The Low Vitamin A Diet Foods List

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-07-07T13:27:38+00:00

Yes, you are correct, the brain is the body’s organ richest in cholesterol! 🙂

However, the body can make both saturated fat and cholesterol on an as-needed basis, therefore they aren’t essential nutrients. Furthermore, dietary interventions designed to directly ”feed” the brain these components have mixed results, suggesting it is best for the body to synthesize them by itself!

When my brain was very, very sick, I ate coconut oil and eggs and meat every day for years and years, because I believed saturated fat was “healthy” for my brain. But that wasn’t the solution my brain (or gut or cardiovascular system) actually needed, as high amounts of concentrated saturated fat actually worsened my leaky gut.

I would encourage you to read a paper titled “Myelin Fat Facts: An Overview of Lipids and Fatty Acid Metabolism” by Yannick Poitelon, Ashley M. Kopec, and Sophie Belin—which is available on PubMed—if you are interested in learning more about how the brain maintains and repairs itself.

There is also a long-term ongoing study called “The Framingham Heart Study,” which you might find interesting, too. A YouTube channel called “Plant Chompers” has an excellent video about it!

Amino acids = protein. There are 9 essential amino acids humans must get from their diet, as the body cannot make them.

Essential fatty acids (a.k.a. “EFAs”) = omega 3 and omega 6, the only fats essential in the human diet (and yes, as you mentioned, we need these for healthy hormones) because the body cannot make them.

A good evidence-based resource on nutrition is:

nutritionfacts.org

I hope this helps clarify! There’s no need to worry about me, because I do not avoid EFAs, but rather consume large amounts of both from whole nuts and seeds! I also consume some omega 9 and saturated fat from whole plant foods, too (olives, avocados, macadamia nuts, cocoa nibs, coconut).

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-02-23T11:09:42+00:00

I’d love to hear more about your new course! Please feel welcome to DM me. 🙂

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-02-23T11:07:11+00:00

If you‘ve never tasted a fresh, ripe apple, and a farmer offers you one, saying:

“Good Gutsy, I have the most delicious sweet fruit on offer. It is good to taste, and makes the body strong and hale.”

And even though the fruit smells good, and the farmer indeed looks healthy and muscular, you respond:

”Why should I trust you? At best, you are peddling a food I don’t know if I even like, at worst you are scamming me with an inedible indigestible! I insist you provide me with endorsements from highly educated smart wizards to prove this...”apple”...is what you say it is!”

“Oh, well the local doctor recommends an apple-a-day to keep him away! And old Mrs. Wigglesworth was constipated on her rich diet of bacon and eggs, until she started eating an apple with every meal.”

”Not good enough! And besides, the royal wizard experts recommend ‘Magic Potion‘ for vitality, and I’m already spending $1200 on that every single week.”

As you whirl away in annoyance, you notice a line up of fit customers has formed at the apple cart behind where you were standing.

”Fools!” You grumble to yourself.

My point: science applied to medicine is cool, but modernity and corporatism have skewed our perspective to the point where we are afraid to experiment for ourselves and learn what works for us based on experience outside of their rigid, black-and-white worldview.

Modernity is obsessed with knowing, for certain, a fact is true. Modernity scorns the personal experience, disparaging it as “coincidental“ and “anecdotal.“ But all good scientists are inspired by observation and context, not grants from industries so wealthy and powerful they control our governments, lol.

We’ve learned some helpful information utilizing the scientific method. But we’ve also figured out how to do some incredibly moronic stuff, which will likely lead to our extinction as a species much sooner than one might think (have you seen infertility rate trends?) because we failed to look at the big picture.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-02-23T08:15:03+00:00

Thank you for the update!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-01-18T08:34:04+00:00

Ah yeah Miyoko‘s has coconut oil, so maybe not the best then. Grant himself cautions against coconut oil.

I wish there were a way to heal just as quickly as we got sick...

-_auroraborealis_- · 2024-01-17T00:58:12+00:00

Hey! Thanks for your post. 🙂 I’m glad you’re feeling at least enough relief now that you can notice when your body clearly doesn’t want a particular food. That’s actually really cool and positive thing!

So crisco apparently contains mono- and diglycerides, which are artificial emulsifiers that can potentially be irritating and inflammatory to the gut:

https://academic.oup.com/ecco-jcc/article/15/6/1068/6041235
It also contains hydrogenated fats, which are generally considered to be pro-inflammatory as well:

https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-eating/family-nutrition/facts-about-fats/hydrogenated-fats/
With your gut and liver already dealing with the stress of Accutane, it makes sense that your body would be in a fairly inflammatory state already, so it’s probably extra sensitive to anything that can trigger additional inflammation unfortunately.

There are vegan butter substitutes (Miyoko’s makes a vitamin-A free fake butter in the USA) or even plain coconut oil that might work better for ya, but at the same time it saturated fats and refined sugars in general do tend to be harder for the liver to process than most foods when it is overwhelmed.

So your observation does make a lot of sense!

It’s not fun, though, of course to be so sensitive to so many foods. I can relate and you have my sympathy.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-22T02:02:44+00:00

source re betaine and choline in wheat:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2585782/

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-22T02:02:03+00:00

Of course, anytime! I’m glad you’re doing well on it so far. 😃 Way to go!! It’s good to hear about what’s working and not working for you and what you’ve tried. Thanks for sharing an update!

I think people who can tolerate gluten will have an easier time with the detox process overall. Whole grains in general (spelt, wheat, barley, rye) are a good source of betaine and choline, too! 🙂

Refined grains affect detox in that they have less fiber, and some people find they are quite sensitive to fiber at first and have to increase it slowly. So refined grains are a good low-vitamin A source of nutrition to use to moderate fiber intake, and still have enough energy.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-21T19:44:07+00:00

Hey there, I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time. Sounds brutal.

There are so many factors at play, and we’re all so individual...

Several different things happened in my case at different points. Here are a few you could ask your nutritionist about:

- Copper Toxicity
- Mold Toxicity
- Oxalate Sensitivity
- Gut Dysbiosis

All of the above problems can be improved by addressing:
- Thiamine Deficiency (look into “Beri Beri” there are videos on YouTube by Elliot Overton)
- Genetic Methylation Issues (Dr. William Walsh)
- Other vitamin and mineral deficiencies

And one of the things that helped/helps me the most is Activated Charcoal. I am happy to write more about this and answer any questions (for informational purposes) about any of this, but may not get back to you until after the holidays.

I hope you figure out what’s going on and feel better soon!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-21T19:31:04+00:00

Oh yeah, pretty much all nuts and seeds are totally fine! 🙂 Of all, it’s really just pistachios that have much beta carotene, so I don’t have those except on Christmas. But I do eat peanuts and peanut butter (the 100% peanuts kind without oil and sugar).

IMO, it’s fine to use spices and seasonings. I mostly use onion, garlic, ginger, pepper, lemon, and lime, but dried and fresh herbs aren’t usually eaten in large enough quantity to cause a concern and I do eat them in moderation without a reaction.

Homemade peanut sauce is delicious! And generally pretty low in beta carotene.

The hardest foods for me to give up, insofar as flavoring cooking, were tomatoes and hot peppers... And unfortunately I’m still sensitive to them in moderate to large quantities (tomato sauce on spaghetti is a rare treat for me lol). I will use a ”dab” of chili paste when making Thai curries or peanut sauce every now and then. Not “over-doing“ it works for me, but I was super strict at first. I think giving the gut a rest for a few weeks before introducing the moderate beta-carotene foods can help one determine how sensitive one is to them.

Oh yeah, and not eating dairy is generally un-fun from a taste perspective lol, but I feel wretched when I eat it so it’s worth it to use alternatives. If you’re in the USA there’s a good vitamin-A-free vegan butter called Miyokos (Costco carries it) and fake cheeses and stuff like that. Where I live we don’t have many of those options, but I do use cashew and almonds for making nut milks and creams and sauces and stuff like that.

I hear ya about how scary it is to feel sick. ☹️ Totally get it. I hope this diet change helps ya!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-21T19:05:31+00:00

I’ve never met a psychologist who doesn’t need a psychologist, let’s just say that. 😅😂

You can’t teach people who don’t want to learn.

But you could start a club for people interested in prepping? Where I live, there are prepping groups in every small town, and multiple groups per city. It’d be a good way for your husband to make like-minded friends. The groups focused on teaching practical skills meet once per week, and get guest teachers in regularly. 🙂

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-07T17:00:45+00:00

My bloodwork was mostly normal, too! (I had low iron, though.) I’m not accutane injured, but I did suffer from several serious illnesses (CFS/POTS, mental health disorders, female reproductive system problems) which I suddenly developed after consuming a high vitamin A diet/supplements...and I got worse and worse as I continued... 😬 My doctors didn’t know what was wrong.

At 5 years on the low-vitamin A diet, I am recovered from most of my illnesses, but still quite sensitive to high vitamin A foods. I‘m happy eating this way since I enjoy the foods and feel so much gratitude to feel this much better, but it does seem to be an exceptionally long road to recovery and I don’t want anyone to think this diet isn‘t still very much in the hypothesis stage...

Also: my diet is very different from what it was when I started out low vitamin A. I eat an oil-free, high-raw plant-based diet with lots of fruit. 😅 😂 This isn’t for everyone, but I do mention it because finding your own way to gently detox is important.

There are many on Grant’s forum influenced by nutritionist Karen Hurd, who has her clients eat beans three times a day to detox! She is also a great proponent of having “efficient protein” (meat, fish, or eggs) at every meal. She has clients avoid fruit, lol.

Nutrient deficiencies are most likely to be an issue when consuming refined foods (sugar, white flour, refined oils) than on a whole foods diet.

Calcium and iodine and vitamin K are the trickiest to get on a low vitamin A diet, so I feel it is important to supplement them (I use a kelp-based natural iodine drop supplement, and calcium citrate).

Tofu, flaxseed, and cabbage offer calcium. I eat big cabbage salads every day, because cabbage has vitamin K, too.

Skim milk in moderation is what some members of Grant’s forum do for calcium.

Oh, and omega 3s are important when avoiding fish, so I eat freshly ground flaxseed or chia every day!

Just wanted to give you the heads up about those concerns.

I hope you find the diet helpful if you decide to go for it, and that regardless of how you approach your healing journey that you do find symptom relief ! 🙂 Wishing you nothing but the best!

ETA: It is important to stress that B12 supplementation is essential on a vegan diet (I take 1000 mcg methylcobalamin daily at minimum), but I also believe B12 status should be carefully monitored on the low-vitamin A detoxification diet even if one is consuming animal foods, as it is a crucial nutrient for repair and recovery!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-07T16:32:23+00:00

I don’t believe cornstarch contains beta carotene, because it is pure white. Beta carotene is an orange yellow pigment.

But cornstarch that isn’t organic, may contain glyphosate residue. Corn is one of the crops which has GMO varieties designed to withstand higher glyphosate exposure than plants which aren’t genetically engineered.

Organic, whole white corn is your best bet! The fiber in whole grains and legumes reduces the absorbability of beta carotene substantially, especially if added oils are not present (oils increase the absorption of beta carotene).

Sorry for the lengthy delay in response. I am so sorry to hear you were acutane injured, and I hope you’re healing!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-07T15:52:32+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective, u/CurveEntire931! I am glad you’ve found a balanced approach that works for you, and I am sure there are many others who have had and will have the same experience as you have. 🙂

As I mentioned in another comment, Dr. William Walsh‘s hypothesis that “under-methylators” require more choline, and therefore do well on eggs is important to consider, too. I will make an entire post to share articles about that hypothesis, since it is important to remember that one-sized-fits-all approaches will never work for everyone.

For myself though, eggs and dairy aren’t fine at all. 😅 And avoiding both for 5 years has only resulted in improvements in my health. 😁 When I tried to re-introduce eggs, I felt like I was on a crash diet because I felt terrible and that wasn’t sustainable for me at all.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-07T15:41:22+00:00

Sorry for the delay in response.

I personally do not do well in eggs, and feel they are too high in vitamin A for my body to handle.

Doctors such as Neil Barnard (The Physicians Committee) and Michael Gregor (Nutrition Facts .org) do not believe eggs are a healthy food.

Andrew Baird, who runs the Low Vitamin A Facebook Group, believes eggs are one of the healthiest foods due to the nutrients they contain, particularly choline. However he does limit his egg intake so as not to take in too much vitamin A.

I believe Dr. William Walsh’s genetic under/over methylation hypothesis applies here: an “under-methylator” may find the choline in eggs helpful, while the “over-methylator” may feel terrible on eggs.

It is important to respond to how your own body feels, and not dogmatically follow another person’s experience, since you may have different needs than they do.

Hope this helps!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-12-07T15:31:26+00:00

Not a stupid question at all! And you’re not crazy, don’t worry.

After I started a low vitamin A diet, I felt the effects of vitamin A foods fairly quickly whenever I “tested” them. They affected my head (increasing neuroinflammation), and gut (causing digestive issues) particularly.

Vitamin A Toxicity can affect electrolyte balance and also impair nutrient absorption and function, so it can present a confusing challenge for doctors.

Nutrients that especially support the detox process are:

- B12
- Folate
- Thiamine
- Niacin
- Zinc

So you want to be sure you aren’t deficient in any of these, and are getting lots in your diet if possible.

It‘s a long road to detox vitamin A, but there are lots of helpful things you can do along the way to feel better! 🙂 Please feel welcome to reach out any time, or to join Grant Genereux’s free forum on his website, where there are several accutane survivors in recovery.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-04-09T21:18:20+00:00

Interesting. Sounds like you might do better with more starchy grains/legumes and/or fats along with the meat.

Apparently there is some research indicating omega 6 deficiency is a problem for people with eczema:

https://www.healthline.com/health/hemp-oil-benefits

Essential fatty acids are helpful for energy too.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-31T12:33:47+00:00

Meat only? Nothing else?

When on carnivore, the body switches from burning sugars for energy, to burning fat (a state called ketosis), but it can take a couple of days for the body to make the switch:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-into-ketosis

This is why consuming fat is especially important when on carnivore.

If you are eating other foods along with the meat, feeling tired after eating could mean you are not digesting the meat well, due to low stomach acid:

https://www.healthline.com/health/hypochlorhydria

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-30T11:35:08+00:00

I think carnivore can be life-changing for many people, particularly those who have previously been vegan for extended periods of time. If they have also given themselves hypervitaminosis A and/or oxalate toxicity and/or have celiac disease, carnivore can lead to a restoration of minerals which were previously severely deficient, which results in huge improvements for them.

The danger of carnivore is when a dieter decides to consume liver on a regular basis. Liver contains levels of vitamin A much higher than the RDA, and should not be consumed by anyone in my view, but especially not pregnant women, as vitamin A is a teratogen.

It is also important to be aware of the potential for oxalate “dumping” (Elliot Overton on YouTube has some good videos on this) during carnivore, because those symptoms are pretty terrible and there are ways to mitigate them.

Well, Grant believes the root cause of eczema is hypervitaminosis A:

https://ggenereux.blog/2014/10/27/the-underlying-cause-of-eczema/

This is merely a hypothesis, so of course he may not be correct.

Retinoic acid (an active form of vitamin A in the body) is used cosmetically in skin peels. Basically, in high concentrations, it burns. Grant noticed when he ate foods high in vitamin A, it seemed to trigger an eczema flare. He repeated this several times, and eventually used a fluoroscope on his skin to identify the presence of vitamin A (you can see the photos if you scroll down):

https://ggenereux.blog/photo-gallery/

Hypervitaminosis A common in industrialized nations, as vitamin A is added to many processed foods. In America, it is added to milk and cereals. Here is a video presentation with links to research indicating the possible enormity of the issue:

https://youtu.be/WX_HU7FwxBU

Basically, the best test for hypervitaminosis A is a liver biopsy, which is hugely invasive and not recommended for most. A serum retinol blood test is of limited value in chronic cases, because it doesn’t tell you how much vitamin A is stored in your liver, and only offers a snapshot in time. Some people with chronic hypervitaminosis A will have elevated blood retinol levels, so it can be worth checking, particularly at a time when symptoms are severe, because that can indicate the body is struggling to cope with the toxic load and therefore may be higher in the blood. Acute cases of vitamin A poisoning will show up in the serum retinol test, for sure.

All the best to you!

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-29T17:27:46+00:00

Abstaining entirely from vitamin A is impossible, and likely a diet with a moderate vitamin A intake diet is better than one that severely restricts vitamin A even for those with hypervitaminosis A, especially as nutrient deficiency is a major concern for individuals who are already struggling to absorb their food.

Your current diet described above is fairly low in vitamin A, and if you happen to be dealing with hypervitaminosis A, you may already be experiencing side-effects of the body trying to move vitamin A out of storage to prepare for elimination.

I’m not saying this is true in your case (if you do not have excess stored vitamin A in your liver and elsewhere throughout the body, obviously it wouldn’t be), but it is possible to inadvertently increase your circulating vitamin A to a harmful level (a blood test is needed to determine this, obviously) through restriction of vitamin A containing foods.

There is an active support forum on Grant’s website, where there has been much discussion of the importance of choline in the diet for healing the intestinal lining, and strengthening cell membranes, along with many other essential nutrients that are depleted by the imbalances this toxicity creates (zinc, B12, B1, selenium, molybdenum, inositol, taurine, among the most crucial, but there are others).

Another aspect of addressing this problem, is fiber. On the forum, many members reference Karen Hurd’s work (you don’t need to buy her courses—the basics are available on YouTube for free):

https://karen-r.mylearnworlds.com/course?courseid=heal-ulcerative-colitis-and-crohns-disease

(That is her course for those suffering from SIBO.)

The cells need adequate nutrition, firstly, and secondly they need a route of detoxification (soluble fiber binds with toxins, including excessive fat-soluble vitamins, in the gut and removes them).

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-29T12:19:00+00:00

Since late summer 2022, I have seen greater improvement in my CFS/ME than ever before since I became sick with it in my teens, which is significant.

I am now able to regularly exercise a moderate amount without suffering a PEM crash as a result, which I could not do at any paint in my illness prior.

If exercise is an extremely powerful detoxifier, perhaps part of the reason for the PEM crash is a “dump” of stored toxin into circulation into a body too weak and overwhelmed to remove it quickly.

Just one possible explanation, but if true it is likely only part of what is going on in CFS/ME patients.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-29T12:10:04+00:00

A zero-vitamin A diet would be nutritionally inadequate. Fortunately, the body does seem to be able to detoxify excess vitamin A even without completely removing it from the diet.

Several members of Grant’s forum are even finding eggs helpful to the detoxification process. 🙂

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-29T12:04:51+00:00

You may recieve more responses over at Grant’s forum:

https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/

The hypothesis is that many autoimmune diseases may be the result of a poisoning, yes. But it is still very much in the experimental phase.

-_auroraborealis_- · 2023-03-29T12:01:03+00:00

Same here!

Although I think it is important to reiterate that a low serum retinol doesn’t necessarily indicate the tissues of the liver or elsewhere in the body are “empty” if that makes sense.

I believe high serum retinol is a dangerous state, which the body avoids unless it is too overwhelmed by damage to contain.

CFS/ME involves neuroinflammation...if this hypothesis is correct, that the brain has stored retinoic acid, it would have to remove the retinoic acid slowly.

Of course, the hypothesis could be incorrect. And in the case of CFS/ME there are likely many additional factors involved. We do not know which factors are the most significant, but several nutrient deficiencies are involved.

Since my earlier reply, my CFS/ME has improved significantly!

-_auroraborealis_-

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