At the risk of being a forum-hog, I have another question. I have a dilemna regarding sweeteners and wondering if anyone has any thoughts about this:

I have developed gas/bloating with stevia and wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. My brand is Nu Naturals and this is 100% pure extract (they no longer make it, I think...now all their versions have additives)...but still causes problems. Any thoughts about why...or why a different brand might help? I think of 'pure extract' as being the same across the board, but maybe not.

Also---vegetable glycerin---does anyone know of problems with consuming that? Jini doesn't mention it in LTYG. My version is organic, says is safe to consume--but am wondering about its effects on the gut.

Honey is out for me, for now---problems with fructose.

One more---might raw milk cheese be less constipating than regular??---would love to add cheese back into my diet,(another way to gain weight) and had never considered raw before.

Thank you--

Have you tried organic pure maple syrup? It seems to work for me in smoothies. Only milk I use is rice milk at this point. Maybe someone else can answer that, I can tolerate feta cheese in small amounts but anything thats alot of protein is somewhat constipating for me and makes hard stools, so I have to be careful with that. I love hummus and just made some, same effect from protein with that, just have to use in smaller amounts. Hardboiled eggs if only used one at a time in dishes seems to be the least constipating for me weirdly enough.

Hi, Susan.

Sometimes one brand of something will work better than another even though they're both "pure" because of how it's processed.

I assume you've already gone through testing of stevia. That is, eat the same foods with and without stevia on a few different occasions with the result that you experienced gas/bloating with stevia and no problems without.

It's hard to pinpoint those things for someone else. It could be that your body reached a tolerance threshold. The only way to know for sure is to test and retest. Often after a few months of healing, you can expand your food "spectrum".

Food-grade glycerin may be okay....again, with both that and the raw milk cheese, the only way to know for sure is to test how your body reacts to it. You can follow a similar procedure as Jini does testing supplements to test foods. You can also read a bit about my experience testing different foods at http://www.jinipatelthompson.com/bb2/viewtopic.php?t=70

The dietary principles Jini details for the Maintenance Diet can help everyone....for instance, certified organic foods, no MSG, no aspartame or other artificial sweeteners, etc.....but beyond that, we all have to figure out the exact diet that works for us, using our body's feedback as our guide. To me, that's not the easiest answer (SCD, for instance, where you're given a list of OK and not OK foods, is easier), but I think it's the best one over the long haul.

Hope this helps and glad that you're enjoying LTYG!

Nicole