This is the diet I tried for my VA Elimination (VAE) experiment based on Grant Genereux's Vitamin A toxicity theory.
Notes
• If you want to see Grant G's VAE diet, it's on p 334 of PFP. His was much stricter. I did things a little different, but with the same goal: eliminate / minimize VA. This is just what I tried.
• I think it's a safe estimate that I consumed, on average, less than 100 IUs of VA per day with this diet. And it may have actually been much less than that. Considering that the RDA for men is 3000 IU of retinol — I'd say that my diet was quite low indeed, even if it wasn't zero. Based on my symptom results, it seems to have been low enough for my body to deplete its retinol stores.
• I have been on this diet since the beginning of April 2018. So I'm about 3 1/2 months in at the time of this post.
• Just in case it's not clear: this is only a "diet" in the sense of "it's a set of foods". I wasn't trying to restrict calories. I ate when I was hungry and ate till I was full. A normal three meals a day + snacks.
• I didn't avoid wheat / gluten. But I never noticed wheat or gluten causing problems for me in the past, and it would be difficult for me to give up, so I didn't. I kept it and the VA elimination diet still worked for me without needing to eliminate gluten. Maybe it'd have worked better/faster without it, I don't know. Maybe others (obviously the Celiac / gluten sensitive / IBD) will need to eliminate gluten (see: Grant's theory on the gluten connection).
• This might not be the "healthiest" VAE diet you could do (whatever that means) — or the one you should necessarily do — but I'm just being honest. I'm not claiming to be the most disciplined man around. I like soda, for example, and even though it would eliminate more variables, I didn't want to give it up and it has no VA so I kept it. And I didn't want to just eat bland food all day so I took chances on things like sauerkraut and mustard and soy sauce. But the important thing is: it was very low in VA and it worked (for me)!
• The number in [brackets] is the amount of VA in 100grams of that food, as per my research. But it's not guaranteed to be 100% correct — consider it an estimate and "fact check" it. You can usually just google search "vitamin a in [food]" and it'll pop up from Google, and the source for that is usually the USDA Nutrient Database — which you can also search directly.
• At first (week or two) I just went "low VA" and kept a some eggs and cheese in my diet. I started noticing benefits within the first couple weeks though, and so I eliminated eggs and dairy, which brought me to the diet below.
• In summary, here's what's significantly different about this diet from how I used to eat: no eggs, no dairy (no milk, no cheese, no cream, no butter), no orange juice, no fruit except apple and lemon juice and low VA strawberry jelly, tiny amounts of low A plant food for "flavor" (sauerkraut, onion, garlic, mustard). In super short summary: it's basically staple carbs (bread and rice) + meat (mostly beef) + a little flavoring.
• Notice also no spices or herbs (most are very high in VA per gram). Thankfully vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic, onion, sauerkraut and mustard were very low VA and with a little creativity, saved this diet from being torturously bland. But those were "adventurous" compared to Genereux's diet or a strict carnivore diet.
• Quick contrast w/ Genereux's diet: I never ate beans, never ate brown rice (only white), never drank coffee, only ate cauliflower once, never took Vitamin C. I used quite a bit of coconut oil, and only a little olive oil. I only drank a little water, mostly drank soda and apple juice w/ meals.
• The percentage numbers are rough estimates of the proportion of that food I consumed as a portion of the total of that particular category (e.g. roughly 60% of my carb foods was bread/wheat).
Carbs
60% Bread (or pancakes) [0] (my staple: Aldi brand ciabatta rolls w/ enriched flour & no fat)
30% Rice [0] (typical: wheat/bread with breakfast & lunch, rice with dinner)
5% Potatoes (w/ no skin) [0]
5% Pasta (wheat white flour) [0]
Meats
75% Beef (~ 2-to-1 ratio whole beef [roasts, steaks, stir fry] to ground beef) [0]
15% Tilapia [0]
5% Chicken [21]
5% Tuna*, white, canned [~20]
*Be cautious with tuna. Vast differences in species. E.g. avoid bluefin tuna which has 2520 IU per 100g.
Fats
90% Coconut oil (regular and the liquid kind) [0]
10% Olive Oil [0]
Snacks & Sweets
• potato chips cooked in coconut oil (Boulder brand) or olive oil (Trader Joes)
• chocolate chips, dairy-free (Enjoy Life brand)
Drinks
50% root beer or other soda [0]
30% apple juice [0]
10% lemonade [0]
10% water [0]
• btw, I never drank coffee
Flavorings & Sauces
Bland meat + carbs got pretty boring so I had to figure out ways to make sauces without egg or dairy.
When I want to add flavor to a burger or steak or fish sandwich:
• sauerkraut [3 IU in 1/8 cup]
• mustard [5 IU in 1 tsp]
• vinegar [0]
• soy sauce [0]
• coconut/olive oil + vingegar + mustard = vinegarette
• coconut/olive oil + lemon juice + mustard = "vinegarette"
• onion powder & garlic powder
When I want a broth / sauce w/ dinner:
• soy sauce + beef broth + sugar + gelatin
• beef pan sauce / au jus: beef broth or water + scrape up browned bits of beef remaining in cast iron pan after cooking steak + oil + a little mustard or soy sauce vinegar
Typical Breakfasts
• pancakes (no egg, no dairy) w/ dairy-free chocolate chips(Enjoy Life brand) or maple syrup
• toast with strawberry jelly
- w/ glass of apple juice or lemonade
Typical Lunch
• beef burger on white bread roll w/ "flavorings"
• steak sandwich w/ flavoring
- w/ a root beer soda
Typical Dinners
• beef pot roast & rice (w/ beef broth, +sometimes: garlic [9] & onions [2])
• stir fry beef & rice: w/ broth + soy sauce + sugar
• beef steak & mashed potatoes
• broiled tilapia & rice: w/ lemon juice + coconut / olive oil
- w/ a root beer soda
Supplements
• I took a few B vitamin doses at first but stopped that within the first month. Maybe 5 doses.
• Occasional zinc, maybe a dozen doses total spread out across the duration.
• I took some vit K for several days when I had some tooth sensitivity but then it went away and I stopped. Again, maybe like 5 doses spread out once a day.
• Note: I never supplemented Vit C so... there's that. (And my apple juice has no Vit C).
• None of the supplements were regular or consistent.
Results
• The short version is that it basically cured my chronic depression and chronic fatigue — which is the most significant and life-changing effect for me — but several other symptoms have improved as well. I'm working on a full, detailed write up of this. But for now you can see my summary in the theory thread: https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/grant-genereuxs-theory-of-vitamin-a-toxicity.24722/
Notes
• If you want to see Grant G's VAE diet, it's on p 334 of PFP. His was much stricter. I did things a little different, but with the same goal: eliminate / minimize VA. This is just what I tried.
• I think it's a safe estimate that I consumed, on average, less than 100 IUs of VA per day with this diet. And it may have actually been much less than that. Considering that the RDA for men is 3000 IU of retinol — I'd say that my diet was quite low indeed, even if it wasn't zero. Based on my symptom results, it seems to have been low enough for my body to deplete its retinol stores.
• I have been on this diet since the beginning of April 2018. So I'm about 3 1/2 months in at the time of this post.
• Just in case it's not clear: this is only a "diet" in the sense of "it's a set of foods". I wasn't trying to restrict calories. I ate when I was hungry and ate till I was full. A normal three meals a day + snacks.
• I didn't avoid wheat / gluten. But I never noticed wheat or gluten causing problems for me in the past, and it would be difficult for me to give up, so I didn't. I kept it and the VA elimination diet still worked for me without needing to eliminate gluten. Maybe it'd have worked better/faster without it, I don't know. Maybe others (obviously the Celiac / gluten sensitive / IBD) will need to eliminate gluten (see: Grant's theory on the gluten connection).
• This might not be the "healthiest" VAE diet you could do (whatever that means) — or the one you should necessarily do — but I'm just being honest. I'm not claiming to be the most disciplined man around. I like soda, for example, and even though it would eliminate more variables, I didn't want to give it up and it has no VA so I kept it. And I didn't want to just eat bland food all day so I took chances on things like sauerkraut and mustard and soy sauce. But the important thing is: it was very low in VA and it worked (for me)!
• The number in [brackets] is the amount of VA in 100grams of that food, as per my research. But it's not guaranteed to be 100% correct — consider it an estimate and "fact check" it. You can usually just google search "vitamin a in [food]" and it'll pop up from Google, and the source for that is usually the USDA Nutrient Database — which you can also search directly.
• At first (week or two) I just went "low VA" and kept a some eggs and cheese in my diet. I started noticing benefits within the first couple weeks though, and so I eliminated eggs and dairy, which brought me to the diet below.
• In summary, here's what's significantly different about this diet from how I used to eat: no eggs, no dairy (no milk, no cheese, no cream, no butter), no orange juice, no fruit except apple and lemon juice and low VA strawberry jelly, tiny amounts of low A plant food for "flavor" (sauerkraut, onion, garlic, mustard). In super short summary: it's basically staple carbs (bread and rice) + meat (mostly beef) + a little flavoring.
• Notice also no spices or herbs (most are very high in VA per gram). Thankfully vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic, onion, sauerkraut and mustard were very low VA and with a little creativity, saved this diet from being torturously bland. But those were "adventurous" compared to Genereux's diet or a strict carnivore diet.
• Quick contrast w/ Genereux's diet: I never ate beans, never ate brown rice (only white), never drank coffee, only ate cauliflower once, never took Vitamin C. I used quite a bit of coconut oil, and only a little olive oil. I only drank a little water, mostly drank soda and apple juice w/ meals.
• The percentage numbers are rough estimates of the proportion of that food I consumed as a portion of the total of that particular category (e.g. roughly 60% of my carb foods was bread/wheat).
Carbs
60% Bread (or pancakes) [0] (my staple: Aldi brand ciabatta rolls w/ enriched flour & no fat)
30% Rice [0] (typical: wheat/bread with breakfast & lunch, rice with dinner)
5% Potatoes (w/ no skin) [0]
5% Pasta (wheat white flour) [0]
Meats
75% Beef (~ 2-to-1 ratio whole beef [roasts, steaks, stir fry] to ground beef) [0]
15% Tilapia [0]
5% Chicken [21]
5% Tuna*, white, canned [~20]
*Be cautious with tuna. Vast differences in species. E.g. avoid bluefin tuna which has 2520 IU per 100g.
Fats
90% Coconut oil (regular and the liquid kind) [0]
10% Olive Oil [0]
Snacks & Sweets
• potato chips cooked in coconut oil (Boulder brand) or olive oil (Trader Joes)
• chocolate chips, dairy-free (Enjoy Life brand)
Drinks
50% root beer or other soda [0]
30% apple juice [0]
10% lemonade [0]
10% water [0]
• btw, I never drank coffee
Flavorings & Sauces
Bland meat + carbs got pretty boring so I had to figure out ways to make sauces without egg or dairy.
When I want to add flavor to a burger or steak or fish sandwich:
• sauerkraut [3 IU in 1/8 cup]
• mustard [5 IU in 1 tsp]
• vinegar [0]
• soy sauce [0]
• coconut/olive oil + vingegar + mustard = vinegarette
• coconut/olive oil + lemon juice + mustard = "vinegarette"
• onion powder & garlic powder
When I want a broth / sauce w/ dinner:
• soy sauce + beef broth + sugar + gelatin
• beef pan sauce / au jus: beef broth or water + scrape up browned bits of beef remaining in cast iron pan after cooking steak + oil + a little mustard or soy sauce vinegar
Typical Breakfasts
• pancakes (no egg, no dairy) w/ dairy-free chocolate chips(Enjoy Life brand) or maple syrup
• toast with strawberry jelly
- w/ glass of apple juice or lemonade
Typical Lunch
• beef burger on white bread roll w/ "flavorings"
• steak sandwich w/ flavoring
- w/ a root beer soda
Typical Dinners
• beef pot roast & rice (w/ beef broth, +sometimes: garlic [9] & onions [2])
• stir fry beef & rice: w/ broth + soy sauce + sugar
• beef steak & mashed potatoes
• broiled tilapia & rice: w/ lemon juice + coconut / olive oil
- w/ a root beer soda
Supplements
• I took a few B vitamin doses at first but stopped that within the first month. Maybe 5 doses.
• Occasional zinc, maybe a dozen doses total spread out across the duration.
• I took some vit K for several days when I had some tooth sensitivity but then it went away and I stopped. Again, maybe like 5 doses spread out once a day.
• Note: I never supplemented Vit C so... there's that. (And my apple juice has no Vit C).
• None of the supplements were regular or consistent.
Results
• The short version is that it basically cured my chronic depression and chronic fatigue — which is the most significant and life-changing effect for me — but several other symptoms have improved as well. I'm working on a full, detailed write up of this. But for now you can see my summary in the theory thread: https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/grant-genereuxs-theory-of-vitamin-a-toxicity.24722/
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