Why do I eat gluten free and drink cabbage juice? Because these two things totally saved me from a life of discomfort and knowing where the bathroom is in every super market, mall and shopping center in our area. And I always wanted to share the reasons why with you all because I feel not many people know about this. I think health issues concern everyone and even though you may not be directly affected, I’m sure you know a friend or a family member that is troubled with similar issues. I am no medical professional but I am writing this from my experience in the hopes that sharing my experiences can help someone avoid the many years of frustrations that I had to go through. I am also writing for my daughter too so that she may refer back to this post when she wants to know more about our family history of stomach problems..
So.. I think my stomach problems started way back when I was 5, living in Tunisia. The stress of going to a French kindergarten school without knowing a single word of French was too much for me and I kept having stomach aches when it was time to go to school. I heard from my sisters that I came home after couple days and announced to everyone that they should all call me “Quangtrang”(in French pronunciation) instead of JinJoo. I guess that sounded JinJoo just did not sound like French… hahaha..
The moment my mom said that I could stay home, my stomach ache went away. After missing many days of school, my mom decided (at the recommendation of a doctor) that perhaps a different, more relaxed (since the French school was a pretty strict school run by nuns). American school will maybe suit me better? And so it happens, I had a great time at the American school with no further stomach problems. But as you can expect, that was not the end of my problems..
Lesson 1: Don’t accept IBS as your diagnosis and give up on it. There may be other things you can do to help your issue.
Similar things happened throughout my life whenever a very stressful (for me anyway) situation came about and my stomach aches came and went. But after college and up until about year 2000, for about 12 years, my symptoms of diarrhea, indigestion and bloating continued and got worse over time. Then my sister #1 who is very similar to me physically in terms of our issues, told me that she was able to relieve her symptoms by going gluten free.
This was the time when people just started to talk about Celiac disease, the disease where you have an allergy to gluten. So my daughter and I went and got tested for Celiac disease and we both tested negative. And so because we did not have Celiac, at first, I didn’t really think to go gluten free. But our stomach issues continued and in 2008, I took my daughter to a GI specialist to get to the bottom of all her problems. And after a battery of tests, Irritable Bowl Syndrome (IBS) was the only diagnosis the doctor could come up with while shrugging her shoulders. Which meant, there is no cure, you just live with it and manage it through diet.
Well, that’s just dandy….isn’t it?? I mean, what are you supposed to do?
Often times, medical doctors will tell you that if it’s not life threatening then sorry but just live with it. Go home, learn to manage it yourself cause we have no idea how to fix it. I refused to accept that. There must be a reason and there must be something one can do to help. IBS is just so vague.
Lesson 2: Even though you may test negative for Celiac, I think you can still have sensitivity to gluten.
So on our own, we decided go gluten free. And that was like a miracle!! Well, at least for me.
It cleared things up for me just after few days of going gluten free. But for my daughter it was a bit different. Although it made things better, it didn’t clear up things completely. BTW, actually for her, symptoms were a bit different. She also had bloating, so much that it even hurt her belly but not diarrhea. She was at the other end of the spectrum – constipation.
Lesson 3: Too much acid in your stomach can cause a variety of symptoms other than the classic ones that you hear about.
Hmm..now what can it be? Fast forward few years and I am now living in Korea. My daughter came to visit in the summer of her senior year in college and her symptoms have worsened. I also started to develop a new symptom of feeling like there was something stuck in my throat and then the old symptom of diarrhea came back (now sometimes 10 times a day) even though I was not eating much gluten in Korea.
So we went and saw a GI specialist in Korea. Funny thing, the doctor heard our symptoms and right away, she says that it’s because we have too much acid in our stomach due to stress and other factors. So I asked, how can that be? We don’t have the classic symptoms of heartburn or acid reflux… she said, “Oh, not everyone has those symptoms..”
We got some strong antacid medications and boy, we both got better really fast!!
Lesson 4: If you stop antacid medications too suddenly, more acid comes back with a vengeance.
OK. So this is great. But, I hate taking medicines long term because they always have side effects. EVERY human made drug has side effects and the longer you are on them, you will end up taking more pills to fix the never ending side effects and sometimes you get new diseases as a result. This is my theory so I try to go off medications and find a more natural solution if possible.
Hmm.. now when I got off antacid medications (e.g. Zantac), I didn’t know (and the doctor failed to tell me) that if I stop too suddenly, the stomach acid comes back with a vengeance. Yikes.. that was NOT good! Then, my sister #3 told me about how her friend drank cooked cabbage juice for few months and cured her stomach acid problem completely. So I decided to give it a try and what do you know?!!
Green cabbage is MUCH better than any antacid medication!!
And this is what I wanted to share with you all –
SOLUTION: Try drinking cooked cabbage smoothie if you have too much acid in your stomach! Also try avoid gluten at the same time.
MY CABBAGE SMOOTHIE RECIPE:
- Boil or steam green cabbage leaves for good 15-20 minutes until they are fully cooked.
- Blend cabbages and some of the cooked liquid to make a smoothie. The finer you blend the cabbages the better. Add more liquid if you like yours more watery.
- Make a big batch and keep leftover in the fridge. It will stay fresh for several days. You can also freeze it.
HOW TO DRINK:
- Whenever you feel your stomach is too empty and feeling the symptoms of acid like first in the morning
- After a meal when you feel things are not digesting well or if you feel you have too much acid.
- Drink anywhere from 4 – 8 oz each time. You should feel relief right away.
- Drink for a week at least or longer based on how you feel.
FYI – drinking cabbage smoothie for a week or more is NOT going to cure your problems once and for all. I do have recurrences but it has happened only every few months so far. And I have to confess, for me it reoccurred mainly because I was basically bad. I either went off my gluten free diet and ate too much gluten for days or if I skipped meals. I found that these things bring back my usual problems of too much acid in my stomach, bloating, indigestion and then diarrhea.
PLEASE go visit a doctor first and try to get a proper diagnosis. I tried the cabbage regimen because I did NOT yet have peptic ulcer or acid reflux but other symptoms of too much acid in my stomach (stomach pain, bloating, diarrhea, indigestion). You should always go to a doctor first to make sure you don’t have anything serious. But if you don’t want to continue to take antacid medicines forever, then you may be in an area where this may be helpful. I tried taking Tums and they only last for 5 minutes and my symptoms of acidic stomach comes back right away. But when I drink my cabbage smoothie, I’m OK for few hours or longer and eventually I feel back to normal within a few days as long as I watch my diet at the same time.
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS
If you have bloating, indigestion, diarrhea or constipation along with other symptoms of acidic stomach, you could make things better by trying the following:
- Make cabbage smoothie and drink often throughout the day whenever you feel uncomfortable
- Continue drinking cabbage smoothie for several days to weeks
- Never skip meals, eat a full healthy meal and never leave your stomach too empty too long
- Avoid gluten (this may apply to you or not but definitely try it)
- Avoid the usual stuff – acidic foods, too spicy foods and too greasy foods, coffee
- Add more probiotics like yogurt and kimchi to your diet 🙂
Again this is all just from my personal experience but there is also quite a bit of write up online about how cabbage is good for stomach ulcers. An article in Western Journal of Medicine writes “The average crater healing time for six patients with gastric ulcer treated with cabbage juice was only 7.3 days, compared with 42 days, as reported in the literature, for six patients treated by standard therapy. ”
Also, an article in Natural News talks about an experiment – “In a double blind study of 45 inmates at San Quentin Prison in California, 93 percent of the ulcers in prisoners taking cabbage juice concentrate in capsules – the equivalent of a fresh quart of cabbage juice every day – were healed after three weeks. Only 32 percent of the ulcers healed in those taking a dummy capsule.”
So you see, it’s not just me.. 😄
But I have to say I did not experience much relief from just eating raw cabbages as part of a meal like in salads. I only found immediate relief when I drank a smoothie consistency cooked cabbage juice. I can feel it coat my throat and stomach as it goes down. Cooked cabbage juice also tastes much better than raw in my opinion. 😉
Well, I hope this is helpful to some of you out there.
Have a happy week everyone!
XOXO
JinJoo
Sandy says
I’ve emailed through the “contact” button several times, but have had no response. Could you check your inbox or spam and get back to me please? Thanks, your article on gluten free eating and cabbage juice is great! I just had some additional questions…
JinJoo says
Oh no! I’m so sorry… I have not received any emails and I think there is something wrong with my contact form. I just tested it myself and I am not getting anything…Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention. I am going to ask my web company to take a look right away. In the mean time, you can always just email me directly at jinjoofood (at) gmail.com.
JinJoo says
Hi Sandy, So we just fixed the contact form but sadly the previous submissions through the contact form is lost. You can resubmit again now or you can just email me your questions directly to jinjoofood (at) gmail.com. So sorry and thank you so much for not giving up!
Kitchen-Counter-Culture says
Thank you so much for sharing this- especially the personal details about your experience in school as a little girl. xxx What I’m curious about– you are such a maker and eater of fermented foods, what role do you think these have played in your healing? x
JinJoo says
Hi! You are so welcome and sorry for the late reply. I was trying to get my thoughts together and kept getting interrupted. Weekends are so hard..Anyway, great question about fermented foods. I haven’t really thought about it separately but now that you ask, I think it definitely helped me while I was in Korea. You see, it’s like a before and after. 🙂 Before I went to Korea, living outside for 20 years, I have kind of forgotten how real home fermented foods and seasonings taste like. While in Korea, I got to eat the REAL STUFF. Gochujang Doenjang,Kimchi that are still live with bacteria (store bought ones are almost dead except for Kimchi). Overall, my stomach felt much better while I was in Korea except I did go through a time when I was extra stressed and ended up having the acid stomach issue.
Thank you so much for the question. I am just realizing how I have changed after. As you see on my blog, I really now want to make my own fermented foods at home including Doenjang someday.
And of course, I’m sure you are aware that there’s a WHOLE amount of research about the benefits of Korean fermented foods. There is a version of Doenjang called Cheongukjang (similar to Japanese Natto) that is well known to have cancer curing properties. There is a famous Doctor who got stage 3 intestinal cancer but cured himself by eating Cheongukjang and ended up opening up a Cheongukjang Stew restaurant and closed his practice. haha..Kimchi is also well known.
Well, hope that answered your question. Good to hear from you!!
Eddie West says
For me, it is the carbohydrates in wheat that gives me the bloating issues. I’ve done FODMAP dietary exclusions thay have helped a lot. Avoiding certain carbs helps with my bloating, swelling, digestion.
JinJoo says
OH I see! That’s very interesting..I’m not very familiar with FODMAP but will have to look it up. Thanks so much for sharing!
annieblinn says
Thanks for sharing! I think this might help me. I have gone to acupuncture to help me but need to get a tune up once in awhile. Do I get the American cabbage and use it all to make this?
JinJoo says
Great! Yes, get the common regular American green cabbage. If you cooked the whole cabbage you should have enough to last you for many days which means you may want to freeze some of it. I usually cook about 1/2 a cabbage and that lasts for few days without it going bad. Thanks so much for asking!!
dimora de la noche says
Thanks so much for posting this! i have gluten & lactose sensitivities and my stomach is also sensitive to oily/heavy foods in general. I never knew about the cabbage smoothie method of easing the stomach! I always fasted whenever i had an upset stomach (diarrhea), because over the counter medicine usually made me constipated and Chinese Herbal medicine only worked to minimal degree … like when i over ate foods i liked during my childhood the medicine did not work at all, but fasting for a day cleared out my system.
i’m going to try the cabbage smoothie now 🙂 especially at times when i’m hungry but i don’t want to eat much because my stomach is feeling upset. Thanks!
Btw do you know anyone who gets a headache from drinking green tea on an empty stomach? i only know 1 other person who gets that like i do … all i have to do is eat a little bit of food with my tea to solve that, but i’m curious about what other people know about this. I can drink any other tea made from the tea tree plant and i’m fine, it’s Just green tea. Yerba Mate also makes my feel odd if i drink it on an empty stomach but that is not made from the tea tree plant and it’s Different.
JinJoo says
So good to hear from you! Yes, some people do say fasting works – it basically lets your stomach rest. So as far as green tea goes, talking from the Oriental Medicine perspective, green tea is a COLD food and is not good for COLD stomach like yourself. One theory says that when someone with cold stomach drinks cold green tea, the stomach draws all the blood from the rest of the body to digest it and when your brain lacks a bit of blood, it can give you a headache. When you have it with food, most likely it dilutes the COLDness of the tea.
A major difference between green tea and black tea is how they are processed. Again oriental medicine says that the processing that goes into black tea (drying, heating, baking) which is not present in green tea, increases the “warm” in the tea and so black tea is less COLD than green tea.
So overall, you may look into warm and cold foods in oriental medicine and you may want to eat more warm foods or eat cold foods but balance it out with warm foods. Koreans are masters at doing this with their food. Reason why you eat ginger(warm) with pork(cold). A good warm tea is Korean Corn Tea. Barley, buckwheat, burdock are all cold teas.
Hope this helps!
JinJoo says
Oh and flour is a COLD food. So that’s probably why you don’t do well with it. In terms of meat, pork is cold, beef and fish are neutral, chicken is warm. I also used to have lactose sensitivity but I think that kind of goes with how upset your stomach is. Now that my stomach is better, I can drink milk no problem. Milk is neutral btw…