155216,
Thank you so much for standing up for me, I honestly felt like being under an attack. How weird, I do not impose any of my findings or any details of my life-style but simply tell what happened and how I got better and provide all the references to validate my views, I am not against any approach that works for somebody else... and such a reaction here... wow.

If it hadn't been for yours and a couple other people's supportive comments here, I'd definitely think that I got into some wrong place. Thank you for being so friendly and supportive.

Yes, back to our discussion, dietary cholesterol is surely a very important factor in the whole bile/liver/digestion equation. I think this also could be a very useful link to support our talk on cholesterol:
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Egg_Yolk.html

Just look at the percentage of vitamins and minerals in egg yolk!

I am convinced that raw eggs yolks (in warm water or broth) are one of the best foods for your liver. They are superb for building the lost bile acids as they contain all four fat-soluble vitamins, and dietary cholesterol.

“Abnormally low levels of cholesterol are termed hypocholesterolemia. Research suggests a link with depression, cancer, and cerebral hemorrhage. In general, the low cholesterol levels seem to be a consequence, rather than a cause, of an underlying illness.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol
.


Plus, the choline which is always low in our diet. Choline is a precursor to Phosphatidylcholine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine) which is vital for our brain, liver, intestinal health as well all cell membranes.

Emily Dean, M.D. states: “ Lack of choline, for example, has been associated with both fatty liver and the development of diabetes. You might be interested to know that women eating the standard American diet have insufficient choline intake, and that the small percentage eating enough choline get it from eating an unusually high number of eggs.” Link to a full article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201104/zombieland


It’s true that bile excretion is low on a vegan diet. We know that there is a chain reaction in the GI tract. Secretion of stomach acid sends signal to the liver and gall bladder to secrete bile as well as to the pancreas to secrete its enzymes. If there is not enough stomach acid, then there surely would be limited bile secretion.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, as Vata has a cooling and drying effect, hence plant foods rich in Vata have the potential to dry up stomach acid. I bet plant foods would be great for high levels of stomach acid, but who in modern world has that luxury? Acid reflux is just a sign of low stomach acid as it happens, not high acidity as it is commonly thought…

“As strange as it sounds, the symptoms of low stomach acid are virtually the same as the symptoms of an overproduction of stomach acid. The treatment, however, is entirely different. In order to feel better, your stomach needs to produce more acid, not less.” http://www.puristat.com/coloncleansing/lowstomachacid.aspx
.

Is it possible that the same binding power of plant fiber also affects the stomach acid? I think it may be the case here. And the more fiber we eat, the less stomach acid and consequently less bile we produce, and, as you mentioned, bye-bye peristalsis an hello constipation….

And if we are lucky to still have some bile excreted into the duodenum, we definitely don’t want to be reabsorbing it further in the intestines, as bile is not only a vital variable in our digestion, but also is the essence of our Pitta without which we can literally lose our spark both mentally and physically. No wonder Depression is associated with low dietary cholesterol level.
As well as “Low serum cholesterol has been linked in numerous scientific papers to suicide, accidents, and violence” http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201103/low-choles...



I turned to a Warrior schedule due to the exact same reason, the more nourishing the meal at night was, the better was my sleep. Before that I heard all these theories that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that Jesus allegedly preached that we should eat our breakfast completely, share half of our lunch with our friend and give our dinner to our enemy completely. Then, there is this famous Russian belief that eating after 6p.m. makes you fat and most women try to follow that rule. Even Ayurveda preaches us to have the main meal at lunch. Well, I think somebody got it wrong or got only partial info which can only work as somebody mentioned here on Vata-Pitta types, and the incomplete theory about meal timing spread around the world.

And as other people in this thread have already mentioned, Ayurveda absolutely has to be more flexible as we are living in Kali Yuga times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga,
we are not nearly as strong as our ancestors millions years ago. Special considerations should be made for specific times in human history. Again, as any science, Ayurveda became dogmatic and inflexible in certain aspects. I believe that any system of knowledge has to be upgraded on a regular basis as everything constantly changes.

It is very possible that humans have a very diverse genetic background. Yes, we are all surprisingly different in all possible ways; we cannot be of just one single biological species. Human history is so much more than we ever knew, and plus it’s the most falsified area of science. This would be a whole separate discussion I would surely love to have.

True, GAPS and SCD dietary approaches have shown to be effective on many people with digestive issues and yes, after being on this diets for sometime, people are able to digest things that they considered to be inedible before. Hence, we can say, that these dietary approaches can be called healing.

A healed, functional healthy GI is the focus of restoring health. I listened to the lecture of Jordan Rubin recently
and he (as many other doctors, health gurus and people who have recovered) mentions that GI health is where all the disease starts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6XwTn_FA80


Hippocrates also mentioned that GI tract (or he actually said colon, I think) is the start of all diseases.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride spent years searching for the right healing foods for a sick gut and managed to cure her own son of Autism. She specifically mentions that without our GI tract being healthy, we cannot function mentally, or detoxify properly or simply live a normal life.

On my way to recovery I was under the impression that first I have to cleanse and detoxify and then heal my digestion. Well, it happens to be the other way around. Once your digestive tract is healed, and you are nourished, then your body does the detoxifying ON ITS OWN. wow! that was a great discovery! We always try to push all the possible detoxes we know of, but the truth is once your digestion is restored (at least to some point), your whole body starts actively detoxifying! If before I had to take time and do liver flush, now my liver does it mostly by itself just after a cup of apple juice and a cup of cascara tea. That's it. No more enemas, coffee enemas, glasses of bitter Epsom salt. It's amazing, we usually underestimate that our body is smart already, we push it too much. Did you know that there are specific days each month when our liver loves to clean itself out on its own, if it is given a chance, or course. Moon affects our cycles and certain days work better than others for specific organs and systems. I will write about Liver Cleansing in a separate thread.

So, thanks to GAPS diet, digestion has healed. I remember when on a vegan diet I heard Dr. Mercola interviewing Dr. Campbell, I thought that it was awful to tell people to eat meat to get healthy... Of course, I thought I knew better... and spend another year with all possible digestive sensitivities, fatigue, constant abdominal pain and brain fog. It took quite some time, humbleness, and over-coming my own "I'm right, she is wrong" attitude and actually get down to GAPS theory. GAPS was hard in the beginning, I felt I was deprived beyond anything... But that feeling was temporary, in about a month or two, I started noticing better sleep, less fatigue, less abdominal pain and less brain fog. And then, it wasn't hard at all.

It's true, it is very very hard to admit after being a vegan or vegetarian that you went in the wrong direction after you have already told all your friends and relatives that you are so much better in your diet than them... It takes courage and humbleness and it hurts to admit that you went wrong, you kind of have to step over yourself in some way and that is never easy.

I hope this thread would be useful for those who are vegetarian and are afraid to admit that it may be not the best way for their individual body type or for those who have started recovering on meat containing diet. Either way, thank you all here for your support and comments.