Anti-Stress Nutrition Programme to Improve Mood,
Health, Behaviour and Learning
By Brenda Sampson
INFORMATION ABOUT SALICYLATES
There are several sources of information. Early research found salicylate in a number of fruits, and this information was used in four Feingold books:
Why your child is hyperactive, by Ben Feingold (1975)
The Feingold Cookbook, by Ben & Helene Feingold (1979)
The Feingold Handbook, by the Feingold Association US (1986)
Salicylate/Aspirin Sensitivity by the Feingold Association US (1992)
These books warn that the following items contain salicylate; they advise parents to avoid them for four to six weeks, using only low salicylate fruits (such as peeled pear, banana, pawpaw and lemon juice).
These are the salicylate items named
Almonds, apples (also apple cider and cider vinegar) apricots, all berries, cherries, red/black currants, grapes (also raisins, currants, sultanas, wine, wine vinegar), oranges and tangerines, all stone fruits, tomatoes and all tomato products, cucumber and cucumber pickles, mint, peppermint, peppers and chillies (all peppers are high or very high in salicylate), cloves, coffee, all teas, aspirin and wintergreen.
If symptoms have improved in the four to six week period, it may be possible to reintroduce some of the salicylate fruits. Test only one at a time, for about a week, watching for a reaction (a return of symptoms). If one occurs, use the antidote. Keep a precise diet diary, so that if a change in behaviour or skin problems occurs, it can be correlated with the offending food. Begin testing with a small amount (maybe a spoonful); if there is no reaction give the item every second or third day for a week. If there is a reaction, stop testing for a week or more. With very sensitive or asthmatic people, testing should be closely supervised by a doctor.
Sensitivity to food chemicals is dose-related. Symptoms appear when the amount tolerated is exceeded. A person might eat a different fruit each day without a reaction; but if they exceed their tolerance level, the next fruit eaten (say a peach) may produce a reaction; though they may not be more sensitive to peaches than to other fruits. So watch out for a build-up of salicylate.
People vary greatly in their tolerance levels, and each has to discover their own threshold. Essential fatty acids such as evening primrose oil and fish oil, seem to raise tolerance levels in allergic people; also vitamin and mineral supplements; (see story of Danny.) Using the Feingold programme improves health, and some mothers find that salicylate sensitivity moderates in time.
Using the Feingold programme with the above information about salicylate has helped thousands of children world-wide. Patricia Holborow PhD helped to form a hyperactivity association in Brisbane. She did nine years of research with this salicylate programme, asking mothers to ring her with feedback about their results. She found that different varieties of the same fruit can vary in salicylate content; also that in general, parents are quite good at finding their child's tolerance level. She has evolved a simple five-day plan which a parent or teacher can use to discover whether food chemicals and salicylates are at the root of a child's behaviour or learning problems.
Further Australian Research In the 80's, Australian dietitian Dr Anne Swain, and others at the Sydney University and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, analysed 333 foods and other items, to discover their content of salicylate. The work was reported in an article, "Salicylate in Foods" by Anne Swain and others, in the Journal of the American Dietetic Assn., August 1985. The foods are divided into categories and listed with their salicylate content in milligrams per 100 grammes of food.
Robert Buist made use of this information in his book "Food Chemical Sensitivity" arranging the items into five groups:- Negligible salicylate up to .1 mg per 100 grammes; Low salicylate .1 mg to .5 mg per 100 grammes; Medium salicylate .5 mg to 1 mg per 100 grammes; High salicylate 1 mg to 5 mg per 100 grammes and Very High salicylate over 5 mg per 100 grammes.
Since 1985, the Sydney team have extended their research to cover amines and MSG, two other food chemicals occurring naturally in foods. Their work culminated in a recipe book entitled, "Friendly Food: the complete guide to avoiding allergies, additives and problem chemicals" by Anne Swain, V.L. Soutter and R.H. Loblay. It contains a 16 page introduction which includes eight pages of charts showing the content of salicylate, amines and MSG in fruits, vegetables and many other foods and substances. The charts are in columns headed low, moderate, high and very high to show the quantity of food chemicals in each item.
For foods that contain only salicylates, the charts show the levels. Where there is a combination of chemicals, the amount of salicylate is not given; only the total quantity of chemicals. Dr Swain thinks that chemically sensitive people probably react to amines as well as salicylate, and that many hyperactive children react to both salicylates in fruit and vegetables and also to amines in cheese, chocolate, bananas, etc.
Amines are suspected of causing migraine. Two Auckland boys suffered from both hyperactivity and migraine; their mothers thought amines more of a problem than salicylates. They wrote a low-amine recipe book entitled "Real Food Cookbook" by Hauf and Anderson.
Baking recipes in Friendly Food (and also those in the Feingold Cookbook) use sugar freely. Those using a sugar-free diet, could still use these recipes, reducing the sugar or omitting it. Dr Feingold's advice was to reduce the sugar by a teaspoonful every time you make the item.
Feingold's Salicylate fruits compared with Anne Swain's The high salicylate fruits named by Feingold, correlate fairly well with Anne Swain's research. However, grapefruit, kiwifruit, and pineapple are "allowed" in the American Feingold Handbook but are rated very high in chemicals in the Australian book Friendly Food; so use these fruits cautiously, and avoid them in stage one of the diet, ie. for the first month or six weeks.
Fruits and vegetables vary in their composition according to their variety and the time of season. Fruits harvested early in the season are higher in salicylate than riper fruit. All varieties of peas, beans, lentils seem to be low in salicylate except broad beans. These are moderate in salicylate but contain amines, making them very high in total chemicals.
Final Remark There is an old saying that fruit is golden in the morning, silver at midday, lead at night. Maybe a sensitive individual can tolerate it better in the morning when refreshed by a night's sleep. One mother at least, found her children slept better when she gave them no fruit after 3 pm. This could also benefit bedwetters. Bedwetting and night terrors seem to be linked with salicylate sensitivity, and improve with the Feingold programme.
Chemically sensitive people may react to pesticide residues in foods. Commonsense Organics, near the corner of Wakefield and Tory Streets, Wellington, sells spray free organic fruits/vegetables. Or write to the NZ Organic Growers assn., PO Box 306, Napier, for a list of growers who supply organically grown produce by the case.
The book entitled "Salicylate/Aspirin Sensitivity" by the Feingold Assn of US (FAUS). It has 28 pages of useful information about managing salicylate and chemical sensitivity. Ask your local library to buy it, or order a copy for yourself, from FAUS, PO Box 6550, Alexandria, VA 22306, USA.
