Food and Metabolic Health

Here’s Why and How I Started Eating Cream, Eggs, and Kefir Again.

I learned a valuable lesson from my experimentation of re-introducing my favorite foods to my diet.

Purpose of the Article

This article aims to share my experience introducing three foods to my diet and highlighting their nutritional values. I see food as medicine in my holistic health approach.

I mentioned these specific foods as they initially caused side effects, so I had to remove them from my diet. The readers might customize my method to re-introduce their favorite and neglected food groups to their diets.

This article does not recommend any foods and provides NO health advice. My goal is to provide principles of elimination diets for awareness and information purposes based on my experience.

Why I Decided to Include These 3 Foods in My Diet

Like some people, I had issues with some foods causing digestive disorders. Some of us are intolerant to a particular food, and some even can be allergic to it.

When designing my personalized diet, in addition to some plants, a few animal products also caused me discomfort, so I eliminated them diligently.

However, I truly missed these three foods that I gave up, thinking they gave me digestive discomfort. One of them was egg yolks. They were my favorites.

A friend who once introduced me to egg yolks recently read one of my stories titled Here’s Why I Don’t Eat Eggs Anymore, But I Still Adore Them posted in June 2022. He is a trusted friend with solid nutritional knowledge, and he sensibly experiments to transform his own and the health of his clients.

He thought I was making a mistake as egg yolks would not cause trouble if I had them before with no problem. He believed that perhaps the problem was due to the egg whites or interaction with other foods in my diet.

Another friend with a dairy farmer, who is also a nutritionist, encouraged me to slowly introduce whipped cream and kefir to my diet. I followed her advice and kept a record of my progress. I share my findings in the subsequent sections.

I briefly introduce why and how I re-introduced these three foods.

Here’s Why I Started Eating Egg Yolks Again.

I’d like to start with eggs as they are special to me.

As I mentioned in a story titled Here’s Why I Don’t Eat Eggs Anymore, But I Still Adore Them, eggs were my favorite food in my childhood. Until recently, I did not have a problem.

My biohacker friend, considering my prior love affair and comfort with eggs, said that other factors possibly caused the food intolerance of eggs. He said it was either egg whites or eating eggs with other food which caused conflict.

He suggested that I slowly introduce egg yolks once a day, an hour before my main meal. The idea resonated well with me. So, I swallowed one egg yolk an hour before my dinner. I eat only one nutritious meal daily nowadays.

Gratefully, I did not feel any discomfort after taking one egg on an empty stomach. Since there were no side effects, I continued it for the last six weeks. It made me very happy. My childhood memories came back.

I haven’t finalized my objective results yet. However, my subjective feelings, especially from the cognitive tests that I applied, showed favorable results.

The key nutrients in eggs are healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) and important vitamins like A, B1/2/5/6/12, E, K, folate, betaine, and choline. For me, an adequate amount of choline and DHA are significant in my diet to maintain my neurological and mental health.

Eggs also include minerals like calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, zinc, selenium, fluoride, copper, and manganese. I also love eating cholesterol-rich food, unlike some other people. I overcame my fatphobia, which gave me nightmares in my younger years.

I believe choline in egg yolks was the contributor to my cognitive enhancement. I usually consume beef liver as part of my keto-carnivore diet. However, I recently had to reduce it a bit as finding the organic one was a bit of a challenge. So introducing eggs was timely for me to fill in the gaps when I couldn’t find beef liver.

I designed some objective measures to identify the benefits of egg yolks, especially in my blood markers. I will share the results in another article when I analyze them in detail.

Here’s Why I Started Eating Whipped Cream Again.

I always loved whipped cream. My grandparents used to do it for us in childhood. After eggs, whipped cream was my favorite food. It still gives me heavenly pleasure.

I used to add it to my coffee to give flavor. However, I had discernible digestive discomfort during those days. I thought dairy was the cause of it. So, I stopped adding cream to my coffee. But it did not make any difference. The culprit was coffee, not cream. So I gave it up.

I haven’t drunk coffee for several years, which has improved my digestive condition. However, I neglected my favorite food, whipped cream, during that time.

Recently, I visited the farm of family friends. They create organic dairy products and sell them to selected clients. The female owner is also a certified nutritionist specializing in ketogenic diets.

They offered me some freshly prepared cream. It was an hour before my dinner. Similar to egg yolks, I tried one spoonful of them. Like eggs, whipped cream did not cause any discomfort. The taste took me to a heavenly domain.

Furthermore, it gave me additional physical and mental energy. Maybe it is a placebo effect as I have loved whipped cream since childhood, but I felt it subjectively, which satisfied my needs.

I thought whipped cream would break my fast. But when I checked my blood glucose and ketones, I did not notice a change in blood glucose and even caught some increase in ketones after two hours.

With this confidence, I took a spoon of whipped cream and egg yolk. They together work well and increase my energy and boost my mood.

I enjoy reliving my childhood. I consume my food mindfully and with gratitude. I never take any bite for granted. I also don’t waste any food and don’t enjoy eating out.

I made a minor adjustment to my daily fasting regimen. So my fast window was reduced to 21 hours instead of 22 hours. I enjoy three hours of eating window. It does not affect my insulin sensitivity. One-time release of my insulin and mTOR daily helps me keep my lean muscles.

In addition to choline, phosphorus, and calcium, whipped cream also includes fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K.

Some people still fear dairy fat. However, recent studies seem to reduce the concerns. There are many references in the literature, but I provide two links for those who are interested in whole-fat dairy products.

This 2014 study titled “Whole-fat dairy food intake is inversely associated with obesity prevalence: findings from the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk Factors” positively changed the perspectives of the public on dairy products.

NPR reported another interesting and valuable study in 2016 titled The Full-Fat Paradox: Dairy Fat Linked To Lower Diabetes Risk.

Here’s Why I Started Eating Kefir Again.

For many years, I made my own kefir as the commercial ones had added sugar and other chemicals which I did not want to ingest into my body.

I buy organic milk and add kefir grains to it. Within 24 hours, the milk gets fermented. Then I keep it in the fridge. The grains stop growing in the fridge and stay as a tasty drink.

When using an elimination diet, I thought one of the culprits was dairy. Therefore, I stopped drinking kefir. Even though kefir has negligible lactose, I still felt some discomfort when I consumed it.

By trial and error, I noticed that the problem was eating kefir with my main meal. It seemed to conflict with some foods. Since kefir always makes me sleepy after taking it, I decided to have it an hour before sleep time. I go to bed at least four hours after my main meal. So it is relatively an empty stomach.

I started with a minimal amount, like only one teaspoon. Then I increased it to a half tablespoon. This small amount does not give me any discomfort. In addition, it does not raise my blood sugar and does not take me out of ketosis.

While giving me a good night of restorative sleep, it also feeds my microbiome. Kefir includes a variety of microorganisms that can feed our microbiota colonies. I read some longevity benefits of kefir that I’d like to document and share in another article.

In addition to rich probiotics, kefir also includes calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, Vitamin D, vitamin B2, and Vitamin B12.

Conclusions and Takeaways

I see food as medicine in my holistic health approach. Every bite I ingest into my body manifests as energy or a building block for my cells. Some foods give more pleasure than others linking to my childhood memories. But I am grateful for every chosen food group in my diet.

As customizing my diet brought me many benefits, I am an advocate of customized diets and believe that people should personalize their diet based on their genetics, body types, goals, and needs.

Some of us might be intolerant to certain foods and even can be allergic. Food intolerances and allergies adversely affect our health and happiness. An elimination diet is ideal.

I had to sacrifice my three foods thinking they caused digestive issues me. But I was wrong. The problem was not the food but their interaction with other foods. I had no side effects when I consumed these three foods in isolation.

As I mentioned before, diet is an individual matter. Many factors affect our food choices. As I explained in the story, there is no one-size-fits-all diet.

The essential takeaway of this story is to identify offending food and remove them from the diet to improve our digestive health. Re-introducing them at a later stage might be a viable option for some of us, as exemplified in my case.

I am delighted to continue my love affair with egg yolks, whipped cream, and kefir. They not only add nutrition to my body, but they also enhance life satisfaction and daily gratitude.

If possible, I’d like to find out your top three favorite foods in the comments section.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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