetarian).
I can't take some generic meds, primarily because of fillers and dyes. Now that I'm on a Medicare Part D Plan, it's difficult to get brand name meds, so I've chosen to do with generic Skelaxin because it makes me itch terribly--but that means I give up the muscle relaxer that helps with the pain. Not an easy choice to make!

Roads

[Nammu]

I have done, it requires more work and when I get depressed I tend to let it go which in turn makes the depression worse.

When I avoid sugar, and processed food for those I cook at home not just shove into the microwave I have always lost weight without trying. It is hard at the beginning cause the processed foods are designed to make you crave them by having salt, sugar and fats in a combo that setts your body up on an addictive cycle, so you eat even when you've taken in enough calories. They also often are low in fiber which gives you a full feeling. Eating raw fruit does have fiber, as to whole grains.

My favorite non processed food is quinoa which you can buy in the bulk section for less. It is high in protein and so versatile you can do either sweet or savory with it. Yum.

[roads]

Thanks, sidestepper ... Excellent comment about the intentional addictive formula that the commercial food business sector has designed into its product. I think I knew that once long ago, when I had a memory .

I'm old enough to remember the first TV frozen dinner. My mom said, "Nuts!" when she heard about them (given the tone of voice she used when she spit out that one word--NUTS!--translated to what she really meant would be censored by PC admin

My mother grew up on a dirt farm during the Depression, and her folks lived near us in the 50s. She and her parents were concerned about what was being done to the food sold to us even back then. I started my first garden then--planted a small patch about 4'x6' and also between the bushes all around the house. Mommy was fine with that, but my city-guy dad was embarrassed ... good thing I was Daddy's little girl in that instant.

My grandfather would be considered an organic farmer if he were in business now. He showed me what house plants and herbs to plant by the veggies, to turn away insects. Plants like geraniums have a strong odor most garden pests avoid by yards. I dropped mineral oil in the silks of corn to keep its insect enemies away. I can't keep all the things in my shrinking brain now, but he was a great mentor. It's all written down though, and I still use it.

If I ever leave my cave, I'd like to have a garden again....

Sorry for all the reminiscing. Isn't it great that when you're on the computer & start getting bored, one click and you're outta there!!

Roads

[Trippin2.0]

I'm a bit unclear on the definition of processed foods as well.

We've never purchased a tv dinner, all food is cleaned, prepped and cooked from scratch, even home made fries, with the exception of hamburger night and twice a month take out...

Lol, idk anyone who doesn't chop their own onions, make their own bolognaise or even white sauce.

Buuut, we are not of money and do not shop in the purely organic / gluten free sections either... so I'm not sure if I eat processed food.

That being said, if my diet does not and never has contained processed food, I can't comment on the mood thing, but on the flip side it looks like I could seemingly have been off wayyy worse, had I a different diet.

[hamster-bamster]

Ophelia, the gluten-free craze (=gluten-free eating by people who don't have Celiac) has just been refuted by the researcher who set that wave of craziness in motion. He examined the methodology of his original research, found it unsatisfactory, redid the experiment under more stringent conditions, and failed to repeat the results of the first experiment. Failed completely, thoroughly. I love this story because it is not a story of fighting factions and special interests, but a story of a researcher, who, being what a true scientist should be, never stops to doubt.

***

I can tell you why I don't chop onions myself - they make me cry hard, and no tricks help that. So I either chop leeks, which I call my tearfree shampoo, or buy chopped onions at Safeway (the regular grocery store chain of the West Coast). I prefer leeks, because the store-bought chopped onions are not chopped finely enough, but sometimes laziness wins over. But literally I tried every trick before I gave up. I tried chopping onions while holding a piece of bread between my teeth. I tried refrigerating for half an hour before chopping. I don't remember what else I tried, but I remember how stupid I felt tring to prevent that piece of bread from melting into my mouth (I could not stop the saliva from forming). The idea wS that a piece of bread positioned underneath the nose will absorb whatever it is that is causing tears before it enters the nose. Didn't work.

[hamster-bamster]

If one is to insist on having nothing processed, then whole organic milk is out - it has been homogenized, which qualifies as industrial agro procesing.

And organic fat free milk is even more processed, because defattening is another industrial agro process.

[Happy Camper]

There's no reason to eat gluten unless you can't do without the foods it's made with. At best, it offers nothing for your body.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Happy Camper

There's no reason to eat gluten unless you can't do without the foods it's made with. At best, it offers nothing for your body.

Really? What is so horrendous about stuff that is contained in the staples of a very good chunk of world's civilizations? We are conversing on this platform because the Internet was invented in the 20th century. The Internet was invented before the gluten-free movement started. It follows that gluten was good enough to power the people responsible for one of the major if not THE major disruptive innovation of last century. And still portrayed as a scapegoat. Too funny.

[hamster-bamster]

This one is especially funny. Most people who avoid gluten don't know what it is (it is a combination of two proteins) and say that it is a vague term used to characterize stuff that is bad.
Does anybody really know what gluten is? Does anybody really care? - Los Angeles Times

[roads]

Originally Posted by Trippin2.0

....

Lol, idk anyone who doesn't chop their own onions, make their own bolognaise or even white sauce.

....

Hey, Trippin2.0! Great to run into you, my sweet girl.

I don't think it's laziness in my country, but even people without much income are quite likely to buy processed (packaged, fast food, etc). Couples often both work full time and occasionally a second parttime job. Single parents work 2 or 3 parttime jobs, if they have no childcare help.

Generally, from what I've seen, people who live in a time frenzy will buy the cheaper, prepared food, which of course messes with their health. We still have a lot of unemployment, and the quality of the diet suffers even more when money is short.

Onions come chopped or sliced in jars of plastic packages, sauces in bottles or jars--or as a powder in a package, just add liquid (usually water), heat, and stir.

editorial comment, or ... Myfor the Night
(all negative & not worth the read, but therapeutic for me)

"You are what you eat" I think is true. It's no wonder so many here are not healthy, truly sick even, suffer from all that stress adds to a bad diet--and I think the stress and pollution (in food, water, air--and "sick buildings" that contain hazardous materials because they were cheap and the builder was greedy) account for the ever-increasing mental illness. Every generation seems less physically and mentally healthy than their parents' generation.

This isn't just in the United States ... most so called 1st world countries that I know about aren't better off. Maybe the southern hemisphere of Earth is relatively okay, but I don't thing long term that the northern hemisphere will be able to recover--not that anyone with the power is doing anything to save it.

roads

[Trippin2.0]

Hey Roadssss

We also have pre-cut onions, and instant sauces over here, I just don't know anyone who actually uses it on the regular. Lol, not that I know everyone in Cape Town, but even if you glance at fellow shopper's groceries, those tv dinner things aren't a trend over here.

These pre-prepped stuff are actually mostly bought by folks with money to spend on diced onion or instant sauce or whatever... they're definitly more expensive than unprepped onions.

I can see why quick meals would be the "go to" yes, because while its the norm for both parents to be working, we don't have mutliple jobs.
Lol, I can't even find a single job atm...

Thanks for your insights