At 10:30 AM 3/29/98 -0500, you wrote:
>At the risk of sounding like a lunatic (too late for that, I fear),
It happens to the best of us!

>people with a damaged gut are often sensitive to grains, he may have been
>unsuited to his former heavy meat-based diet.

He developed this problem when he was nine. A few years ago his rheumatologist
(this man also has severe ankylosing spondilitis(not sure on the spelling))
decided that doing a HLA test would be a good idea--he came up positive on
HLA B-7 or B27 (faulty recall) giving him the genetic predisposition to
develop the rather rare form of arthritis he has as well as the ulcerative
collitis. The new diagnosis of perhaps Cronh's(they were never really sure)
came about after a colonoscopy (ouch) where they could not beleive how good
his intestines looked--pink and healthy. They had never seen someone
recover so well after being so ill, this certainly could not been through
dietary change, so the doctor who first diagnosed him must have been
wrong....right.

>think that if someone can be a vegetarian for a few years before developing
>an obvious deficiency, his diet might not be all that far from the mark; he
>just needs to add a modest amount of animal products.

He has reported improvement in his arthritis(he's had one hip replaced at
age 35)since eliminating any meat from his diet, I'm not sure how much
dairy he eats, though some yogurt and cheese is likely. He wasn't a milk
drinker when I was living with him(ex-boyfriend of four years), eggs were
for breakfast since cereals were out, or for quiches(no crust).

My comment about this "flying in the face..." had more to do with the
theory(which in essence is similar to paleo) presented in "Food for the Gut
Reaction" which stated that an absolute restriction of grains was necessary
for alleviation of symptoms. In his case eating paleo was devastating,
thought I'm not sure how long he followed the plan outlined in the book,
avoiding gluten rich grains seems to do the trick.

Willow