30: Your Doctor Gave You Bad Advice - Eat These Foods Instead

I reviewed the foods and diet recommendations from the Crohn's Colitis Foundation, Mayo Clinic and Web MD, and there are 6 major problems. I'm breaking down the 6 foods they ay to eat that may actually be keeping you inflamed.

You'll learn what they are, why they made this recommendation, the problems I found, and what you can do instead.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• Foods you were told to ear that are inflaming you
• Why these organizations recommended these foods
• Why they're actually bad for you
• What you can eat instead

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Transcript

Josh Dech:

There are some foods that you're told are good for your IBD, but the truth is, they're actually keeping you inflamed — and you don't even know it. Using the list from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, and of course, the all-searched WebMD, I scoured these lists. I’m going to show you what foods they say are good for you that are actually keeping you inflamed.

Now on this episode, you're going to learn what these foods and diet advice actually are, and I'm going to give you the rationale why they give these to you as advice. I'm going to show you as well why they're causing you problems. And of course, I won't leave you hanging — I'm going to show you what you can do instead.

Contrary to what your doctors told you, Crohn’s and Colitis are reversible. Now, I've helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease, and I'm here to help you do it too — because inflammation always has a root cause. We just have to find it.

This is the Reversing Crohn’s and Colitis Naturally podcast. Now, I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the link in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel. And for weekly updates, information, tips, and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below.

Now if you don't know me, my name is Josh Dech. I'm an IBD specialist, medical lecturer, physicians’ consultant, and the scientific strategist and education director for the Root Cause for Crohn’s and Colitis organization.

So, the first that we're going to be looking at is going to be cooked and cooled — and I actually use this for starches. So this is going to be things like potatoes and squash and rice — like starchy type vegetables or natural products or grains.

The reason why they say cooked and cooled — because obviously, in IBD, you know that eating raw things just tears your guts to shreds. It feels terrible, leads to inflammation, flares, bloating, diarrhea — it's not a fun time. But the reason they say cook them is it makes them soft. However, the important part here is cooled. Why do we want to cool them?

When you cool them, it actually increases what’s called the prebiotic content. And so if you're not sure what this means, here's what we have to look at: If you think about your gut bacteria like fish in a fishbowl — happy fish. Fish in a fishbowl need to eat food. You put food in the fishbowl. What happens when the fish eats? Well, it's a living organism — so just like you, that fish poops.

Now that fish, if it's in the ecosystem it's supposed to be in and it's healthy and happy — that fish is going to poop out good things that this ecosystem can reuse. Inside your body, your gut bacteria are the fish. Your gut is the fish tank. Your fish poop, I should say, is the postbiotic.

Now, cooked and cooled starches produce more fish food. This is the prebiotic. Your bacteria eat them and poop out stuff. Now we're assuming when we're eating cooked and cooled — so prebiotics — we're feeding healthy microbes. But the vast majority of people that I see in my practice dealing with Crohn’s disease actually experience something called dysbiosis, which is an imbalance in gut bacteria. And I see it largely in ulcerative colitis as well.

And so, I'm actually not a fan — because if you go to feed a bunch of prebiotics to these bacteria and they start producing these byproducts or postbiotics, we don’t know if you're feeding good fish or bad fish. We don’t know if they’re pooping out good things or bad things. So you could actually be contributing to an issue without really realizing it.

And so my solution for this — if you're eating them and you feel good, keep at it. But the second you go, “It’s too much, I’m not feeling awesome,” back off. Because you could be feeding the bad fish — and they're pooping out bad things — and you don't even know it.

And so in my practice, I recommend to my clients to say, do not go throwing around prebiotics or probiotics without supervision. It's not as simple as getting in and adding to your gut. You don’t know what you’re feeding, what ecosystem you’re changing.

Probiotics don’t just sit there and make you happy. What they do is they balance, of course, neurotransmitters. They have connections to your immune system, to hormones. They can trigger and send signal back to your brain and all kinds of stuff to throw your immune system way out of whack. We don't know what we're doing.

And frankly, the research we have is amazing. But even today — at the time of recording here — we're just pushing into the brand new year of 2025. The research we have is really limited. So you have to be very careful with these cooked and cooled starches — because again, even though they're beneficial, they may not be beneficial for you. So you have to be very careful about that.

The next one that was recommended is leafy greens.

So I don't know if this was Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation or which one it was — I didn’t write that part down — but they say leafy greens cooked and blended.

Now again, it's the same reason cooked starches are going to be better for you — because raw is going to be very difficult. So many of you are going to have trouble with raw leafy greens — totally easy, I get that.

The idea is that they’re nutrient-rich. If they’re cooked or blended, they’re easier to break down. Your body has to do less. They’re easier to digest, right? There’s lots of vitamins in them.

The problem we start to run into is with dark leafy greeny foods — especially things like spinach is sort of the big culprit here — we see a lot of high oxalates.

Now, oxalates are something — I’ll write it on the board here — kind of like the animal ox. So oxalates. These are considered anti-nutrients, meaning they — instead of giving you nutrition — they bind onto nutrients. They bind onto certain minerals.

Now, I’m not saying that greens are bad because of oxalates. Some people do really, really well with oxalates. The problem is, when you have a compromised gut and your inflamed, compromised gut lining — you're going to have a decreased ability to actually break down and utilize these oxalates properly.

Which means it can actually accumulate in your gut or in the gut lining, and it can actually accumulate in the bloodstream.

What does this mean for you?

It means these oxalates from leafy greens might actually be contributing to your problems. They can irritate the gut lining, leaving you inflamed. They can actually contribute hugely to kidney stones if you’re not breaking them down properly.

And why I say avoid high-oxalate foods — dark leafy greens — again, unless you know they’re okay for you.

But a great solution instead — if you want some vegetables — go to things like carrots. Now again, cooked. But carrots, zucchini, bok choy makes a nice leafy version. You can get cucumber, yellow squash, turnips.

And if you're not sure, I always recommend — go back to ChatGPT. Prompt it correctly and say, “Hey, I have IBD, I’m sensitive to these types of foods. Please recommend some low FODMAP, low oxalate foods or vegetables — whatever you’re looking for — that could be beneficial for me.” And then just double check and ask it again, “Are these low oxalate? Yes or no?”

And then go back through and double check your list.

We want to be very careful. We don't want oxalates accumulating in your gut or in your blood — contributing to immune reactions, immune triggers, kidney stones or other issues. Because again, not only are kidney stones extremely painful, but that really is messing with your detox and drainage pathways.

We need to get things out of your body. And if your kidneys are all junked up, it's going to be a problem. So watch for that.

The next food we’re told is good — and this one came from WebMD — I’m not sure if Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation or Mayo Clinic recommend it — but bone broth.

Bone broth — we hear all the time, “It’s so good for your gut! Get your bone broth!” It’s, you know, get your glutamine, even as amino acid.

Here’s the thing — the reason we see bone broth being recommended, it’s full of glutamine and other amino acids. You got proline and glycine and things that are supposed to be really good for your gut microbiome, or good for your gut lining, good for your intestines, your immune system. It’s got collagen, it’s got gelatin, it’s got minerals.

But bone broth is one of the worst things you could ever use for Crohn’s or Colitis in 99% of cases. You might be the one exception — but if you're drinking bone broth right now, try stopping. See how you feel.

Here’s why:

We've established — we know through the research and through practice and clinical — that bowel disease tends to be path dominant in one of these immune pathways called TH2.

TH2 is the same pathway that deals with histamines. And so you know histamines — from rashes and hives or anaphylaxis, like allergy responses. Well, you have histamines that get released from your gut, and you have histamines that can be released from these mast cells.

And bone broth is high in something called histidine — which is going to cause a lot of these same issues for a lot of different reasons. And this TH2 pathway is already overdominant — when it should be down here — it's already way up here. Overactive in IBD.

And what you’re doing by consuming bone broth — which is going to be high in histamine — is actually pushing this immune pathway even further. So you get more inflammation, more swelling, more irritation inside of your gut — rather than the benefits of the amino acids and collagen that you’re expecting to get from bone broth. So you’re making the problem worse.

So my recommendation here — bone broth, you’ll typically see it simmered between 12 to 48 hours. We want to avoid that. My recommendation instead — you can still use the bones, that’s fine — get the marrow. It’s a one- to three-hour simmer, which is going to be something called meat broth.

You’re going to get meat broth instead. So you’re going to get a lot of the nice amino acids and proteins, but without the histidine and histamine issues. So you’re not going to push the same immune pathway.

So we do want to be very careful.

Remember, we hear all these things and go, “Oh, they’re good for my gut.” Well, they’re good for someone’s gut. But they may not be good for your gut, okay?

And I got three more I want to go through with you here.

The next one — and it sounds almost really obvious — drink water, right? Stay hydrated, get lots of water.

Absolutely. Water is like engine lubricant for your body. It keeps things running, it keeps your cells nice and full and healthy, it allows things to pass through the membranes easier, allows you to detox and clean — it does all kinds of stuff.

We need water. You can survive like six times longer or something like that without food than you can water. Some could say 10 or 20 times. Point being, you need water.

But here’s the problem. Water is great to keep yourself hydrated, especially if you're in chronic diarrhea. Water with electrolytes is great.

Here’s the problem. If you start to look up some of these maps of the water from cities across Canada and the USA especially — I can’t speak to all places in the world — but Canada, USA especially, plastic — like bottled water — we’re talking microplastics and nanoplastics. We’re talking THMs, we’re talking pharmaceuticals.

In fact, I got a colleague of mine, she runs a gut company in — I believe it’s Houston, Texas or Dallas. I think it’s Houston. And she tested her water — ’cause she moved there, her gut got all messed up — it was high in lead and uranium. We’re seeing high levels of mercury, aluminum, all kinds of chemicals, heavy metals and toxins inside city water.

It has to do with what’s put in the water, galvanized pipes and old systems, all kinds of reasons. But city water, tap water, is extremely toxic.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t drink water — it’s still better than bottled water. In fact, there was a study on blood pressure comparing nanoplastics — I don’t know if it was Belgium or Austria — one of them did this study, and they actually found that by switching, removing all plastic water bottles and going just to tap water, that their blood pressure had dropped significantly back to healthy normals from hypertensive levels.

So we know the plastics and plastic bottles are bad, but we have to deal with the reality that our tap water — the chlorine, which is used as an antibacterial disinfectant — is also killing your gut.

And so, very simple solution: invest in something like a water distiller. We got one here at home. I think I spent $350, and it makes — about every 4 to 6 hours — it’ll do four full liters of water. So now I have jugs of water that I have stashed up, and I just use those. I have these nice glass bottles I put in the fridge — it works out great.

So a good water distiller is going to clear most of the stuff. You don’t need a big point-of-entry filter or Kangen, like $6,000 water filter. A $300–$400 water filter is great, and the water is so much cleaner.

And what do I do? I take some fresh sea salt or some kind of natural salt — rock salt, whatever it is — and I’ll just remineralize my big jugs. A couple of pinches, and it’s good to go.

And so, water hydration — the idea is good. The problem is the reality that we live in is our water is extremely toxic. You got 300+ million Americans taking pharmaceutical drugs on a regular basis — well, guess where that goes? Into your freaking water.

And there’s what’s now called “forever chemicals.” We’re never going to get rid of. So we have to be mindful that there are ways to clear some of it from our water — and a large portion. A distillation can be a big one.

The next one that we’re seeing here — good recommendation, okay — fish and meat. You may have heard the carnivore diet. I’m a big advocate for animal-based diets for all the reasons under the sun.

But here’s what we’re told — lots of nutrients, right? Or it’s an elimination. But the primary one I’m focusing on here is going to be what’s called bioaccumulation.

So we’re told there’s nutrients, there’s omegas, all kinds of stuff — that’s true. However, a lot of the conventionally raised, conventionally farmed cattle — is it still better than toxic food and pesticide-covered plants? Absolutely. But the reality is, there’s arguments to be made that your animals might actually be bioaccumulating these toxins or they’re filtering them.

Truth is, I think the evidence is still out. I find clients respond really well on an animal-based diet.

But the big one I want you to watch for here — I’m kind of regretting putting meat now — is fish and shellfish, okay?

Fish and shellfish. Here’s why.

So much of the fish we get is farmed. So much of what is farmed is extraordinarily toxic. I can’t even tell you how toxic it is. We’re talking tumors and cancers and full — like, high, high levels of mercury and lead, food dyes and antibiotics and all kinds of junk they put into them because they’re in these crowded confinement environments. They’re pumped full of antibiotics, a ton of stuff. They inject them with all kinds of crap to go to sale, to increase their weight. Sometimes it’s just saline, sometimes it’s more nefarious. Our food system is a mess.

Okay, so farmed fish has been highly toxic. And in fact, salmon — farmed salmon has — I don’t know if it’s Norwegian farmed or one of the Scandinavian countries — farmed salmon has recently made the list of top toxic foods because of what bioaccumulates in their system and what they’re fed during this farming process.

And so it’s nice to say there’s omegas or it’s nice to say, “You know, fish digest really well,” or shellfish — shrimp, scallops, oysters.

The reality is, these shellfish — they are what’s called filter feeders. That’s the word I’m looking for. They’re filter feeders. They filter the water.

You can put clams, for example, in a fish tank to clean it. In fact, there are some cities that actually use clams as water monitors. What they’ll do is, the clams are open, they’re drinking in the water, taking it in, and when the water gets too toxic, the clam closes. And what do we do? We crack it open and we eat it.

These are filter feeders — so they’re actually like little sacks of toxins. So we’re eating those. So you have to be very careful.

So what do we do instead?

I love red meat. Big fan. If you can get grass-fed, pasture-raised — even better. But in my opinion — and I’ve talked to lots of different carnivore-based doctors about this argument — it seems the consensus is that even a Safeway steak is better than anything else.

Avoid shellfish for the most part. And if you’re going to get fish, buy it where you can — wild caught, not farmed — and just avoid the shellfish. That’s sort of the consensus here.

The last one that we’re told is going to be great for you — and this is recommended across all three things I did see — is going to be white bread.

Now in theory, it may not be so bad if you live in Italy — chomp chomp, enjoy the white bread. You’re going to have lower levels of gluten, you’re going to not have it covered in glyphosate, right?

We’re told white bread — easy to digest, full of grains, grains are good, nutrients — they’re not.

Honestly, you could go a lifetime without grains, you’d live perfectly fine. In fact, fatty red meat — next to breast milk — is the only food that as an adult human being you could eat for the rest of your life and be perfectly fine. All the nutrients you need and you’d never die — fatty red meat.

The thing about grains — especially the grains we have today — are they supplementary? Yes. Are they okay for you? Sure. But in North America, especially in industrialized countries, they cover everything. Our ground is covered in pesticides and glyphosate — known killer.

Bayer recently paid over, I think it was 11 billion to settle over a hundred thousand lawsuits for glyphosate causing cancer. There’s 30 to 40,000 lawsuits still pending.

These companies have been causing so much mischievous crap over the years — and there have been lawsuits and lawsuits. It’s just the cost of doing business now. Like, it’s that dramatic — that we’re seeing glyphosate destroys your gut and gut microbiome bacteria. It’s now been linked to Alzheimer’s, it’s been directly linked to cancers, and over a hundred thousand lawsuits. It’s toxic.

And then what do they do? It’s not only in the ground where the wheat and the grain is growing — but then, as a drying agent called a desiccant, they then spray it to help it dry faster. It goes right to the mill. So you got double the coating of glyphosate.

And so you have to be very careful.

And on top of that, white bread — look at commercially made bread. It’s not even bread. Bread should have yeast, it’s going to have water, salt, and flour — ideally organic flour from Italy or something that’s lower gluten. That’s it.

But you look at these ones — Wonder Bread, for example — has between 15 to 20 different ingredients. It’s got thickeners and texturizers and preservatives. You ever wonder why if you make homemade bread, it’s good for like 3 days, but Wonder Bread can sit on the shelf for like two, three months before going moldy?

Because these foods are artificial. And this is what we’re putting into our gut.

So my solution — if you can get homemade bread, awesome. If you know somebody at a market who makes it, awesome. But try to ensure the wheat is organic. It’s a bit of an art, but making bread — I think sourdough is really trending right now — it’s a great option.

We have to know that the foods we’re consuming or being told to consume come with caveats.

Is cooked starches — and cool cooked and cooled starches — good for you? Sure. Is it good for you? Probably not. Especially in bowel disease, when there’s a lot of dysbiosis. If you feel okay, have at it. But make sure you’re testing.

And the reason I’m bringing this up is not to say, stop eating all the food. I’m saying — be aware. If you’re going through all these diets and making all these changes and still having no results, there’s a lot of reasons. But your diet may be contributing more than you know — or more than you think.

Okay, leafy greens — great, but what about oxalates?

Bone broth — really great sometimes, but in IBD, I never recommend it, because that TH2, that same histamine-dominant pathway — it’s almost every single case I’ve ever seen has had some kind of dominance here. So bone broth is bad.

Drink lots of water — great. But have you tested your water? Or do you have a water filter? Or are you drinking from bottled water, taking in microplastics?

Studies have shown we eat, on average, up to five grams of microplastics per week. Just — just as a perspective. I just did a podcast on this actually on Reversible. That is the weight of a credit card. Imagine eating a credit card every week. Or one of those disposable plastic grocery shopping bags — that’s about 5g.

Now, more research has shown we eat up to 200 times the amount of that in nanoplastics. It’s just so hard to measure because they’re so small, and the tools are relatively new. But first suspicions are that we eat between one and 200 disposable plastic grocery shopping bags every single week.

And that’s what we’re bringing into our system — cans lined with plastic on the inside (that’s why the metal doesn’t corrode), right? Plastic in food, plastic wrap, plastic water bottles, plastic bottle drinks — they’re coming. Tea bags — huge pollutant because they’re made with artificial fibers made of plastics.

So we have to know and have to watch for these, okay? Watch where your fish is coming from. Avoid the bottom feeders. Avoid those filter feeders.

And again, white bread — organic, homemade, glyphosate-free. Because these are some of the biggest reasons — these problems that we’re seeing. The chemicals we’re getting in — this is one of the things that I believe has caused our catastrophic climb of bowel disease.

It’s gone 3,000% increase from the 1950s till today. And this is what I believe has been driving — at least at the root of it.

So there’s a lot of problems here. A lot to consider.

IBD — it’s a very reversible condition. I’ve shown this, I’ve talked about it, I’ve proven it. We’ve debunked the pillars — saying it’s genetic? No, it’s not. I can prove it to you.

It’s autoimmune? Also not true. I can prove it to you in most cases.

Or it’s just idiopathic — unknown cause? Not true.

I can show you a thousand reasons as to what can be causing this problem. And the main drivers we see are infectious microbes. In fact, I’ve even broken it down.

If you want help and you’re ready to say, “You know what? Nobody’s told me this stuff. I’m ready for help. I want the information,” here’s how you can do it:

If you’re here watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast — very easy way to get ahold of us is just simply by clicking the link below in the notes, below the video or below this podcast in the show notes. There’s a link there — you can send me an email, ask a question, book a call, see if this is a good fit for you. We can talk to you about the GI Health Solution program.

And it’s amazing what can happen. We had Lisa — came in recently. She just finished her program this year. And she was — we actually are publishing her case study. And I’ve used her colonoscopy reports as a lecture. I can send you guys the lecture if you want for Medical Academy.

But her case was so severe, she was on the cusp of getting her bowel removed when we spoke to her. On the first call I had face-to-face with her — she was on the toilet. It was that severe. Uncontrollable. 15, 20, 30 bowel movements a day. Blood. About to have it removed.

Sixteen weeks — her colonoscopy was near perfect. Got a colonoscopy report, it was almost perfect. And she’s living an amazing, happy life — nearly symptom-free now.

Here’s — this is the thing: it can happen. We have to know what’s driving it. All you gotta do is reach out. We can get you some help.

That’s all we got for you guys for tonight. Thank you so much for being here. We’re going to see you next time.

One of my favorite things to hear as an IBD specialist is something along the lines of, “I learned more from you in 15 minutes than from my doctor in 15 years.”

And if this, for the first time, is really starting to click — and it’s starting to make sense, and you’re going, “Wait a minute… this might be reversible… I think there’s more that I can do… this condition came out of nowhere… it happened to me out of the blue… I was healthy for 10, 20, 30, 40 years and suddenly I wasn’t — and you’re telling me there’s no cause?”

If you’re understanding finally that there is a cause — that something is driving this — I want to invite you to check the link in the show notes below. Send me an email, ask a question, see if a program is the right fit for you.

’Cause I promise you this — this doesn’t have to be a lifelong sentence. You’re not doomed to this. And IBD can be reversed.