Hi,

We are vegetarian. My 2 month old son is having issues with gas / constipation / colic. My wife's diet could be a factor, since she is breastfeeding. The foods she is eating might be affecting her milk.

I would like to try the raw diet to see if it helps. However, everything I've read on this issue so far says to cook all food thoroughly because cooking makes some substances more digestible. I am thinking that eating *certain* raw foods, like maybe citrus, could be bad. But that eating other raw foods might actually be good.

What is the best raw food approach to this situation? Which raw foods should be avoided? Which foods are the least likely to cause issues? Are there any good articles / websites that would help?

Thanks!

Hello, James, and welcome,

The scientific evidence that cooking food makes it more bioavailable is partial. In the case of grains, it makes them more digestible[not the same thing as bioavailable] because, not being birds, we don't have sufficient enzymes or the correct esophogeal anatomy to break the starchy carbohydrates in raw seeds down. Another example of this hypothesis is that of the phytonutrient lycopene, which is made more bioavailable when tomatoes are cooked. From the raw foods perspective, where nutrients are not viewed as beneficial in isolated form, we would say that whatever lycopene one derives from cooked tomatoes is negligible factored against the loss of Vitamin C, enzymes, and water that is the result of cooking. That is why raw foodism is characterized most often by the credo of "whole, ripe, fresh" foods, that is, foods with all the plant's micro and macronutrients intact. This is the true definition of bioavailability--can your body assimilate all or most of the nutrients in that form?

When you cook food, you denaturize the proteins, carmelize the carbohydrates, and hydrogenate the fats, which makes them unassimilable, and in some cases, toxic. Think of it this way: other primates don't eat cooked food, and the ones that do are prone to disease and shortened life spans. We haven't been cooking for millenia and our alimentary systems reflect that cooking is new to our physiology. Consider all the illnesses that are correlated with cooked food diets: diabetes, heart diease, cancers, arthritis, neurological problems, autoimmune dysfunction, etc.

Hopefully, someone who's had children and nursed them while raw will chime in, but I'd say, since nursing primates the world over produce happy, healthy offspring on a diet of high fruits and greens, that's what you and your spouse should gradually ease into including in larger amounts. This thread from this very forum might help; I recommend doing a search on these forums for others:

[www.rawfoodsupport.com]

Good luck!

Tam is certainly correct. Stick to the staples of apples, bananas, greens like spinach & romaine. The only raw foods that a sensitive person might want to avoid are spicy greens (like mustard) or other spicy peppers, etc, but that is a personal call.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

while I don't eat raw yet, I have nursed 2 babies. I found that only my first baby had any sensitivities and it was to dairy products. U basically just have to do elimination. Start out basic and add to it and watch the baby. Good luck and kudos for nursing that baby!

Cutting out all dairy for at least two weeks (hopefully forever) would be the first thing I would do.

If your wife has huge cravings, I found a small amount of goat cheese to be ok for my little middle who was/is sensitive to lots of things, especially dairy.

Here are colic tablets that I've used:
[www.hylands.com]

Wellements Gripe Water for Colic
[www.walgreens.com]

Will a raw diet help? I wouldn't waste the time tying to figure that out, colic only lasts for a few months anyway, and would go with a tried and tested colic diet. A raw diet might involve nuts/seeds (very bad for colic, since proteins are hard for babies to digest) and lot of fruits and vegetables will also contribute to colic.

My diet was cooked rice and mushrooms, carrots, raisins, oil, (I used olive oil at the time but if I did it now I would try coconut oil) and a few other things I can't remember. Will this work for you? Probably not since every baby is different. Here are some other examples of colic diets (pardon the bleeped non-vegan aspects please):

[www.askdrsears.com]
Eat only (bleeped) baked or boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes (with salt and pepper only), rice and millet as your only grain, cooked green and yellow squash for your vegetable, and for fruit, pears and diluted pear juice.

[www.motherhooduncensored.net] The "Thanksgiving diet" (bleeped) cranberry and rice

[www.colichelp.com]
Since day 2 my daughter has been screaming. I eliminated dairy at four weeks, which helped tremendously. She still has fussy times and still screams in the evening. My Ped suggested that I go on the "caveman diet", which just means eating (bleeped) and white potatoes and white rice and water. After four days I am supposed to slowly add back food. I am on day 5 of this diet and I don't see a change in my daughter. She still has lots of gas. When I feed her, I feel the bubbles in her tummy. She also wakes up passing lots of gas.

[www.mothering.com]
I was experimenting tonight and this was pretty good

TED friendly Pear Crisp

Layer peeled, thinly sliced pear in small oven proof dish. Sprinkle with rice flour, drizzle with brown rice syrup. Repeat. Make a topping out of about 1/4 cup rice flour, spoon of rice syrup, and a little oil. Stir to make crumbs. Spread on top. Bake 350 about half an hour until bubbly. (this made just enough for me, I used one pear)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2009 04:00PM by tropical.

Notice how this mentions that acidic fruits and vegetable need to be elimiated from a colic diet, that's a lot of fruits and vegetables. I don't know why this site mentions that it's OK to eat pasta, wheat is something I would avoid. After a few weeks you can try to add things back in and when I added pasta back in I noticed a difference between enriched pasta and pasta with no added vitamins, the baby had a rection to the enriched pasta. The fennel that they mention is very good and fennel is in the Wellements Gripe Water in my previous post.

[www.kidsorganics.com]
What to Do When a Baby Has Colic?
If your baby is having a colicky episode, be calm. Put on some classical music or water sounds, low. Keep your voice and the lights low. Your baby's stomach is full of gas.
Burp your baby with a cupped hand. Heat some water for fennel tea, for both you and the baby. It works gently and effectively. Make fennel tea by taking a small handful of fennel seeds, placing in a tea diffuser, and steeping for at least 5 minutes in a cup or pot of hot water. You can drink while hot. For baby, wait until tea is tepid, then using a dropper, place only a few drops into baby's mouth, along inside of cheek, so that baby will not choke on the liquid.
Have some Hyland's Homeopathic Colic tabs on hand, or Mylicon, as a back-up.
However, it is possible to try to prevent colicky conditions!
Breastfeeding decreases the incidence of colic, as you, the mother, have complete control of what you put into your breastmilk via the food you eat.

Breastfeeding mothers should eat bland meals and drink lots of water.

Add herbal teas to your diet, such as spearmint, peppermint, catnip, chamomile, or raspberry.

Eat foods such as brown rice, plain pasta with butter or olive oil, oatmeal, baked potatoes, (bleeped) or avocado sandwiches.

Minimize your spices. Dill, basil and fennel are fine to eat. Curry, garlic onion are not.

No broccoli, no cabbage, no tomatoes. No acidic juices or fruits or vegetables, like orange, lemon, lime, tomato (which means tomato sauces, as well).

No spicy foods. No Mexican salsa. No Thai.

No sodas. No caffeine. No carbonated drinks. No chocolate. Think boring.

However, if you follow these suggestions, your baby will probably have less gas, and then you, and your baby, can sleep. Keep a notepad for what seems to work for you and your baby. If we haven't covered it, feel free to email us!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2009 04:16PM by tropical.

My wife is still nursing our 8 month old baby. At the beginning, we had some gas experiences with the baby, and by elimination we found that mushrooms were big gas producers!

Raw Fruit Festival
[www.raw-fruit-festival.net]
Health, Fitness and Fasting Retreats in Spain
[www.fit-in-nature.net]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2009 08:02PM by sgc.

Wow, Tropical, I don't know whether the pap diet you describe will eliminate the baby's colic, but I was developing Type II Diabetes just reading that : )

Yeah, you said "vegetarian," so I don't know if you mean a true vegetarian or just someone who doesn't eat flesh/flesh products, so I'd try to cut out cow or goat milk products if those are involved.

check out shazzie.com.shes a raw mother with a five? year old that went through breastfeeding.she also has books out.her five year old is almost all raw.cheers

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow, Tropical, I don't know whether the pap diet
> you describe will eliminate the baby's colic, but
> I was developing Type II Diabetes just reading
> that : )

Yes, it's a VERY hard diet but it's just for a couple months so you're not going to develop any heath problems in a few months (assuming you were healthy before), then you start adding other things, but it works, I had three babies and they all had colic.

It's so restrictive, I used to watch food network channel and dream about the foods I used to eat (this was before I was high raw) food network is also nice background noise. It would be cool if someone figured out a raw colic diet but, like I said, it's only for a few months so it might not be worth the effort and BECOMING raw while you have a colicy baby would probably involve detoxing into the milk supply and cause even more problems.

Try this for one day. Take Bragg's apple cider vinegar (it says it has "The Mother" in it) and add about 6 drops to some diluted apple juice and give to baby during the daytime about 15 minutes before a feeding.

Only use authentic fermented apple cider vinegar, mostly only found at a health foods store.

Love,
Prism

I think Tropical is right. My oldest was very colicky and did a lot of projectile vomiting the first few months. I had to eat a very bland diet (no garlic, onions, spice, brassicas, dairy and I was veg and didn't eat fat). What else helped was to put him in a baby pack that allowed him to hang with our tummies together and to take very long walks. As soon as he was strong enough, I put him in a Johnny Jump up contraption (this was 28 years ago; I don't know if they still make them) that hangs on the doorway. This thing, and the front pack, kept him in a position where he was putting pressure on his tummy and helped him expel gas, as well as soothing him. It sucked for me in a way because I got down to 120 lbs at 5'7" with a solid, large frame. But like Tam said, it's only for a few months.

My niece's son had projectile vomiting after breast feeding. Going to a low fat vegan diet for my niece made that problem go away within a week.

Wow, it's scary that colic seems inevitable. This cannot be natural for a baby, can it? Or can't it? Maybe someone should do long-term studies on whether colic is a precondition for anything else later in life. Like, is this why people say, "Oh, I like broccoli but it doesn't like me." Or why there seems to be a Crohns epidemic in the Western world these days. But perhaps that's another Topic on another Forum . . . I hope that all of you who've had colicky babies have healthy happy children now : )

Try massaging his belly in a clockwise motion after feedings and burping him in the middle of feedings (a good time is when he switches between breasts) by putting him over your shoulder and patting his back. Being a breastfed infant he should not spit up, but burp. Also if your wife isn't doing this already feed on demand, meaning if the infant cries or starts to root for the breast, she needs to feed him. She should also keep feeding as long as he is interested and not be concerned if he falls asleep at the breast or only feeds for 5 minutes or if he feeds for an entire hour (or even longer). Just go with the flow of the infant. Wearing him in a baby carrier will also help.

Tamukha--
My son is 28, incredibly healthy and happy, and can eat anything (though he is, quote, "a bad vegan".