Estrogen and animal products (long)

[bke]

I have eliminated animal products from my diet in order to improve my health by reducing the amount of excess estrogen in my body. Its working really well and I feel better than I have in a very long time except that I hate eating this way. Food consumption has gone from being a great pleasure to an obligation I wish I could get rid of. I eat because its required of me and I am never truely satisfied for any legnth of time. I miss meat and cheese and oh, what I would do for a bowl of ice cream!

I've tried many vegan substitutes and some work better than others. I'm willing to keep at this because I'm healthier but I wonder if its necessary. Does anyone have any information on the estrogen levels of animals that are truely farm raised vs factory farm products? We fill animals with so many growth hormones and antibiotics to get them to a kill weight as quickly as possible. I'm wondering if I had a few chickens out back, eating healthy chicken food and allowed to live a "normal" life, if I could eat the eggs without issue? Or if I found a good source of cows milk, can I make yogurt, cheese, and ice cream that aren't so unhealthy? People have been eating animals for years and managed to live long, healthy lives so I feel like the problem has to do with how we treat the animals these days not in the consumption of animal products.

I'm looking for suggestions, personal experiences, book titles, etc on how I might re-incorporate animal products as part of a healthy diet.

Thanks.

[JaneV2.0]

I recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, along with works in the paleo nutrition genre. Also, Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth makes for provocative reading. A lot of research and life experience have convinced me that what is generally touted as a healthy diet by the government, PETA, and grain producers is anything but.

I've never worried about "excess estrogen," though I guess if there was a family history of estrogen-dependent cancer, it might be a concern. For what it's worth, I'd wager high-carbohydrate diets were more germane to cancer growth (See Otto Warburg and the 2004 Harvard-Mexico study http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0806094822.htm).

[ApatheticNoMore]

I have eliminated animal products from my diet in order to improve my health by reducing the amount of excess estrogen in my body.

I have not heard this theory. Now fat itself can generate estrogen so if you lose weight there will be less estrogen generated by fat (might be why it's a good idea to have a little bit of chub if one is menopausal - not to be obese or anything like that but .... maybe not to be skin and bones either)

Its working really well and I feel better than I have in a very long time except that I hate eating this way. Food consumption has gone from being a great pleasure to an obligation I wish I could get rid of. I eat because its required of me and I am never truely satisfied for any legnth of time.

Well are you trying to do low fat as well? Because yes that is a pleasureless diet! No animal products and no fat, oh that's a hard one. I guess one could eat non-fat sweets for pleasure, but that's definitely not healthy. If you are allowed fat, look into mediteranian dishes (of course by no means all vegan but a few are - boatloads of olive oil - makes veggies yummy for sure! Veggies cooked with fat can definitely be tasty, bean dishes are better with some fat etc). That said I think having some animal products in the diet is healthier than none. No fish even? You really think fish raises estrogen? Like I said this is all a new theory to me. Animal protein as such?

Feeling better than you have in a long time may not mean you have to be on such a strict diet. If you went from junk food omnivore to health food vegan of course you'll feel better. Maybe just eating more veggies in general helps and you could still have some animal protien here and there. Also you may have had alergies to something like dairy and something like that may be what you really need to eliminate rather than everything.

We fill animals with so many growth hormones and antibiotics to get them to a kill weight as quickly as possible.

definitely think meat raised more healthifully and fed less junk is healthier.

Or if I found a good source of cows milk, can I make yogurt, cheese, and ice cream that aren't so unhealthy?

Well I'm not sure about this but I think to the extent animal products are tied to anything unhealthy I think it's mostly dairy and red meat. Dairy possibly with ovarian cancer. Red meat to colon cancer. Hope others here have more information for you. But of course organic, pasture raised, etc. animal products are much purer than industrial animal products. I have no doubts about that.

[Rogar]

I'm no help with your specific question, but I am pretty much vegan and have been for a few years. I hardly give it a thought any more and have very few cravings. Occationally, if I'm invited as a guest for dinner, I'll eat what is served without making an issue out of it, and might have ice cream twice a year, so I'm not super Nazi about it. There's that old saying that what we resist persists and it's helpful to relieve the desire occationally at first. I actually avoid restaurants most of the time because I like the diet I've chosen more. It's lifetime of eating habits that have to change and it just takes a while.

I buy rice or soy cheese which is decent cheese substitue. And there are various meatless products that have the texture and some flavor of their meat counter parts. From those I can have things like tacos, cheeseburgers, spagetti and meatballs, or even lunchmeat sandwiches that are meatless. The meatless chicken products aren't too bad. Especially when doing the transition away from meat, those might help.

[bke]

Ok this is what I think I know. Yes fat stores excess estrogen instead of allowing it to be removed from the body. We get estrogen from own bodies but also through the eating of animal products such as milk and meat. I'm really paraphrashing here but sources such as Dr. Mcdougall explain this it great detail. Also, the fact that we don't allow animals to reproduce and grow to maturity without chemicals the increase this rate also affect us. Think about the old saying: The higher up the food chain, the more toxics in the food source. Lots of little diseased fish can make the big fish sick if it eats too many of them.

I am not eating low fat. I am trying to eat healthy but frankly eat anything that qualifies as vegan to fill me eating desires/needs. Beans, grains, veggies, mock meats, fruits-anything and everything as well as junk food (sweets and chips for example) if it qualifies as vegan.

Without too many gory details I am a middle aged woman who has been suffering increasingly from menstrual problems. I have seen a doctor and been told that its related to too much estrogen in my body. I'm over weight but consumption of animal products increases the problem. If I requested it, they would probably consider a hysterectomy but I am 100% against it. Why remove something unnecessarily if I can allow it to heal and function properly? My problem is to the point I can barely work at times because I'm so sick. Vomiting using the bathroom, challenges of just keeping myself clean, etc. Not to mention painful ovulation and moodiness that is extreme at times. Well, maybe that is too many details!

Anyways, since I went vegan I can cycle without any real issues. I don't even need pain meds! No vomiting, my husband isn't sleeping in the garage, I'm not missing work, etc.

Maybe I'm just having a bad week with the cravings. Maybe in a day or two tofu scrambles and kale are gonna sound good. I just was wondering if I was pushing myslef harder than necessary based on someone else experience. The last few days I have felt like I'd do just about anything for some serious animal derived protein.

I won't be back for a day or two-work won't allow me to hang out on the computer but I look forward to your further responses.

[pinkytoe]

Been there, done that. In the end, nothing I ate or drank really made much difference in alleviation of symptoms. If it did, it was probably in my head.
All that helped me was sheer determination to get through the process without surgery. I would not deny yourself meat and cheese if they make you feel better but I would stick to grass fed beef and organic dairy products and in eat in moderation. Being overweight might be contibuting to problems though.

[JaneV2.0]

I will say that if you follow good old Doc MacDougall, as I once did, your troubles will likely be over soon because your menstrual periods will stop dead in their tracks. Starvation at the cellular level will do that for you. (Do I sound jaded? Guilty.) Perimenopause can be--literally--a pain. If I were you, I'd read and experiment. And speaking only for myself, tofu scrambles and kale will never, ever, sound good.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well it could just be the result of weight loss (have you lost weight on a vegan diet?). If so maybe as long as you can keep from gaining the weight back ...

Or maybe it is eating soy (there is an phyto-estrogenic influence there, though it can be good or bad, it's playing with fire and such things are not so clear, as in it can make the pain better or worse (often does make it worse, recent studies seem to show so), but if it works for you ....). Many a fake meat is made out of soy. Or maybe it is just eating more fiber (which does eliminate excess estrogen from the body and yes plant foods have fiber and animal foods do not) but as long as you eat lots of veggies you'll get enough.

Also there may be an inflamatory aspect. Vegetables, olive oil etc. are all anti-inflamatory. From my understanding, meat can be inflamatory, but fish isn't. But this is a question of balance, as in having a some meat as long as it's well balanced with veggies etc. should be ok. And yes simple junk carbs are inflamatory.

If you don't think any of this is the case and know that even a little animal products cause pain, I can't argue with that experience. That's a pretty powerful experience.

I started having menstral cramps when I became a vegan and they never went away (even though I eat everything now). This was when I was in my early 20s so no I don't at all think it was due to age. But the correlation with going vegan was unmistakable.

[Suzanne]

Body fat, especially belly fat, produces estrogen, as others have said. The foods that produce belly fat are simple carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates, and of the simple carbs sugars and white flour are the most fattening. Neither weight nor BMI is a good measure of either body fat % or belly fat; for this you need a personal evaluation by a more precise method. This is a nice overview of food and belly fat: http://www.livestrong.com/article/35...&utm_medium=a1.

This link has some interesting information about estrogen and cancer: http://foodforbreastcancer.com/news/...endent-cancers.

Feedlot beef animals are routinely dosed with high levels of estrogen to increase their fattening rate (what feedlots produce is not so much meat as it is fat; fat gives tenderness and flavour, so literally tons of fat are trimmed from carcasses and discarded each year). Grassfed animals are not implanted with estrogen pellets. In countries which do not feedlot their beef, the estrogen levels in the meat are almost zero. Interesting how the authors' prejudice manifests: cut out beef and pork, despite almost zero estrogen content in pastured animals and eat pastured poultry, whose estrogen content is no lower! The supply of grassfed-to-finish beef, as well as pastured pork, and pastured chicken, is growing. Note that the authors of this paper suggest the high estrogen content in US chicken to be due to the high content of soy in their feed; soy is very rich in phytoestrogens, which bind to the same estrogen receptors as those used by our very own home-grown versions, so it will have the same effects as oversupply of estrogen from our own ovaries or belly fat. Men with excess belly fat often develop man boobs, because they're now pumping out estrogen at levels higher than can be balanced by testosterone and androgen.

This link has a table showing the relative content of phytoestrogens in common foods: http://www.feedstuffsfoodlink.com/ME...9746173644359A.

For balance, it's good to know that contraceptive pills max out at 50 micrograms/day of estrogen. A single soy burger is giving you as much estrogen as 88.6 contraceptive pills in one gulp; I wouldn't risk it myself.

We're told over and over that the Japanese eat large amounts of soy, and it does no harm, but rather good. However, what these chirpy tales always leave out is that the Japanese eat nearly all of their soy in the fermented state, they usually eat less of it than Westerners, and they eat it with copious amounts of fish broth made from heads and tails, seaweed, and pork broth. Further, the Japanese have specialized gut bacteria which digest the seaweed for them, which non-Japanese do not have; there could well be other gut bacteria and genes adapting them to soy, which have not yet been identified.

Returning to the hormone-dependent cancers: Dr. Gott and associates (Life Without Bread) found a strong association between carbohydrate content of the diet and cancer development. Of course, correlation is not causation.

There are sources of estrogen-mimics apart from food, like plastic water bottles: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...326100714.htm; clingwrap is not innocent either: http://www.calisafe.org/_disc1/00000066.htm.

Eatwild.com is a good source of information on nutritional benefits of pastured livestock. As Jane has already said, sample the paleo diet communities; I like huntgatherlove.com and http://rawfoodsos.com/ as well. Dr. Gott's Life Without Bread is another must-read on my list of recommendations.

My personal shtick is that humans are so variable that each of us has to research our own body, and work out from observation and experimentation what works for us personally.

[catherine]

I will say that if you follow good old Doc MacDougall, as I once did, your troubles will likely be over soon because your menstrual periods will stop dead in their tracks. Starvation at the cellular level will do that for you. (Do I sound jaded? Guilty.) Perimenopause can be--literally--a pain. If I were you, I'd read and experiment. And speaking only for myself, tofu scrambles and kale will never, ever, sound good.

With all due sincere respect to my good friends Jane and Suzanne, with whom I occasionally debate on this topic (as I personally feel that there are global benefits to vegetarianism/veganism, notwithstanding the individual differences people may have), I think the OP has already found that veganism is working for her. Her question is, how to transition her palate and her diet into something that makes eating more pleasurable.

This is a common issue with people who transition away from their comfort foods. I became vegetarian over an extended period of time--first commiting to only eating meat at one meal a day; then determining that whenever I had the option (like in a restaurant) I would always go for the vegetarian offering; then I made a full commitment not eating any red meat or poultry.

When you do it slowly, your palate slowly evolves and adjusts. I used to hate nuts with a passion; now I honestly love them. I used to really hate the consistency of beans; now, I love bean soups, bean chili, bean almost anything.

To speed up the process, I would begin by acknowledging that vegetarian food is not a punishment, despite what Jane says. It's just a matter of experimentation in cooking and eating different things. You also must acknowledge the body's cravings for fat. If you don't get that (and of course when you stop eating factory farmed red meat, that's a big fat deficit right there), you are going to have cravings.

So I would say, make sure you're eating the right amount of fat: add a bit of dark chocolate, avocado, etc--I would definitely say add some organic chicken or grass-fed beef for sure and your ideas for eggs, yogurt and cheese are great.

Some cuisines like Indian, Mediterranean, and Japanese have super tasty meatless stuff. Jane, you may not like tofu scrambles and kale, but I make a fantastic miso soup with tofu AND kale. If you do get organic chicken, of course there is a world of possibility there with getting the best of both worlds--good health and good, familiar meals.

Good luck with it.