Anti-inflammatory Food Plan

February 10 will mark six months of amazing changes in my endocrinology. According to my rheumatologist, my RFnegPA is in remission for the first time since 2011. One considerable factor in those changes was the start of an anti-inflammatory food plan.  

The anti-inflammatory food plan is based on the recommendations of the Arthritis Foundation, which has published a lot of information on how food affects arthritis. But they try to write in a warm, fuzzy way that does not make it sound like a form of torture. I'm writing it like it is. Also, I am so far from qualified to tell anyone what they should eat that you should really not listen to me. Read the whole thing. Then check with your doctor. Then eat your last ice cream sundae and get to work.

Do not eat any of the following as they cause inflammation:

• Sugar in any form except whole fruit.
• Saturated fats including cheese, full fat dairy, pasta, red meat, and grain based desserts.
• Omega-6 including all oils except avocado oil, olive oil, and coconut oil (only when a solid fat at room temperature is required).
• Refined carbohydrates including white flour, white rice, potatoes, and processed cereals.
• MSG.
• Gluten including wheat, barley, and rye.
• Casein including all dairy.
• Nightshades including eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and turnips.
• Caffeine including coffee, tea, and chocolate.
• Artificial sweeteners.

Test in a food by eating it two times per day for three days. If you develop discomfort, stop the trial food until symptoms disappear. Then reintroduce the trial food a second time. If the same symptoms reappear, stop the trial food. When symptoms disappear, introduce a different food.
 
Eliminate for at least a month, then test in one per week in whatever order you choose.

• Bananas
• Citrus
• Soy
• Chicken
• Eggs
• Brown rice
• Non-peanut nuts
• Peanuts
• Oats
• Corn
• Shellfish
• Pork
• Fish

This is not written in stone. If the prospect of never eating chocolate for the rest of your life is more than you can bear, then by all means, test in chocolate. But consider the more vital nutrients, like protein, first.
 
To objectively assess the foods you test in, you need to track your pain, GI symptoms, mood, and compliance with the plan.
 
To track pain, I use the Pain Scale app. If you have been coping with pain by trying to avoid thinking about it, consider doing a body scan meditation before recording your score.

To track GI symptoms, I use the Poop Log app.  The gastrointestinal system is the canary in the coal mine of inflammation. So while this will make you literally consider your own feces more than what is socially acceptable, it is the key to fine tuning your food plan to your unique needs.
 
To track mood, I use the Moodscope website. Food, mood, and inflammation are intertwined both biologically and psychologically. If you use food as a mood modifier, you will have to look for alternative mood modifiers once you start the anti-inflammatory food plan.
 
To track food plan compliance, I use my own chart that includes whether I ate 6 servings of vegetables, whether all my meals in a day were vegetarian vegan (edit: the only animal products I intentionally eat are eggs and fish, now that I have tested them in. I track this not to be like "Yay, Vegan," though it is fantastic for the planet. I actually track this to make sure that it is not a lack of protein causing any health fluctuations. So if I have a long stretch of Vs in my chart and my mood numbers are lower, then I make sure I eat a hard boiled egg from one of our happy chickens.), and whether I consumed only foods on the plan.
 
I take all of the daily data and collect it on one monthly graph so I can see how things go over time.
You should track for a month before you start the anti-inflammatory food plan so you have a baseline. During this month, ramp up your vegetable intake to a full 6 servings daily (check those serving sizes).
 
Then, track for your first month on the meal plan to see when your baseline shifts. This is important to know how long you will likely have to go back to basics if a test food fails or you eat something inflammatory or you have some other cause of inflammation. This can also help you identify inflammatory foods unique to you. For example, I noticed a spike in pain and loose stools after eating cucumbers. So I abstained from cucumbers until my baseline was good and tried testing in cucumbers.
 
Then, when you start testing food in, you can look back at the week's data to figure out if the food test was successful, inconclusive, or a failure. I have attached the chart I use to track testing foods. 

For more information check out:
Anti-Inflammatory-iversary - Sarah's Smoothie

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More on Harvard donations

You'd think I had a thing against Harvard, but really it started because Brad DeLong's a Harvard alum. And Harvard's the richest example, but of course the issue is private universities (and more broadly, all private schools, and the topic arises because of the high price of education generally).

Anyway, Matt's got some further discussion. This time, Jim Manzi suggests that viewed as a hedge fund with great tax shelter, Harvard's doing pretty good. Of course, this seems to target the tax status of universities, asking why they're so special. The same argument's been made regarding churches over at The Citizens some time ago.

I'm no high-finance guy, but I wonder if the hedge fund analogy makes sense. Surely I can get my money back from a hedge fund investment? I don't think Harvard'll give you your donation back with interest.

But it does remind me what I was mulling yesterday when I posted the first installment on this. The criteria for charitable donations is usually not simply a matter of the most good for the most people, or at the very least a donor uses extremely individual definitions to evaluate the "most good" part. I love my NPR, but it doesn't save very many lives. Many charitable donations, especially alumni donations, are personal in sentiment -- otherwise you'd give to the biggest college, or the college with the best graduate employment results, or something. But no, almost everyone gives to their college.

So coming back to the point, just because Harvard doesn't turn your donation into your profit, doesn't mean it doesn't pay dividends. (And again, Harvard is the shining example, but this is true of other fine institutions of higher learning also.) Maybe giving Harvard the richest endowment also ensures it stays on top of the prestige chart, which aggrandizes all those donating alums. Some crazy Marxist might go on to say that Harvard will then promulgate the advancement of the elites and so the "charitable donation" is maintaining the patrician system (or something like that -- I'm not a crazy Marxist, so I don't know what words they like to use to say "it's all about the Man keepin' the people down.")

I guess I'm saying that Matt seems to think that all those Harvard donors are mistakenly giving money to their alma mater when they probably meant to give it to deserving charitable causes. I suspect that they know what they're doing and what the effect of their donation will be: they did go to Harvard, after all. :)

Assuming I had a can opener...

Sarah's brought up the issue of who to give your money to
before, and even though it's comparatively late, we should give credit to Brad DeLong for addressing the topic and arguing that Harvard doesn't actually need any more money.

Which I suppose raises a good point. Frankly, the two charities that have me wrapped around their finger are the local NPR station and PEA and I don't know why. I don't think those are the causes I care the most about. Are they the experiences I liked the most? Do they just run the better fundraising campaigns?

On a related note, my current employer is very keen on me donating money to them. As a cause, I'm somewhat sympathetic, but the whole scheme rankles greatly. What, my pay isn't paltry enough, I'm supposed to give some back? And then you can go to other donors and say "look what suckers our faculty are, we've exploited every atom of their generous nature" and that'll make them give you money too?

Democratic Philanthropy

Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, raised a very legitimate question in a comment to my previous post on Free Market Versus Legislative Philanthropy.* He asked the question that all complainers should be asked, “Do you have a better alternative?”

Before I answer that question, I should clarify that I agree with Mr. Berg’s proposal of taxing the wealthy more equitably and allowing society as a whole to determine how excess wealth should be spent. Getting this excess wealth into government coffers would likely address the concerns raised in my Jan 29th post in that it is highly likely our troops would become properly equipped, most likely children would actually be taught in public schools, and probable that WIC and food stamps would continue and be streamlined. I feel Mr. Berg’s solution would adequately address all of those most deserving causes, which are not sufficiently funded presently. And maybe that is the best we can do. As they say, “Our democracy isn't a perfect system of government, it's just better than the alternatives.”

My concern lies in allowing the legislative process to determine how excess wealth should be spent. I have little fear that the legislative process would fail its worthy citizens in need. But the measure of a society is not in how it treats its most worthy citizens, but how it treats its least worthy. **

I do fear that the legislative process would fail to support less popular causes: rights of the accused, rights of prisoners, rights of sex offenders, rights of Islamic fundamentalists, rights of drug addicts, rights of sex workers, rights of people I didn't think of and lots of people don't think of either.

So after much contemplation here’s my proposal: MORE democracy rather than less would result in better use of wealth. Tax the rich more like Berg suggests, but also make the populace's control more direct. With the ubiquity of the internet, federal spending referenda are potentially practical now, and using voting intelligently (for example, by allocating funds proportional to voting percentage, rather than "winner takes all") might achieve spending with more variety and more equity of interest than filtering through political representation.

Of course, the people least served by government are those who don't take part in it, for example felons, non-citizens, and the ever increasing group of people who by law or by logistics are prevented from voting in government elections. Without a vote, the legislature has no self-interest in catering to them. Serving the interests of those who don't/can't vote is always a dilemma, and moving toward an Internet poll-driven democracy won't change that. But the internet has proved its worth at uniting disparate people with common interests, so the voice of those who speak for the unpopular and internet voiceless might be able to be heard better through a web poll than in the halls of Congress.

The Combined Federal Campaign might be a model for this, both for its strengths (in 2004, contributions were $256 million) and weaknesses (charities have to qualify for inclusion).

A cynic (for argument’s sake let’s call him Bob) might say no matter how you try to tie the government's hands, once the money is "theirs", it's up to Congress to discipline itself. If their inability to keep their hands off Social Security is any indication, we’re in trouble. Just transferring personal wealth of the rich into the generic government coffer that's subject to political whims is heavy-handed (though straightforward). What if the taxpayer is given a few options of charitable funds where a large chunk of his taxes will go? This sidesteps Congress (after they pass such a law) and gives the wealthy some discretion (if they have to pay, they might as well decide who'd best spend the money). This need not be equivalent to charitable donations. These funds could be private foundations that act as supercharities, like the United Way, or Hands On Atlanta, with the mandate to move the money on to charities covering broad swathes of causes. Of course in theory the legislature is held more accountable to us than privately run charities, but in practice that seems not to be borne out.

Again, while you ponder a better alternative to my alternative, please play Free Rice.

* Can I just completely geek out for a moment about how totally awesome it is that Joel Berg commented on my post? And how thoughtfully he did so? Thank you, Mr. Berg, or the super awesome intern at NYCCAH charged with responding in his stead. Either way, you totally made my day. (back)

** This is an aphorism that is not original to me, but I cannot find its source. For many years I credited it to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but perhaps I should have been crediting the high school English class in which we read The Brothers Karamazov. To the best of my knowledge it is the confluence of the following. As Home Secretary in 1910, Winston Churchill observed that: “The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.” Elkin, W., The English Penal System. London: Penguin (1957), at 277. Dostoevsky wrote that: “A society which looks upon such things [as the harsh punishment of its citizen] with an indifferent eye is already infected to the marrow…” Dostoevsky, F., The House of the Dead. London: Dent (1962), at 194. Cf. Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 449 (1962): “The methods we employ in the enforcement of our criminal law have aptly been called the measures by which the quality of our civilization may be judged.” (back)

Free Market Versus Legislative Philanthropy

Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger wrote an excellent letter in response to the New York Times Magazine's March 9th issue, which was, in Mr. Berg's words, "dedicated to a discussion of how the wealthiest Americans can best have an impact on philanthropy." I must confess that between SXSW and the vortex of recycling I have not yet read said issue. But, as you may recall, I have been pondering issues of philanthropy as previously expressed in my post on Charitable Giving and Your Tax Rebate.


Mr. Berg sums up my underlying concerns eloquently.

Is the nation’s reliance on voluntary, uncoordinated charity — provided by people who may benefit from massive tax cuts — the best way to solve pressing social problems?
Modern American society seems to accept as a given that the wealthiest should have unfettered free choice to spend their billions on vacation homes, multimillion-dollar bequests to their pets or donations to charities, including well-funded medical, cultural and educational institutions.

I agree with his concerns, but I'm not totally sold on his proffered solution.

In contrast, most Western European nations tax the wealthy far more equitably, and their societies as a whole, through their democratically elected representatives, determine how excess wealth should be spent. Such countries have stronger social safety nets and less homelessness and poverty than America.

What of the tyranny of the majority? Would the same democratically elected legislators who pass ever-escalating mandatory minimum sentences and Orwellian punishments for sex offenders also vote to fund indigent defense funds for the objects of their "tough on crime" policies? Or would they add earmarks, like funding homeless shelters but only if they do not house ex-cons?


Again, while you ponder the answers to these questions, please play Free Rice.

Charitable Giving and Your Tax Rebate

I received an email from TrueMajority today that caught my eye. The subject line was, "Can part of your rebate save the economy?" Reading further it asked me to donate 10% of the six hundred dollar tax rebate check that is my part of the economic stimulus package to TrueMajority.
This touches on a debate I have been trying to foment among my peers about alumni giving. Specifically, if you have a limited budget for charitable giving why would you give it to, say, for example, a school with a billion dollar endowment, instead of, say, people in actual need?
It also touches on a basic problem I have with these economic band-aid refund checks. I want the troops to have proper equipment. I want poor people around the country to have access to healthy food. I want public schools to educate children about more than "be sure to fill in a bubble on every line because you're not penalized for guessing." So should I oppose the $600 rebate checks? Or should I donate my share to charity? If so, which charities? Who do you send the check to for, "properly equip our troops"? Who do you send the check to for, "teach children in public schools"? Who do you send the check to for, "save WIC and food stamps and make the application process easier"?
While you contemplate the answers to these questions, be sure to play FreeRice.

Edited 5/12/2008 to add:
Check out Brad DeLong's post, tangentially on the subject of irrational alumni giving to schools with excessively large endowments.