BLOATING out of nowhere?!!?

[thecookiemonster]

Okay, so here's the deal.

 

I have been strict vegan for 4 weeks now. The first 3 weeks felt AMAZING. But now over the past couple days, out of nowhere, I've been getting some rather serious bloating and abdominal pain, likely gas pains.

 

I'm wondering if there is a way to get rid of this? Or how long will it take for me to adjust?

 

Could it be that I am just not drinking enough water with all the fiber I'm ingesting?

 

Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[stcalico]

Too much tofu possibly? It is made of beans - some people forget that.

[Kon]

You might have an allergy to something, so your body may have trouble digesting a certain food. That's my guess anyways.

I've heard that gluten can create those symptoms of bloating and pains. I'd also question legumes since those can be difficult to digest as well.

I'm a little bit biased against those two things(gluten and legumes), because they give me problems as well (I use to have bloating and abdominal pains).

I'd try to figure it out sooner than later though. I unfortunately didn't have the foresight to question my symptoms so I suffered for a long time without knowing why (and maybe did more damage).

Try removing certain foods that are questionable and see how your body responds.

[thecookiemonster]

Too much tofu possibly? It is made of beans - some people forget that.

 

I don't eat tofu.

 

You might have an allergy to something, so your body may have trouble digesting a certain food. That's my guess anyways.

I've heard that gluten can create those symptoms of bloating and pains. I'd also question legumes since those can be difficult to digest as well.

I'm a little bit biased against those two things(gluten and legumes), because they give me problems as well (I use to have bloating and abdominal pains).

I'd try to figure it out sooner than later though. I unfortunately didn't have the foresight to question my symptoms so I suffered for a long time without knowing why (and maybe did more damage).

Try removing certain foods that are questionable and see how your body responds.

 

The strange thing is that it happens randomly though. Some days I can eat whatever and be just fine, and other days I am bloated like crazy. I hardly eat gluten, though I do eat some wheat germ in the morning which has never given me problems before.

[maybenot]

parsley juice helps a lot to eliminate bad gas.

 

either that or start farting.. lol =)

[Kon]

cinnamon also helps I think..

Have you increased consumption of any specific foods? Could be some sort of food intolerance caused by eating too much of it, so then your body might lack enough enzymes to digest it.

[C.O.]

Parsley juice? Do you have a recipe? It cant be just parsley right? That sounds really unappetizing.

 

And cinnamon?! I keep hearing so many health claims about cinnamon recently. Do you have any sources/links with more info?

 

-Dylan

[Kon]

I read about it online years ago, and at the time I would put cinnamon into all my smoothies. It seemed to help as far as I remember.

[maybenot]

Parsley juice? Do you have a recipe? It cant be just parsley right? That sounds really unappetizing.

 

And cinnamon?! I keep hearing so many health claims about cinnamon recently. Do you have any sources/links with more info?

 

-Dylan

http://www.livestrong.com/article/442404-how-to-make-parsley-juice/

 

either that, farmaceutical non-vegan stuff, or letting the gas follow its way to the atmosphere =)

 

women seem to have more trouble with that than men, we just let it out

[Zel in France]

I've talked about this with a number of other new vegans under other headings on this board…

 

…many of them mistakenly think they have a bean-allergy, but they're really just not accustomed to cooking beans.

 

Beans of any kind require much more cooking than meat: chickpeas boil for a full hour before making hummus (whereas, yes, I realize that some people make hummus with the beans raw out of the can... and that is a formula for terrible indigestion).

 

Beans with a thinner "skin" can be boiled more rapidly than beans with a thick "skin" (this "skin" is the part that has evolved to resist insect-predation, and that is hard to digest). Black beans break down rapidly, whereas fava beans are extremely difficult to make digestible at all.

 

Never eat beans raw out of a can; never eat tofu raw out of a packet; never eat soaked beans raw out of whatever you've been soaking them in. They all require very significant cooking times.

 

If you're accustomed to cooking meat and potatoes, this may be unfamiliar.

 

To try something radically different for a while, you can switch to a non-bean source of protein such as Job's Tears [Coix lacryma jobi] --and I assume you'd supplement that with vegan protein powder, as you're evidently into a pretty heavy lifting schedule.

 

There's really nothing wrong with soybeans, and there's nothing wrong with Tofu --but there is a cultural misconception that these foods can be eaten uncooked. I have been to "Asian" restaurants in the western world that serve some of these ingredients in a format that would be scoffed at in Asia. Canada is pretty much the worst place on earth for this. In Canada, I have seen kidney beans and chickpeas served straight out of the can, and tofu spooned straight out of the plastic packet, etc. --as these beans were equivalent to a piece of lettuce (that restaurants could serve without even rinsing!).

 

To offer a very different example, I don't think that anyone even tries to digest uncooked Okra or Leeks --but these are, simply, more culturally-familiar foods for most of 21st century western civilization. We know that you can't eat leeks the same way that you eat lettuce --but we apparently don't know this about something as tough to digest as kidney beans (etc. etc.).

 

Job's Tears, what the plant itself looks like:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Coix_lacryma-jobi1.jpg/220px-Coix_lacryma-jobi1.jpg

 

Kidney beans, by contrast:

http://image.marginup.com/u/u136/medium_31.jpg

[Glasvegan]

 

either that, farmaceutical non-vegan stuff, or letting the gas follow its way to the atmosphere =)

 

women seem to have more trouble with that than men, we just let it out

 

hehe, so true. Damn efforts to be ladylike... or maybe it's just because I'm a British prude

 

Zel - that makes much more sense, I always wondered. I know a few people who just eat beans straight from a can, and then complain of gas. I tend to cook all my beans from dried (actually cooking them in the process, not just soaking) so for budget's sake, so haven't had an issue there. I do have a problem with raw tofu though and avoid it. I never thought of it being like meat.

[maybenot]

BTW Glasgow is a beautiful city. I felt like I was inside a Batman Movie while I was visiting your city =)

[Glasvegan]

Glasgow was used in the last film?!? Shows how much of a rock I live under, no wonder some of the locations looked familiar when I was in the cinema - now I need to rewatch it I was living here at that point too. I just assumed they kept the location as Chicago. It is a bit like that though, high dirty tenements and occasional brawls in the street. Gorgeous old buildings and architecture even if it is still rough round the edges.

[maybenot]

No, not used in any of them, but it reminds me of Gotham City from the comic books. Even the cabs are alike and everyone always wear black on the streets. =)

[Zel in France]

Yeah, veering way off topic here, the last time I was in Glasgow the city was full of "post-industrial ruins" that would be suitable for filming any number of post-apocalypse scenarios.

 

The Glaswegians I've met (by happenstance) since then all insist to me that the city has been completely transformed, and I now wouldn't recognize it, etc. etc.

 

Back on topic, most of the canned beans that people (foolishly) eat raw aren't cooked before they go into the can: they're dehydrated (in the sun, etc.) and then get re-hydrated in the cannery. This is also why you should rinse off the guck/ooze that they're seeped in (when they come out of the can). There are some pre-made "canned chili bean" type dishes that do contain cooked beans, but they're often balefully undercooked in my experience.

 

The contrast to meat is also instructive, BTW: our grandparents' generation were accustomed to buying tough meat, and boiling it for hours, but, today, most meat-eaters don't have experience with this type of cooking, nor even this type of ingredient. So to say, "cooking beans is more like cooking meat" would be misleading to many people, as they're accustomed to saute/pan-frying meat for only a few minutes, etc.

 

In Canada, if your grandparents worked on a logging camp, they were used to boiling white beans in tomato sauce until both turned brown --that's what Canadians call "deep brown beans", but none of the ingredients are brown when they go into the pot. The tradition in both Canada and the northern U.S. was actually to bury the pot (of cast iron) with the coals overnight --so you're talking about a cooking process of more than 12 hours.

 

Almost nobody cooks anything that way anymore --but much of the traditional cuisine of the world (carnivore or not) relied on long, slow cooking processes, that have disappeared from both homes and restaurants.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Zel in France

[Glasvegan]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/batman-and-robroyston-glasgow-to-be-transformed-into-gotham-1103670

 

I checked with my building/bridge obsessed boyfriend who confirmed that a few shots are from Glasgow... but I'll watch the film again to be sure... I'm guilty of wearing black most of the time with heeled boots, that's for sure. And a fun fact is that there's a rumor (that I believe) that ice cream vans here sell drugs and cruise the student halls of residence. Very Gotham. And it's still full of large, empty, dramatic industrial buildings. Parts have been completely modernised, but all the old tenements are still here (I live in one).

 

Yep, way off topic... back to beans.

 

The cooking process you're talking about sounds very much like slow cooking, which is my cooking method of choice when doing anything involving beans as it's so low effort/energy efficient. I'll try cooking beans for longer and see what happens. As for washing off the gunk, I knew to do that but mainly because of the high sodium levels. I might look into this further for fun.

[jezabel]

how long would you suggest cooking tofu for?

[Zel in France]

Tofu depends a great deal on the method, but I would encourage you to compare it to the different methods of cooking a potato:

 

If you cut a potato into thin strips, and then put it in a deep-fryer, you can cook it thoroughly in circa 5 minutes (and yeah, if you're vegan, owning a deep fryer at home won't result in gaining much weight... I recommend it thoroughly).

 

By contrast, baking a whole potato in the oven takes quite a long time, and pan-frying (without boiling first) can be unpredictable.

 

If you want to make rapid stir-fry use of tofu, I would encourage you to boil it first (this also works with potatos, BTW).

[asparagus]

parsley juice helps a lot to eliminate bad gas.

 

I can attest to this. I have started adding 1 tsp of raw chopped packed parsley to my lunch meals (~1.5 cups rice and ~2-2.5 cups mixed beans, assorted raw vegetables, tempeh). My gas has dramatically decreased, but not entirely dissipated. I might try increasing the amount of parsley.