A member of the community writes, "the list you include in your site is a little bit confusing because the same foods are categorized as high and low at the same time, so how could I deal with it? Could you please suggest a safe free salicylate list of foods." This video covers a few concepts on how I compiled the list and why there are conflicting levels.  I consider this a research list of foods, rather than a therapeutic list that a clinic or doctor would prescribe.

Check out list of foods on website: https://low-sal-life.com/food-product-lists

 

Transcript

Hello, welcome back to low-sal-life. I'm Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. I'm still going through emails and answering questions. So I thought I'd answer the questions for you over a video. So today, this is the second part of the psoriasis question asked in the last video, the list you include in your site is a little bit confusing, because some foods are categorized as high and low at the same time. So how do I deal with this? Can you please suggest a safe free salicylate list of foods? I would appreciate your help? Yes, my list is not like the other lists. And that's probably because I'm not like the other people providing lists. I have salicylate sensitivity, I've probably had it my whole life, I do not expect it to go away. This is a long-term situation for me. And I'm fine with that. Going on a low-sal-diet has basically eliminated the majority of every single one of my problems I've had. So as long as I you know, live in a bubble, I'm good.

Trying to figure out how to manage salicylates sensitivity is very hard, because you can eat it, you can breathe into it. And you can also absorb it through your skin. So it is always very challenging to figure out what you can tolerate. And there is a lot of incomplete research on the list of salicylates in foods. There's research from all over the world except for the Americas, right? I have yet to see a list of salicylate levels and anything from the US, Canada, South America, Central America. Yeah, kind of kind of lacking.

So let's talk about my list. I am not a dietitian, I do have a biology degree. I am not a doctor, I'm not your doctor, I do not have an office you can come to and I recommend what you should and shouldn't eat. I really try not to do that when people message me and ask what's like safe or not safe? I don't know it's kind of hard. But what I can do is look through all of the research articles that have ever been published on salicylate sensitivity and do my very best to make it in a tangible, digestible place where you guys can decide whether or not you want to take the risk on what the foods are. So the way that my list is organized, so categories, there are a lot of different articles that will break up low, negligible low, moderate, high, very high, which are the categories that I chose to do mine by. The discrepancy between negligible and low and low and medium are a little wobbly, between different studies. So a lot of people will categorize them - different papers have categorized them differently. There is the RPA Hospital, they have done research on salicylate sensitivity and provide lists, they have a combined list with amines, and they just have low, moderate, high very high.

So the way that I do my list is not necessarily for you to easily pick out food, even though that's like everybody's first intermediate need. My list is to basically show how guilty or innocent a food could be based on what the tests have been in the past. If you look at my list, and you want to like start off on like the strictest diet ever, you can pull off the negligible and low list, and it's probably likely going to be safe. Even a lot of the stuff in the moderate list like iceberg lettuce, and some of the peeled pears and apples should be fine, if it’s for somebody that's quite sensitive. But basically, anytime a food has had a high list, like one high level, at any point in time, like you messed up, you tested high at one point, you automatically get kicked off the low food list and then get moved to the high list.

And so when you look at a category like Brussels sprouts, where it'll say there's a low value and high value, that means that it's had two tests, one has been low and one has been high. As long as there's a high recording for it. You are no longer innocent and you get put on the high list. I found that and this is the reason I started looking for values. I was reacting to a lot of low foods that are on dieticians like foods to get started on green beans, Brussels sprouts, green peas, cabbage, even like bamboo shoots and bean sprouts. I've been a little questionable about those. I just saw some tests. I haven't put them on my list yet but I've reacted to all of those. So the question is, why am I reacting? Am I allergic to something else or sensitive to something else? Or are the values just not very good. And so digging into it turns out that they, that these foods, once they're tested many times, sometimes they come up quite high, there have been a few foods that have tested lower.

So definitely look at like, if you really want to eat cucumbers, like look through all of the cucumber listings and try and figure out something that will work for you. So that you can have like one of your favorite foods back, I believe the long skinny cucumbers have lower value than the more traditional chubby cucumber. If you peel them, then you're gonna have lower values. So just kind of take a really close look and look at also the dates. So the newer studies are going to have a little bit more refined or like better technology for how we test foods, and just kind of look at them. So there's, there's low that, you know, they might have had a low listing, there's high like bananas are a really good one, several low tests, then a couple of really high ones,

I react to bananas, especially if they're just yellow, like even if they're a little freckled. I still react to them if they're black, or like very, very ripe. I usually am okay with it. So we don't know when their (ripeness was) tested. I've kind of wondered about avocados when they've actually done the testing on those, because I can tolerate very right avocados, but I've reacted to them if they're just moderately right.

So anyway, that's the trouble with my list. I, you know, I want you especially if you have some really tough cases to be able to just do your own discerning, work-through process on whether or not you think that the food is, is safe to eat for you. Otherwise, I recommend going in finding a dietitian or a doctor or somebody with a medical license and ask them if there's a food list that they recommend. So that's all I have for this video. I hope that that kind of clarifies how my list is set up. And that I do want to say that I'm always like I have maybe five research articles, I need to go through and add values to this list. So come back regularly because I do add to it.

I do appreciate you guys sending me lists, like research articles that you might find or you have questions about again, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is my email address. So definitely send me those research articles. I will get them up and I have a feeling that we're going to outgrow this one-page list format here pretty soon. So hopefully in a year or so I can update the database so it's easier to search for what you're looking for. Alright, that's all I got for today. I'll see you guys later. Bye.