*Disclaimer - Carrageenan is harful. Thread closed*

Hi everyone, my name (on here anyway) is Lelu and I'm 25 years old. I posted something once a few months ago but never introduced myself. I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease last September. I never had any digestive problems before in my life so it was so strange when I suddenly got symptoms. It started with abdominal pain that kept getting worse. I had some diarrhea off and on, but my main symptom was the pain. My stomach would also get very bloated. I was suspected to have Crohn's disease so I was prescribed Budesonide. After a few the pain just got worse. I started vomiting one night and the pain was excruciating. I went to the hospital at around 3 in the morning. They were worried I had a bowel obstruction but luckily I didn't. They found I had a slight perforation in my colon and a lot of swelling. I was put on a bunch of antibiotics, probiotics and other medications. I believe they started me on Asacol as well. I was in the hospital for 4 days and they had me on a clear liquid diet, then a full liquid diet. I am a vegan so in a hospital that meant pretty much vegetable broth, flavored ice, coffee, and tea. I needed painkillers most of my stay (dilaudid). By the time I was discharged though I felt much better. The pain slowly returned after a while though, and my GI doc wanted to put me on a different treatment because he said Asacol isn't really for Crohns, its for UC. He started me on Remicade and shortly after 6MP. The 6MP made me so nauseated though that I just couldn't handle it so I stopped taking it. I was miserable on it. The Remicade seems to help, but I still have pain almost almost every day. I've been taking vicodin for pain. I am moving soon and will need to find a new doctor. The past few days my pain has increased, but I think it may be because I have been experimenting with egg-like dishes using black salt (which contains sulfur) and drinking mango based juices (high fructose). I stopped drinking the juice and using black salt so hopefully that helps. I've tried gluten free a little while ago but admittedly it was only for about 3-4 days. It didn't seem to do much and I just didn't want to give up bread, seitan (vegan wheat "meat") etc. I have also cut carrageenan out of my diet a long time ago since I read about the connection, but I've messed up a few times.

Anyways, sorry for the long intro. Any suggestions for good/bad foods specifically for a vegan? I'm just now experimenting with the fructose thing, and I hope that isn't the issue for me because my diets becoming pretty limiting! Lots of fructose in many fruits, a lot of fiber in many veggies/legumes, wheat in seitan, etc etc. I'm still not sure exactly what causes my symptoms, but so far it seems whole corn is no good (processed corn like tortilla/chips seem ok though), and I'm also avoiding whole nuts/seeds as much as possible. I seem to handle mashed potatoes and potatoes in general pretty well. I think tofu is ok but its hard to tell since I usually add lots of stuff to it. I'm also sure to buy carrageenan free almond milk or make my own. I also try to add turmeric to dishes if possible, but I haven't in a while. I've been trying to take vitamins/supplements but I'm not super consistent. I have been more consistent with a general multivitamin but I have a bunch of other vitamins too with higher amounts but I hate taking too many pills so usually its just the multivitamin, sometimes and omega 3 supplement and sometimes Florastor. I know I need to be more consistent though. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this and I look forward to the insights you all can give!

Hi, just wanted to tell you about a great diet section we have on the front forum page:
Diet, Fitness, and Supplements
Everything dealing with fitness, food, supplements and diets can be found here.
Sub-Forums: Juicing, SCD and Paleo Diets, Cooking With Crohn'sdiet

I hope you find a good diet that works well for you

Hi, yes I have browsed the section before but there's not a lot of vegan specific info, but I do believe I found a little bit on it before. Just makes it hard when this disease affects us all so differently. Thanks though!

SO MUCH FOR THE MYTHS
CONSIDER THE FACTS ON CARRAGEENAN FOR A CHANGE
Q. What is Carrageenan??
A. Carrageenan is a naturally-occurring seaweed extract. It is widely used in foods and non-foods to improve texture and stability. Common uses include meat and poultry, dairy products, canned pet food, cosmetics and toothpaste.
Q. Why the controversy?
A. Self-appointed consumer watchdogs have produced numerous web pages filled with words condemning carrageenan as an unsafe food additive for human consumption. However, in 70+ years of carrageenan being used in processed foods, not a single substantiated claim of an acute or chronic disease has been reported as arising from carrageenan consumption. On a more science-based footing, food regulatory agencies in the US, the EU, and in the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) repeatedly review and continue to approve carrageenan as a safe food additive.
Q. What has led up to this misrepresentation of the safety of an important food stabilizer, gelling agent and thickener?
A. It clearly has to be attributed to the research of Dr. Joanne Tobacman, an Associate Prof at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She and a group of molecular biologists have accused carrageenan of being a potential inflammatory agent as a conclusion from laboratory experiments with cells of the digestive tract. It requires a lot of unproven assumptions to even suggest that consumption of carrageenan in the human diet causes inflammatory diseases of the digestive tract. The objectivity of the Chicago research is also flawed by the fact that Dr Tobacman has tried to have carrageenan declared an unsafe food additive on weak technical arguments that she broadcast widely a decade before the University of Chicago research began.
Q. What brings poligeenan into a discussion of carrageenan?
A. Poligeenan (“degraded carrageenan” in pre-1988 scientific and regulatory publications) is a possible carcinogen to humans; carrageenan is not. The only relationship between carrageenan and poligeenan is that the former is the starting material to make the latter. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan and cannot be produced in the digestive tract from carrageenan-containing foods.
Q. What are the differences between poligeenan and carrageenan?
A. The production process for poligeenan requires treating carrageenan with strong acid at high temp (about that of boiling water) for 6 hours or more. These severe processing conditions convert the long chains of carrageenan to much shorter ones: ten to one hundred times shorter. In scientific terms the molecular weight of poligeenan is 10,000 to 20,000; whereas that of carrageenan is 200,000 to 800,000. Concern has been raised about the amount of material in carrageenan with molecular weight less than 50,000. The actual amount (well under 1%) cannot even be detected accurately with current technology. Certainly it presents no threat to human health.
Q. What is the importance of these molecular weight differences?
A. Poligeenan contains a fraction of material low enough in molecular weight that it can penetrate the walls of the digestive tract and enter the blood stream. The molecular weight of carrageenan is high enough that this penetration is impossible. Animal feeding studies starting in the 1960s have demonstrated that once the low molecular weight fraction of poligeenan enters the blood stream in large enough amounts, pre-cancerous lesions begin to form. These lesions are not observed in animals fed with a food containing carrageenan.
Q. Does carrageenan get absorbed in the digestive track?
A. Carrageenan passes through the digestive system intact, much like food fiber. In fact, carrageenan is a combination of soluble and insoluble nutritional fiber, though its use level in foods is so low as not to be a significant source of fiber in the diet.
Summary
Carrageenan has been proven completely safe for consumption. Poligeenan is not a component of carrageenan.
Closing Remarks
The consumer watchdogs with their blogs and websites would do far more service to consumers by researching their sources and present only what can be substantiated by good science. Unfortunately we are in an era of media frenzy that rewards controversy.
Additional information available:
On June 11th, 2008, Dr. Joanne Tobacman petitioned the FDA to revoke the current regulations permitting use of carrageenan as a food additive.
On June 11th, 2012 the FDA denied her petition, categorically addressing and ultimately dismissing all of her claims; their rebuttal supported by the results of several in-depth, scientific studies.
If you would like to read the full petition and FDA response, they can be accessed at the regulations.gov website

Source please? I have found peer reviewed sources that state both degraded and degraded forms of carrageenan may cause IBD like symptoms and other problems. All I know is I'm not taking a chance on it anymore. I found it odd that I'm the only one in my family with IBD and that symptoms started after I had increased my consumption of carrageenan after going vegan. Could just be a coincidence, but maybe not. But now that I have Crohn's I just need advice on how best to deal with it now, especially with my diet. Thank you. Oh, also just wanted to add I've had allergy testing done and according to the results I have no food allergies.

Wow Debbie, this is a new low...posting in a Crohn's forum?

Debbie Young works for Ingredients Solutions Inc., the world's largest independent carrageenan supplier. That FAQ is pasted from her company's website. You think she has a vested interest???

Coming in here and passing off your company's talking points to people SUFFERING FROM A DISEASE is abhorrent! The evidence — from INDEPENDENT scientists not funded by YOUR INDUSTRY — show this stuff could be causing terrible digestive problems for millions of Americans and you show your mug in a Crohn's disease site?

HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT, DEBBIE?!

I'm locking this thread. Carrageenan is harmful. End of discussion. To learn the truth read the forum wiki which talks about WHY it's actually harmful. http://www.crohnsforum.com/wiki/Carrageenan

Thread closed.