How My Food Elimination Diet Works

December 14, 2017

Also my corn intolerance page for my history:

Here’s the steps to get started

First you should understand that you may have a problem with any food or foods, you don’t really know what, so we have to eliminate most of them especially ones that may contain corn or food derived from corn of which  there are many.

I’d say you need to diet this way for at least a month and then decide if it’s helped or not and go from there. Some results might be seen in two weeks and things should improve more as you diet this way longer.

Doing it right

If you really want to do it right or if you need to reset, eat only the potatoes, onions and the can of beans with salt and pepper and garlic and good water to be sure you are not ingesting corn. In other words it’s best to eliminate anything else to be sure for a month and go from there.

We’ll be eating potatoes

OK, second off, you  need to understand that you can live on potatoes for a long time and still function properly and stay healthy.

In some ways this is how my quest started. I went to You Tube and started looking at videos on healthy eating when You Tube fed me Dr. McDougall’s video. I watched one and some more of his stuff. I think he’s a bit overboard on how he does it, but he did convince me that I could in fact survive eating mostly potatoes for a month or more. He did advise that yams are best, but I’m not liking yams as much as I like regular potatoes.

Here’s one of his videos: Watch some more of his videos and learn.

While watching his videos, You Tube fed me some more videos to watch they thought I might be interested in from the videos I’d been watching and I learned some more important stuff. They present stuff they think you need to watch in the right column of the video page so check it out.

Learned about leaky gut

I watched a video that Dr. Bergman made about leaky gut that  changed the way I now think of things, especially food we consume that may cause us problems.

Here’s a video from Dr. Bergman about leaky gut.

He has many videos on You Tube and I’d suggest you watch many of them as well as others from other Dr’s. on this subject and you’ll be a lot wiser about your health.

I’ve got over ten years at this

I’ve been having a problem with a corn sensitivity for over ten years and I know it’s very hard to get away from corn in our food. Any other food would be easy, but not corn as it’s used in most everything either in the food, or during the making and processing of it and it’s not labeled well at all on most products.

I’ve never been able to get completely away from corn in all that time as I just didn’t realize it was hidden in so many foods, almost everything.

My symptoms are severe body itch when I get hit, severe for about a week, then tapering off until I get hit again. It’s hard to sleep too.

That’s what it does to me, but it can and does do many other things to people other than that. It seems we are all different.

So, I’d say if you  have something chronic going on, especially with your skin, but other things too, you may have a food sensitivity problem.

Anybody can do this if they really want to

I wasn’t making much progress until I got real serious about an elimination diet and in truth, I didn’t know enough about all this food stuff early on so I likely would have failed at it, not knowing what one should really do to especially eliminate corn from one’s body.

I’ve worked it down to some simple stuff anyone that wants to can do. I’d say do it for a month and see if there’s an improvement and decide what to do from there. If you improve you can work on finding out what foods are getting you by adding one back slowly, at a time.

It did take me about a month the first time I tried this to see some improvement, then I lost it by eating something with corn that I thought was safe, so I’m still working on it and things are improving. The problem I have is I keep trying to add things back before I’ve totally got all the corn out of my system as I’m finding foods I thought were safe are not, but at least I’m discovering the ones that have been getting me for a long time.

So, anyway, can you eat carefully for about a month if I tell you what to do? I think you can especially if you are unhealthy enough.

Here’s how this elimination diet works

It starts with what you put in your mouth and what you put on your skin as skin absorbs stuff into your blood stream too.

So let’s start with tooth paste. Crest and Colgate are mostly made from corn stuff so get rid of them. If you read the label of ingredients you’ll see that they are full of sorbitol, which is made from corn.

I used Squiggle at first, but had to order it before I found Tom’s in Safeway which I used for awhile which seemed ok as far as no corn. Read the label.

But I learned you don’t really need tooth paste, brushing with water works well too, so that’s what I’m doing now and I get no corn for sure.

If you are using mouth wash it’s likely corned, so the simplest thing to do is not use it for a month, instead of trying to find a corn free one.

Don’t put anything on your skin for a month as most stuff is corned with something made from corn and it’s easier if you’d just not use stuff for a month.

Don’t use any sun screens for that month, just cover up and wear a hat.

In other words,  use as little as possible of anything on or in your body for the month.

The next big thing is medications, they are loaded with corn stuff

Medications are really a big problem as you may need some of them, but most are corned so try to restrict what you use.

You need to read the inactive ingredients of each particular drug  looking for corn stuff, but you’ll have to do a bunch of research to find all the other names they call corn stuff in meds. If you find corned stuff you need to find another drug that does the same thing without corn in them. They do have what’s called Compounding druggists that can make corn free drugs for a fee. Best just to not use drugs for the month if possible.

That’s why it’s better if you can eliminate any drug use during this test diet.

This is the simple elimination diet that works, potatoes, beans and onions

I wanted to do this diet when I was traveling so I had to be able to get these items anywhere, so that’s why I used them.

The potatoes I use are the largest russet ones available in stores. I do not use the small ones in bags as they might have a corned solution on them to stop the eyes from growing. There’s no way to know, so I just don’t use them. You can use the big yams or sweet potatoes also, but I just don’t like them that well, but sometimes mix them in with my white potatoes.

I did ask the vegetable guy at Safeway once if the big ones were non GMO and he said yes and  that is all I know, but I have been using these big potatoes for about four months now and I seem to be doing well with them. I can buy a big bag of them at Costco for less than ten bucks.

The next item I used was a can of string beans, ingredients, beans water and sea salt or salt. Make sure no citric or acetic acid is listed because that is made from corn and lots of the canned stuff has citric acid listed so be careful. I read the label of each can when I buy it and when I cook with it to make sure.

Whole fresh onions seem pretty safe and you need some flavor for your food, so learn to like then as they are  good for you.

You can use cold pressed olive oil, but it has to be cold pressed no other is safe. You can fry some potatoes in it for something different or add it to your potatoes.

I use a good butter, Kerry Gold is accepted by the corn avoidance list, but most pure butters should be ok, read the label.

You can also use salt and pepper and garlic to flavor your food. Salt must not be iodized as they use dextrose, a corn sugar to put the iodine in the salt, from twenty to fifty percent of this salt is dextrose, so don’t use it.

I also use Braggs organic apple cider vinegar. I sometime put a couple teaspoons of the stuff on top of my bowl of food to add some different flavors, uncooked. It’s good for your gut fauna.

And of course you need stuff to drink so use a good water and drink plenty of it.

As far as coffee goes, I didn’t drink it for the first month I tried this, but now I drink up  to one cup a day. I use an organic bean I can get at Costco called the coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Without the coffee it would be hard to get a lot of people to do this, so I’m including it, but in no way use instant or blended coffees as you might get corned.

Teas, watch out for corned bags, best not to use bags.

If you must drink alcohol, no beer, just too  much corn, and I’d suggest a potato vodka if you must but you’d be good to do without it for the month if possible. Same with wine and any other alcohols.

So let’s cook

The mistake I made and most would make is they think they will need a lot of butter and stuff on their potato to eat it, but that just won’t work as these big potatoes would mean you’d be eating too much of that stuff.

The cooking solution

Here’s what I did. I took a medium pot and put enough water in it to cover up the potatoes I prepared. I peeled one of the big potatoes and cut it into bite sized pieces so I could eat them  and they would cook in a reasonable short time, ten or fifteen minutes.

I then poured the liquid from the string beans can into the pot to help flavor the mix. I added a good deal of chopped onion, more is better if you like it. I will put the already cooked string beans in near the end of the cooking process as to not overcook them, but they are hardy and can take a bit of cooking so you could add them right away if you wanted to.

Once that’s all in the pot, I cook it for ten to fifteen minutes until the potatoes are done to my liking. At this time I might add a couple teaspoons full of the vinegar on top and some pepper.

Let it cool for a bit and consume the whole thing. The liquid broth will help it all go down. You can eat as much of this as you want anytime of day or night, you should not feel hungry, if you do, cook some more up. I sometimes cook more than I can eat so I can just heat some up when I get hungry.

I also sometimes cut up some more raw onion and add it to the pot just before consuming it just to mix it up a bit.

I sometimes cook the potato in the microwave but it is better not to as we do not want to kill all the organisms by nuking it, but it’s ok to do sometimes. Part of this diet is to improve our gut fauna, not kill it. I used to heat up things to eat in the microwave, but I now mostly use the pot on the stove. I peel the skin off after I cook them this way and throw it away, just to be safe.

The key here is to flavor up the liquid you cook the stuff in so it’s tasty and you like to eat it. You can do this even though I’ve put a severe limit on what you can use. I did this as I know you do not have any idea where they put the corn in our food. This is done to help you not fail.

That’s the diet I was on for about a month when I was traveling and was starting to see some success when I got sick from an altitude experience and lost it. The problem is when you eat some corn, you reset the clock back to zero for two weeks and have to start over. The corn stuff stays in your system for two weeks or more so it’s important not to eat any of it for the test or you have to add time, basically starting over.

You may have leaky gut

If you find you get some improvement from this diet, you likely  have what is called Leaky Gut, so go on You tube and  look at a bunch of videos on curing Leaky Gut which is mostly not eating any of the food that is aggravating it, such as corn stuff. Any food can  do this, corn is just the hardest one to discover because it’s hard to free your system from it.

This diet is restricted for a reason

The thing about this diet is it knocks out grains, and dairy except for butter, but you don’t need to use that as it’s not needed for this diet, but I’ve included it for those that think they need it. If you use it you do take a chance of getting corned, so be careful.

It knocks out meat, fish, poultry and puts you on a plant based diet for a short time to find out what might be ailing you. If you cheat you’ll only be hurting yourself so stay true for just a month. This diet is really limited because there is corn in so much of our food, it’s hard to stay away from it, so that’s why it’s so restricted for a month.

Corn is the hardest to get out of the system, but you might be sensitive to some other food so this diet works for most of them, unless you have a potato problem.

If you find that you have a corn problem or some other food, you will need to do some research on the internet to find out how to eliminate those foods and the things they make from those foods to keep them out of your diet.

That’s the diet now I’ll continue to try to tell you what I’ve been doing and having some success with.

Things to eat and why or why not

Most vegetables I don’t trust at the store, I get most out of the garden. There are some ok in the cans, like the string beans in water and salt. You  mainly have to watch out for citric acid in the cans, but also watch out for white vinegar which is usually from corn unless otherwise stated.

As far as fruits I get most of it from my fruit trees, but what to watch out for in stores. No apples as they all are waxed, likely with a corn wax but you can’t find out what’s on them. I try to eat only things they can’t get too, such as melons as the food is inside a shell that they can’t get too, so should be safe.

Winter squash, head lettuce, cabbage are a few that are safe. Don’t use anything in a plastic  bag as they can’t be trusted. I would not use a roman lettuce as they can get to all the leaves.

I do use banana’s and avocados as they are inside. I’ve heard they can be ripened with a corn gas but so far I’ve not detected anything on them and if they do hope it stays on  the outside skin.

I eat the big potatoes and whole onions. And I use fresh mushrooms and some canned ones. I’ve used fresh broccoli which appears to be all right even though they can get to the skin.

I can eat fresh pineapples and canned ones if they are just pineapple in pineapple juice, no concentrate.

Cheeses can be a problem as they no longer use animal rennet  and a lot of the cheese cultures they use to make the cheeses seem to be grown on corn as well as the  non-animal rennet.

Be careful of most dairy as their  may be corny stuff added especially if anything is fortified.

Most ice creams are out, just too much corn stuff in them.

Stay away from fruit concentrates

Fruit concentrates can get you into trouble as a lot of them use citric acid and seem to like to hide the fact. I’ve discovered that most of the time they make concentrate, they add citric acid which is from corn. If the label says anything about a concentrate don’t use it. They do things like this. If it’s just from one fruit, it will say fruit concentrate, water and citric acid, but then then  do something completely weird so as not to list the citric acid.

They use a blend and then only list the ingredients as say blueberry from concentrate and strawberry from concentrate but do not list the citric acid. Seems they don’t want people to know, so do not drink any thing from concentrates or for that matter fruit juices not from concentrate may be corned also, I suspect from squeezing the whole fruit which may have corned spray on them such as oranges just might have on the peel.

Canned ripe olives have an iron thing in them but seem to be free of corn so I eat a can of them sometimes.

I eat raw almonds and pecans from Costco.

I use C and H sugar which seems to be ok. I also use their brown sugars.


On meat, among other things you need to watch out for the packaging. The little pads contain citric acid I think but no one can tell me. The chickens do too. You might be able to buy a whole chicken from the butcher, but then you don’t know what solution they did the final wash with during processing.

I was using a grass fed beef from a local ranch when I realized they were likely using citric acid to wash to carcass down so had to stop until I can get an ok from the rancher that they’ve changed to something ease.

Using citric acid on the corn fed beef means it’s not non GMO so they shouldn’t be using citric acid that comes form GMO corn, for grass fed beef that is supposed to be free of chemicals.

You don’t have a chance if you use store bought beef.

I don’t eat packaged chicken as most has 2 percent solution and they don’t say what. Possibly whole butcher chickens might be ok, but you don’t know what they dipped them in as the final butcher dip and it’s hard to find out what they use. They seem to use a lot of citric acid  solutions for processing these days so it’s iffy at best. Citric acid usually comes from corn these days,  not for citrus fruit.

I’ve had some success with fresh frozen sea fish that I buy by the box at Cash and Carry and anything locals guys will give me fresh or frozen.

I don’t trust most fish and poultry as to start with the packaging is corned with the pads they now add. Most of the chickens are also injected with up to 2  percent of solution which I suspect has some corned  stuff in it. What’s in the solution is not listed so why would anyone want to eat something that they won’t tell you what’s in it.

Kerry gold butter seems to be ok. It’s expensive but I don’t care in this case.

I’m also eating some steel cut oats by Quaker oats with cinnamon and some brown sugar occasionally, mostly when I’m hungry and need a snack.

Bone broth is good

Bone broth is supposed to be very good to help heal leaky guy, but I had to stop as my grass fed beef supplier found out the processors are using citric acid on the meat. Chicken bones or fish bones are also good to make bone broth. I’ve read the bone broth can help heal leaky gut two to three times faster.

These are the foods I’m eating now that I think are corn-less. I’m sure there are many more foods that fall into this category, but these are just the ones I now feel safe with to try and rid myself of the leaky gut thing. Even if I rid myself of  the leaky  gut thing, I think I’ll always have a problem with the corn sensitivity thing, likely for life, so it would be helpful if I could get all the corn out and stop all this body itching I do.

Doctors won’t be of much help

As far as doctoring for a corn problem, forget it with a western type doctor as they will just try to treat the symptoms and not the root of the problem which is corn. You are the one putting stuff in your mouth and only you can treat the problem.

They will try to get you to take a bunch of other tests to see what you are allergic to, but they are mostly not very accurate, especially to detect corn.

It doesn’t matter if you are allergic to any other foods as they all can just be lumped as corn as that’s usually what it is anyway. So, don’t bother is what I’d advise as it will do no good and may only confuse the issue. I’m using allergic in general, but what I mean is sensitive or intolerant, but you may also be allergic too.

Ok, there you have it, not from some doctor that doesn’t have a problem but from the real thing, a guy who’s had a corn problem for over ten years.

I’m slowly getting better, but I like to experiment and keep getting corned, but that’s how I  learn and am passing what I’ve learned onto you, so maybe you can avoid some of the pitfalls.

Good luck, it’s a bitch.

The page that tells about my corn problem:

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2 Responses to How My Food Elimination Diet Works

  1. Bob Noble says:

    Moved to this post for Karen,
    I have come upon your blog through another blogger.
    I took notice when I read everything you said about the food elimination plan you are following, and I felt compelled to respond.

    You are basically on the right track BUT …… If you do further research on this problem you will discover that “it’s all about lectins” which you are continuing to consume!

    Please check out a book called The Plant Paradox by Dr. Steven Gundry. It was a life saver for my 42yr. old son. He had the same condition you have and he is like a new man now. We looked into this diet and new way of eating ourselves and it has made a remarkable difference in our lives too.

    Dr. Gundry also touches on seven deadly disrupters that are affecting our bodies. It is an excellent read and because someone helped us, I felt compelled to pass it on.

  2. Bob Noble says:

    Hi Karen,
    I have read some about lectins in the past, but because the corn thing is so overwhelming I’ve not been too concerned with much else. Everything seems to be a trade off, as always. I do know that cooking knocks down the lectins and pressure cooking even knocks them down more. The can of string beans used is pressure cooked so that helps. I can’t help it about the potatoes and onions. They are not corned so I must use something and I figure these items are the most useful for this despite the lectins.
    I hadn’t heard of Dr. Gunry before so went to You Tube to check him out. Looks interesting, I’ll be reviewing some more of his stuff.
    Thanks for the comment,

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