The Daily Raw Carrot Is Not Antiseptic, It Increases Bacterial Growth In The Gut

[milkboi]

Dumb question, but why exactly is fermentation bad?

More endotoxin both in the short-term and long-term.

 

[Kartoffel]

Dumb question, but why exactly is fermentation bad?

I wouldn't say it's bad in every context, but many of the bacterial fermentation end products such as methane and hydrogen sulfide are extremely destructive to the intestine, and are known to be involved in carcinogenesis.

 

[SOMO]

Dumb question, but why exactly is fermentation bad?

Fermentation can indicate gut bacteria are increasing and this increase, if someone's digestion is messed up, can lead to things like SIBO/LIBO when particularly bad. Even mild increases in gut microbes universally cause gas, bloating and irregular stool (diarrhea/constipation or both.)

Also as previous 2 posters stated, it can indicate increased endotoxin and gut irritation.

This is why the carrot is such a good compromise - it is largely insoluble fiber and unlikely to cause the same negative symptoms as starch or other high-fiber veggies.

 

[Pufas Shmoofas]

Thanks. What about cucumbers? They seem similar. It would be much more pleasurable (for me) to have a nice little cucumber salad alongside a meal, then a carrot salad which I strongly dislike. They seem like they could be similar in a way. Maybe not as good as a carrot, but I'd actually eat it.

 

[haidut]

an increase in breath H2 is usually treated as a clear increase in bacterial density, in the literature

Not always, it could simply be increased bacterial activity due to the increased amount of digestible "food" they get through the carrot salad. In that quote you mentioned the authors themselves say "This implies that the pH, redox potential, and bacterial activity,e.g.,on bile acids,alters as a result of fiber hydrolysis to short-chained fatty acids."

Keyword - bacterial activity (not density). If they thought bacterial density was increased I think they would have said so. Also, since up to 60% of fecal matter is dead bacteria (and intestinal epithelial cells), then the increase in fecal mass the study noted could be interpreted to mean the carrot fiber "scrubbed" the intestine as it was supposed to and this led to the decrease in bacterial count and consequently increased excretion of the dead bacterial mass with the stool. I think in gastroenterology, in general, increased fecal mass is considered a good thing and since antibiotics also increase fecal mass, I am inclined to say the carrot salad seems to work as per Peat's recommendations. The increase in hydrogen gas is definitely something that needs to be followed on. There are quire a few companies out there doing stool analysis and somebody could do a before/after test while eating daily carrot salad for a week or two. The stool analysis typically includes both count/density per unit of stool (which is decent approximation of the environment in colon) and profiling of bacterial population/types. So, we will see if carrot salad increases bacterial count and whether it shifts the microbiome towards less or more pathogenic bacteria.
Gut flora - Wikipedia
"...As a consequence of their abundance in the intestine, bacteria also make up to 60% of the dry mass of feces.[12] Fungi, protists, archaea, and viruses are also present in the gut flora, but less is known about their activities.[13]"

Alterations of intestinal microflora by antibiotics. Effects on fecal excretion, transit time, and colonic motility in rats. - PubMed - NCBI
"...The effects of intragastric antibiotics in rats were examined on fecal microflora and excretion and through transit time and cecocolonic myoelectric activity. A solution of nonabsorbable antibiotics infused into the stomach for 20 days had a dramatic effect on the quantity, composition, and bacterial content of rat feces. Both the dry weight and the water content of feces were increased. "

 

[yerrag]

I wouldn't say it's bad in every context, but many of the bacterial fermentation end products such as methane and hydrogen sulfide are extremely destructive to the intestine, and are known to be involved in carcinogenesis.

Fermentation is bad mainly because a product of it is lactic acid, but it is good in the sense that its products aren't toxic. Foods are preserved using fermentation when refrigeration isn't available - sauerkraut for example, and vinegar and wine are products of fermentation. This involves some bacteria which are very much the same bacteria used in the probiotics we ingest. With these bacteria being dominant, the fermentation instead of putrefaction is the anaerobic process that goes about. A typical rotten egg smell is what we smell when putrefaction occurs, and this is the smell of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). It's important that there are enough beneficial bacteria (such as lactic acid bacteria) around that fermentation occurs instead of putrefaction.

Lactic acid is preferred over hydrogen sulfide.

 

[yerrag]

Repeat post

 

[Beefcake]

Dumb question, but why exactly is fermentation bad?

It will fed bacteria in your gut. That will produce toxins. Eventually your d ick fly off. Havent you noticed how sick everyone is who eats vegetables and fermented food?

 

[Pufas Shmoofas]

It will fed bacteria in your gut. That will produce toxins. Eventually your d ick fly off. Havent you noticed how sick everyone is who eats vegetables and fermented food?

Your confusing me. I need to be able to put things in a good or bad category.

 

[Beefcake]

Your confusing me. I need to be able to put things in a good or bad category.

Theres no good or bad. It’s your decision what you believe. If you believe that bacteria in your gut will make you sick then try to get rid of them. Eat antibiotics. If you believe theres a homeostasis of bacteria floras in your gut which fight each other or co-operate then feed them with different foods to keep the system in balance. Its like if you imagine all the different strains of bacteria in your gut is trying to yell at the same time to make their voice and vision heard. If they are all equal you wont hear/notice (no problems) but if one takes over that strains voice/effect becomes much larger and you start to experience that something is actually doing you harm. Its like what do you think is the best way to fight a bacteria? Other bacterias ofc... different bacteria like different food. Some need fibers, some need sugars, some need protein some need fatty acids, some need certain minerals and vitamins. So to eat a diversity of food is whats likely to keep the symbiosis of the gut. But yeah or you could think all bacteria is bad and bomb them with antibiotics. But is that really sustainable? Wont they just adapt? Will you really kill them all? Is it the best option? My guess is no. My thoughts are that give the good bacteria what they need. I dont believe in probiotics (eating bacteria) i believe in prebiotics (feeding your gut bacteria) a varierty of prebiotics. Everything you eat everyday constantly affects your bacteria balance in the gut. That affects endotoxin, serotonin and immunity. If you need good or bad answers im sorry but there really is none. No one knows anything for sure. we can just assume. If you want to assume that rays views are absolute then yes you can decide according to that if something is ”peat good” or ”peat bad”.

 

[RisingSun]

Theres no good or bad. It’s your decision what you believe. If you believe that bacteria in your gut will make you sick then try to get rid of them. Eat antibiotics. If you believe theres a homeostasis of bacteria floras in your gut which fight each other or co-operate then feed them with different foods to keep the system in balance. Its like if you imagine all the different strains of bacteria in your gut is trying to yell at the same time to make their voice and vision heard. If they are all equal you wont hear/notice (no problems) but if one takes over that strains voice/effect becomes much larger and you start to experience that something is actually doing you harm. Its like what do you think is the best way to fight a bacteria? Other bacterias ofc... different bacteria like different food. Some need fibers, some need sugars, some need protein some need fatty acids, some need certain minerals and vitamins. So to eat a diversity of food is whats likely to keep the symbiosis of the gut. But yeah or you could think all bacteria is bad and bomb them with antibiotics. But is that really sustainable? Wont they just adapt? Will you really kill them all? Is it the best option? My guess is no. My thoughts are that give the good bacteria what they need. I dont believe in probiotics (eating bacteria) i believe in prebiotics (feeding your gut bacteria) a varierty of prebiotics. Everything you eat everyday constantly affects your bacteria balance in the gut. That affects endotoxin, serotonin and immunity. If you need good or bad answers im sorry but there really is none. No one knows anything for sure. we can just assume. If you want to assume that rays views are absolute then yes you can decide according to that if something is ”peat good” or ”peat bad”.

@Pufas Shmoofas was being sarcastic, meathead

 

[Beefcake]

@Pufas Shmoofas was being sarcastic, meathead

That long reply was me being sarcastic back. You didnt get that? Jesus christ.

 

[RisingSun]

That long reply was me being sarcastic back. You didnt get that? Jesus christ.

Doesn't look or sound like it. Good luck trying to get yourself out of that hole you just dug for yourself.

 

[Beefcake]

Doesn't look or sound like it. Good luck trying to get yourself out of that hole you just dug for yourself.

Whats your problem?

 

[RisingSun]

Whats your problem?

Your amateurism and you giving out advice when you clearly don't have a clue.

You go on paraphrasing the "health advice" that are common to all the "health" blogs written by 35 year old blondie housewifes who have just as little of a clue as you do.

Talk about your experience, your experiments, and the feedback you built on them.

Ray Peat Forum is too serious and too valuable a source of information to be witnessing that kind of low quality practice.

 

[Amazoniac]

This is Ray's response to the study.

They didn’t measure hydrogen in the last part of the study. The antiseptic effect of carrot might have decreased methane forming bacteria, leaving more food for hydrogen formation. Most people say that they can see undigested carrot in their stool; I doubt that the fiber supports fermentation to hydrogen.

Gastroenterology. 1984 Sep;87(3):601-5.
Methane production and colon cancer.
Piqué JM, Pallarés M, Cusó E, Vilar-Bonet J, Gassull MA.
The cause of the high incidence of methane producers in patients with colorectal
cancer is not clear. A total of 270 individuals were studied for methane
production, using an end-expiratory breath sampling technique. They were divided
into eight groups: 156 healthy controls (group 1); 47 patients with colorectal
cancer (group 2); 36 patients (34 of them included in the previous group) after
resection of the tumor (group 3); 7 (also included in group 2) with nonresectable
tumor (group 4); 29 with nonmalignant diseases of the colon (group 5); 12 with
extensive ulcerative colitis (group 6); 12 with ulcerative proctosigmoiditis
(group 7); and 12 with colonic polyposis (group 8). Significantly more patients
(91.4%) with colorectal cancer in group 2 produced methane than either healthy
controls (42.9%) (p less than 0.001) or patients with benign diseases of the
colon (41.3%) (p less than 0.001). In 36 patients (group 3) in whom the cancer
was resected, the incidence of methane producers fell to 47.2%, similar to the
control group, but significantly different from group 2 (p less than 0.001). The
percentage of methane producers in patients operated on, but with unresectable
cancer, remained very high (87.7%). A significantly higher proportion of patients
with extensive ulcerative colitis (group 6) and colonic polyposis (group 7)
produced methane than patients with ulcerative proctosigmoiditis (group 7),
benign diseases of the colon (group 5), and healthy controls (p less than 0.05).
The results suggest that the presence of cancer in the large bowel directly
influences methane production. In addition, in the group of diseases with a high
risk of malignancy, the prevalence of methane-producing individuals was
significantly higher than in the healthy population and in patients with benign
diseases of the colon.

It might not be its fiber directly, but when it prevents bile from being readsorbed and increasing the apperance in faeces by 50%.
The decrease in cholesterol reinforces the suspicion that people who have it low must pay attention to the effect of roughage in the diet.
Digestive transit time before carrots was 3 days. Wtf (kine, 2018)? People were constipated and it's quite surprising that carrots didn't make it worse.

- Anti-Microbial, Anti-Fungal Carrot Salad 2.0

 

[Kartoffel]

it's quite surprising that carrots didn't make it worse.

Why is that?

 

[Kartoffel]

Theres no good or bad. It’s your decision what you believe. If you believe that bacteria in your gut will make you sick then try to get rid of them. Eat antibiotics. If you believe theres a homeostasis of bacteria floras in your gut which fight each other or co-operate then feed them with different foods to keep the system in balance. Its like if you imagine all the different strains of bacteria in your gut is trying to yell at the same time to make their voice and vision heard. If they are all equal you wont hear/notice (no problems) but if one takes over that strains voice/effect becomes much larger and you start to experience that something is actually doing you harm. Its like what do you think is the best way to fight a bacteria? Other bacterias ofc... different bacteria like different food. Some need fibers, some need sugars, some need protein some need fatty acids, some need certain minerals and vitamins. So to eat a diversity of food is whats likely to keep the symbiosis of the gut. But yeah or you could think all bacteria is bad and bomb them with antibiotics. But is that really sustainable? Wont they just adapt? Will you really kill them all? Is it the best option? My guess is no. My thoughts are that give the good bacteria what they need. I dont believe in probiotics (eating bacteria) i believe in prebiotics (feeding your gut bacteria) a varierty of prebiotics. Everything you eat everyday constantly affects your bacteria balance in the gut. That affects endotoxin, serotonin and immunity. If you need good or bad answers im sorry but there really is none. No one knows anything for sure. we can just assume. If you want to assume that rays views are absolute then yes you can decide according to that if something is ”peat good” or ”peat bad”.

The idea that a person with dysbiosis will somehow achieve eubiosis by just eating a variety of different foods is naive, in my opinion. People with SIBO can almost never tolerate anything that feeds bacteria, and which would normally feed "good" bacteria in a a healthy person. If you happen to have too much, or the wrong mix of bacteria, this approach just doesn't seem to be helpful, at all. If your gut is already damaged by constant exposure to an overdose of bacterial products such as methane, H2S, or an excess of SFA, simply throwing a variety of food at the bacteria in your gut and hoping for the best seems like a bad idea.
There is no evidence I know of showing that eating fermentable stuff has any significant long-term benefits. On the other hand, completely avoiding fiber brings incredible results in some studies, and the low-Fodmap approach, while not perfect, seems much more rational than the "eat healthy fibers" approach. There are dozens of studies showing that restricting foods to those that have a low fermentation potential is very helpful for people with SIBO, and reasonable antibiotics use is also very effective in SIBO eradication. Even the mainstream literature is catching up on that, more and more. It also just so happens that some of the most beneficial bacteria are beneficial just because they work like antibiotics. L. Reuteri or B. Subtilis produce powerful antibiotics that kill competitors.

 

[lvysaur]

I just know that it tastes medicinal and I feel a "reset" after taking it. It also makes me hungrier, more energetic, cleans my teeth, and bulks my stools.

It also feels totally different from bamboo shoots, which have no discernible, or maybe a very subtle effect.

 

[charlie]

Posted this many years ago:

The Effect Of Raw Carrot On Serum Lipids And Colon Function