I think that someone might have ready posted something about this, but I can't find it. Whenever I eat an apple I have this weird indigestion. I have stomach pain, similar to heartburn, pain in my shoulders and upper back, a slight headache and a weird, slightly metallic taste in my mouth. The closest I can describe it is either I feel like I have the flu or an intense detox. It lasts about 20 minutes and it feels better if I lie down for a bit. Sometimes it is more intense than others, but it always when I eat an apple. I don't remember it even happening before I went raw. I searched online for such a thing, and I found someone on the vegsource board asking help with the same issue. He just described indigestion and the shoulder pain. Until I read that I thought I was going crazy and could not understand why my shoulders would hurt because of something I ate. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Either indigestion with apples or shoulder pain connected to something you ate?

Thanks!

Try removing the skins.....see if you get the same reaction....and get back to me. Make sure you eat the apples on an empty stomach....and only eat 2 or 3. Let me know what your results are.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

This same thing happens to me! I have quit eating apples because of it. It happens with grapes, too. Too bad because those are my favorite fruits. I believe it's because we eat them with the skins on.

this is very interesting. here is my experience,

i love apples and in the past month i've mono ate apples for a few days ate a time. In one day i'd eat about 12 apples or so,skin on. it helped clear up my skin and got my digestive system cleared out.
then after about 3 days i'd go back to "poly eating" if you will. then another couple of days of mono apples.

but in the past week it seems my body is saying it had enough apples. there was too much "digestive cleansing" and i was starting to feel very drained, i had pain in my back around where my kidneys are. so i drank some kombucha for the probiotics and went back to mixed raw foods and am feeling alot better.

you have mentioned something about the skins? what is it about them that is causing concern?

Gosh. I've been eating 4-5 apples every week day for nearly a month since they came into season locally. They haven't given me any trouble, but I have read that apples are particularly cleansing for the digestive tract.

Dave, I will try removing the skin. I get this reaction even if I just eat one (although it is large - fuji organic). It also seems to be worse if I eat it on an empty stomach. It seems weird to me because when I searched for apples and indigestion, most links were about how apples help with digestion.

Ryan, that's interesting. I had kombucha yesterday after eating an apple and the pain went away.

But I still don't get this pain in the shoulder thing.

this happens to me when I eat seedless watermelon, and seedless grapes.

Anaken told me that it has something to do with metabolizing the sugars, and that it's better to eat these after a workout, while my metab is up.

I also mono apples pretty regularly. I don't think it's the apples--I think it's certain people's sensitivities to certain fruits.

my ex says that avocados and red onions do this to him.

measure twice, cut once.

"In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar." ~r.brautigan

I make paintings

the same for me with seedless grapes, pears, watermelon... Sometimes the pain is very intense and I have to lay down or stay still for a little while. So I tried to avoid those kind of fruits.

I came to think that it was too much sugar all at once in my stomach but I don't understand why the shoulder pain.

Oh, just want to say something more : organic local black grapes don't do that bad effect to me even if I have a full basket whereas one single store bought grain of seedless grape) gives me stomach pain. weird

Cynthia,

That is really odd. I also sometimes have to lay down. Yes! the shoulder pain is definitely the most perplexing part of this!

Anyway, here's my update. I noticed that I don't always have this experience every time I eat apples. I am not sure what the variable is, but it seems to be worse when I eat on an empty stomach and last time I ate an apple it didn't happen at all, but my stomach was probably over half full.

I am still experimenting, and if anyone wants to suggest other variables to try that's cool. It'll be slow going since I don't want to experiment everyday. I think next I'll try only eating after I've exercised (thanks, shaine).

Of course, it would be easy enough to avoid the whole issue together and not eat apples or only eat them at certain points, but this whole thing really intrigues me (esp. the shoulder stuff) so I more want to find out what is the biological reason.

Thanks everyone for your input.

yes,annex, quite odd. For "me too" it does not happen every time. let's say often enough though for me to quit eating those fruits. And it happens on an empty stomach too, so most of the time in the late morning. Nothing seems to bother me if fruits are eaten after other foods (I mean I would not digest so well but it would not be painful)

At first I though the culprits fruits were not ripe enough but it was not that. Most often, it would happen with very sweet ripened fruits (seedless grapes, watermelon, melon, sometimes bananas... there are many). Sprayed stuff? maybe, who knows... I didn't get any pain eating a whole basket of organic grapes on a empty stomach few weeks ago.
Detox? Maybe too much sugar ? ( I don't have any problems eating fresh dates even a lot of them, so...) Candida?
I'm not able to pinpoint what is the exact reason for it.
Thanks for any advice,

blessings to you all,
Cynthia

I get this too... with apples and sometimes grapes. Apples often cause sharp pain in my stomach and/or being really bloated and gassy. Too bad, cause I really like apples, but I usually don't eat them anymore. :-)

-Lisa

annex do you have gallstones? Impacted stones can give pain in the stomach, on the right side, between the shoulder blades and shoulder pain. I don't know how the apples can come in here though.

interesting... as I feel I have some problems with my liver ( or maybe gallbladder?) it coud explain the pain on the right side...

I have difficulty digesting apples and pears, if I eat more than 2 of them at a time. When I eat 3 or more, it takes a lot of energy for my body to digest them, and I get digestive pain. Also, as my body struggles to digest them, it may cause other pains to appear as my body contracts from the pain in my belly/intestines.

One time early in my raw days, I ate a meal of 3 apples and 3 oranges. I can't remember which I ate first, but what I do remember was I was lying on the floor in pain, unable to even sit up until the food had left my stomach. What a food combining nightmare! I certainly never did that again.

Hmm, i have never thought about the possibility of gall stones. I have pain on the left side, though. Since I first wrote this post I stopped eating apples as the first meal of the day, and ate more slowly if I was going to eat more than one. Sometimes I feel a twinge in my shoulders still, but none of the flu like symptoms or metallic taste. I did find another person who experiences shoulder pain after eating fruit, so maybe it isn't as odd as I first thought.

Thanks everyone for their input.

Apples use to give me a really hard time, too. But I continued eating a whole bunch of apples (whats available here at college especially since i cant eat bananas or oranges) and found out a few things. Some apples are worse than others like i cannot eat more than one fuji at a time. On the other hand I tend to do really good with golden delicious and granny smith. So maybe it is something to do with the sugar content. Also, I do best when I eat a few different kinds of apples together. I do not eat apples with anything else except for nuts and seeds sometimes which I eat after the apples. The other day I only had one apple and grapes in my room so I was like oh well i will eat them together and man I felt aweful - I just had to lay down...I will not be doing that again...lol. Skin wise I have to take the skin off normally if they are really waxy. I ate a really waxy red delicious on the go over the holiday's and it made my lips and mouth swell. Well this is my personal experience, hope it is of some help ;-)

I also get indigestion when I eat too many apples at once. I don't recall any other symptoms though...

I sometimes get nauseous after eating apples...but then sometimes I feel great....not sure if they are maybe reacting with something I ate earlier?

I have the same reaction when I just eat a lot of carrot and celery sticks (my favorite snack). Some days are just fine, some days they make my stomach really upset. It must be a digestion thing. Too much acid, not enough, etc.?

I'm discoving that becoming a raw foodist, you pretty much have to become a nutritionist as well.

i love apples. when i don't feel like any other fruit an apple will still appeal to me. if my belly is ever upset, an apple cures it. i ate up to a dozen of them a day with my first pregnancy and many every day with my second. they are always in the fridge at my house. mmm, apples. think i'll go and have one right now!

I don't usually eat apples besides juicing them, but I do love Asian pears a lot. They are so sweet and yum. I have tested this several times, and found out that I can eat one Asian pear at a time but if I have even 2 together, I get major stomach cramps and loose stools the rest of the day. It's too bad because I really do love those Asian pears. But, one is enough! I was also wondering why this is so.

Love,
Uma

One of the famous Ali brothers (Traditional/alternative doctors from Calcutta, with a clinic in London, a few published books and many celebrity clients) once told me that I shouldn't eat apple skins. He had diagnosed me as having a "too acid stomach". He got rid of several of my symptoms with acupuncture, and gave me traditional and herbal medicines that helped a lot with other symptoms, so I'm inclined to think he knew what he was talking about.

Apple skins themselves contain a number of substances including tannic acid (used to tan leather) and oxalic acid (which can increase bile production from the liver and thus exacerbate gallstones!). These days, most apples sold also are sprayed with pesticides, gassed with chemicals to make the apples turn red (they are harvested before they are ripe, to allow time for warehousing and shipping before they go bad), and coated with wax or lacquer to make them shinier. If your apples are not organic and unwaxed, you could be reacting to one of these things, either a natural chemical or one of the ones added by the food companies.

I would take a reaction to apples as a sign that you may need to do something to detox the liver. Coffee enemas are one excellen way to do this, but not everyone likes the idea of enemas; the "liver flush" (lots of sites online with directions) is another way to do this. Liver flushes may also be enough to move gallstones from the gallbladder; just be sure you include the Epsom salt solution (to relax the bile ducts); otherwise, itis possible that a stone might become lodged in a duct, which might cause intense pain, and give the doctors an excuse to do "emergency" surgery and remove your gallbladder. DO NOT let them do that; you will lose the ability to digest fatty foods nearly as well, and probably get cancer of the pancreas about 20-25 years later. The chances of a lodged stone from a flush are very small, though, and the benefits usually outweight the risks.

You may also have developed a form of allergy to something in apples, but from the symptoms it is MUCH more likely to be a liver/gallbladder issue.

I always removed apple skins and was used to get the stomach pain anyway, so....

the liver-gallblader explanation makes sense.