# Eliminating all Preservatives in Foods



## carwood (Jan 19, 2011)

Hi, this is my first posting. I was in my 50s when I started experiencing horrible acid reflux, so acute and painful that it would wake me out of sound sleep. I would wake up with horrible tasting acid in my mouth with a burning pathway from the stomach. It kept on and on and no matter trying other methods suggested on the net, like not eating after 8:00 pm and trying the suggested diet changes, all were failures. I researched the net on the condition and read the horrible fate, first burning pain, then the malfunctioning of the sphincter, then Barrett's disease, then stomach cancer. I made an appointment with a specialist and the upper portion of the digestive tract camera showed a sore sphincter area, but not yet at Barrett's. I was given purple pills to take. Suspicious of side effects, I did not take them and suffered. In 2006, I made a move into the far reaches of the country and was moving so I had little time between trips. I had made a loaf of bread because I knew the whole wheat bread I wanted was 300 miles round trip so I would have to bake my own bread. Trying to put everything away one day I noted a slice of my homemade bread, which I had just started to do, and a slice of commercial whole wheat bread in a container. I decided I would return to putting those foods away later and covered it. About 2 weeks later, I discovered that I had forgotten that I had left those slices of bread in there when I lifted the lid and found that my bread was covered with a colorful forest of every kind of mold or bacteria possible to grow, I guess, on bread made with only natural ingredients. I noted that the store-bought bread had only the tiniest pinprick size white dot of a white something. I had been researching digestion to attempt to solve my recurring bouts of acid reflux and my recurring bouts of diarrhea/constipation in the hopes of solving the problems. I had read that most of our digestion was done in the lower intestine by friendly bacteria and that, if it weren't for this bacteria, we would not be able to live. So I started ruminating about those 2 pieces of bread. I wandered if the preservatives in bread that keep bread from growing bacteria would be active in the lower intestines as well, i.e., killing the required digestive bacteria. So I decided to see what would happen if I only ate food that I made from scratch and no commercial bread. I was totally amazed. I had not one episode of reflux, not one. After a while, I tested it again. I went to town and ate commercial bread in a sandwich at a restaurant. That night I was awakened, once again, with horrible acid in my throat and mouth. So now, I only eat my bread. I read all ingredients listed on any food product and, if it appears to list something I don't recognize and believe to possibly be a preservative, I don't buy it. I now take the food author, Michael Pollan, at his word, in saying we should not eat anything our grandmother wouldn't recognise as food. I think he would have to amend the statement to great-grandmother, but great-grandmothers only preservatives were vinegar, salt, sugar, and the heat of canning. I invite all of you to try this remedy and see if it gives you good results and post here your results. Be forewarned, I will preach this wherever possible when I read the postings is this forum. Thanks for reading this.


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

QEDIt sounds like a great sermon. Congrats.Mark


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## carwood (Jan 19, 2011)

I did indeed read your story and congratulate you on your success! You sound like an extremely disciplined person on managing all of those retrofits on your lifestyle.


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## Yarm (Sep 18, 2010)

You have encouraged me to look more closely at the food I eat. I am very careful about avoiding preservatives but I do eat a lot of bread - keep my weight up where it needs to be. I don't have time to bake my own bread - work full time plus hubby and 3 kids.I will however invest in a bread maker - for my birthday.... that is truly the only thing I eat with preservatives... and I'm having a bit of an acid reflux flare-up the last week or so.Merci


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## carwood (Jan 19, 2011)

Yarm said:


> You have encouraged me to look more closely at the food I eat. I am very careful about avoiding preservatives but I do eat a lot of bread - keep my weight up where it needs to be. I don't have time to bake my own bread - work full time plus hubby and 3 kids.I will however invest in a bread maker - for my birthday.... that is truly the only thing I eat with preservatives... and I'm having a bit of an acid reflux flare-up the last week or so.Merci


I can certainly understand being crowded for time to bake bread. When I first started using a machine to make it, it was slow, but now I have the system down and it is pretty fast. Additionally, I found a local bakery, locally owned, and he makes bread daily with no preservatives. There is a national restaurant chain called Panera and I believe they don't use preservatives either. They have sandwiches, pastries, and whole loaves for sale. I hope you find an alternative to any bread with any preservatives in it. Good luck!


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