Green vegetables, vitamin K, candida, vegetarian diets and the need for a professional opinion

This blog isn't usually about diets and our eating habits, but as I am on a paleo/anti candida diet for the forseeable future, I thought I should share my experiences detoxing and with the foods I have been avoiding. As one who has had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) I feel a duty to share what I know, as I could have died, and I do know someone who died from a DVT at a young age. The problem with the internet is we are all saturated with information which we need to go away and digest (pardon the pun!) and should not necessarily assume that the information applies to all of us. At least you can take away from this post a warning for readers to go and get dietary advice before launching blindly in to a new lifelong diet.

As good little greenies and dieters we are constantly being reminded to eat our vegies and our greens - for lunch and dinner, and how for good health, we just can't get enough of them.  Some of these diets recommend having breakfast with eggs and spinach, salads with tuna, and skin free chook with broccoli for dinner.

Well, my experience with eating loads of leafy greens, broccoli raw, soy foods, and spinach salads is that by the next day I feel very sluggish - so going on to vegie detox will usually make my legs feel 'woody' and that I can't move as quickly as usual. In short I feel like rubbish, and it's different from other detox (flu) symptoms, in that I just feel that blood isn't flowing properly in my body. For someone who likes to keep ultra fit, feeling ordinary and sluggish is always something to be avoided.  So the warning here is that some diets are encouraging us to eat high volumes of green vegetables as well as other foods which are high in Vitamin K. But what people don't realise is that these foods are blood coagulating foods, and therefore if we eat amounts that are higher than the recommend daily allowance, we are possibly contributing to blood clotting issues, especially if we lead a sedentary existence, which in turn can lead to a higher incidence of strokes, dangerous blood clotting and heart attacks. That's why professional advice from a dietician or other professional is so important before switching to any new diet.

The last couple of weeks I had forgotten this mantra and had resumed eating the high 'green' diet that I love as you are not allowed to eat the usual range of foods on this diet and you need something to fill you up apart from salads, fish and meat. Having now researched again that three times the daily allowance for vitamin K can be consumed by having as little as one cup of certain vegetables, I have now adjusted my paleo/candida diet and only having one meal of mixed vegetables per day (whereas previously I was having at least two).   I'm sad to say I'm opting to avoid spinach, broccoli, cabbage and stir-fryable greens. Even one cup of coleslaw is around the recommended daily allowance of vitamin K for women which is 90 micrograms. It is around 120 micrograms for men.  Just a few tablespoons of tabouli (made with parsley) will send you right over the allowance recommended. Egad I love coleslaw and tabouli.  So on this diet I'm temporarily staying off most dairy, bread, most fermented foods, deep fried foods, sweets, cakes, most biscuits and so the list goes on, I also have to give up my favourite vegies!

Here's a link which is mostly written for people taking blood thinning medication but really is something every one consuming a high amount of vegies should be aware of and should do further research about.