Very interesting thread subject. Thanks very much!

Barry Groves posted the following, a few years ago, at his site, Second Opinions, in the section on "the best detox diet".

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/detox.html

Here are some excerpts:

Introduction
The digestive systems of carnivorous and herbivorous animals operate in quite different ways: the former is specifically designed to digest animal proteins and fats, while the latter is constructed to process plant materials.

Whereas the bacterial fermentation of plant starches and fibre, with the production and absorption of short-chain fatty acids, contributes between 60% and 90% of all the energy requirements in plant-eating animals, the colonic fermentation in humans is of minor importance for nutrition, with less than 10% of the energy requirements available from colonic digestion of starch, fibre and protein not absorbed in the small bowel, if the intestine has a normal length and function.

When plant materials enter our digestive system, the cellulose of which plant cell walls are made, which constitute a large proportion of the plant and which we cannot digest, passes through the stomach and small intestine to end up in the colon (large intestine) in an undigested state. Other carbohydrates, even though they have been processed to some extent, will also end up in the colon.

What happens to them is of considerable importance.

...A pure carnivore should eat no plant material, so there should not be any carbohydrate in its colon to support fermentative bacteria. With no fermentative bacteria to produce acids, the proteolytic bacteria thrive there in a healthy alkaline environment.

...

There is only one way to set the balance right again and that is to eat little that will allow undigested carbohydrate material to reach the colon. This is possible. Synthetic diets composed of pure amino acids, fatty acids and glucose, which need no digestion and leave no residue, will halt the production of acid in the colon and restore the correct balance.[3] But trials on volunteers showed that it takes about three months of very strict dieting to achieve this result, and it had to be conducted in a hospital background.

A more realistic way is to reduce the amount of carbohydrate in your diet to a minimum. And avoid at all costs such material as bran or other vegetable and fruit fibre which cannot be digested, as this will certainly end up feeding the very bacteria you are trying to get rid of.


I don't know how much copyright law allows, hence, just these excerpts.

This is one of my favorite articles at his site. This article is also in his book, Trick and Treat.

For me, avoiding high FODMAPs, nightshades, and foods which cause allergic symptoms is part of the foundation of my food plan.