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Guar Gum diarrhoea

Late back from work on Wednesday night it felt too late to cook but I wanted something so I opened a can of coconut milk.  Lovely.   Within 15 minutes my gut was bubbling.   In the middle of the night  - 3am - I got up and had an explosive liquid shit.  Fantastic.  Final dribble first thing in the morning......

Interesting listening the next day to the superb  Paleo-Nerd-A-Thon! podcast with Robb Wolf, Matt Lalonde and Chris Kresser,  Matt mentioend that some people struggle to tolerate coconut milk, not due to the milk itself but the guar gum ingredient which is a legume.

Time to check the labels more closely in future.
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Comments

Aileen said…
Interesting. I've had three episodes of a similar thing lately and haven't been able to correlate it to anything obvious - or so I thought. I will look a little deeper.
April 29, 2011 at 1:15 AM
Eric said…
Have you eaten that much coconut milk (or any other fat) in one sitting before? I find that pretty much any fat in too high a quantity leads to a scenario like that for me, guar gum or no.
April 29, 2011 at 3:57 AM
John said…
If it is the guar gum, it sucks because I haven't found any canned coconut milk without it.
April 29, 2011 at 6:10 AM
Methuselah said…
Chris - you have my sympathy! The crap you get in coconut milk has been pissing me off for years. The effects it had on you remind me of what dairy does to me.

Anyway, for john's and others' benefits, I can happily say that there ARE brands who do not put guar gum, starch or other garbage in their tins or cartons of coconut cream. A good sign is when the product comes 'settled' so that you have to mix the almost solid cream with the liquid to get a proper cream again. This is how non additive-riddled coconut cream behaves.

Look out for 'Ayam' (cans) and Chaokoh (cartons). I have ordered from these two sites in the past:

http://www.thai-food-online.co.uk
http://www.raanthai.co.uk

I did some blog posts about this last year:

http://paynowlivelater.blogspot.com/2010/08/dear-tropical-sun-why-is-there-crap-in.html
April 30, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Spencer King said…
I'll second what Eric said. While I have no doubt that guard gum has some effect, if I ate that much fat in one sitting I'd get the runs too.
May 2, 2011 at 7:38 PM
Anonymous said…
Chris,

It is the amount of guar gum in coconut milk that is the real culprit.

Many packaged foods have guar gum in them, but coconut milk has some of the highest concentrations.

The same thing happens to me from coconut milk Chris.

Cheers,
Marc
Feel Good Eating
May 4, 2011 at 3:51 AM
Mike OD said…
Ha..I feel for you Chris. I tried my experiment with coconut milk shakes once....left me with a similar "cleansing" experience.

Will probably be some celebrity detox weight loss diet soon....a can of coconut milk a day.
May 4, 2011 at 1:24 PM
Anonymous said…
goya brand is readily available at the store, and doesnt have guar gum. you have to blend it since it separates, but you can taste the difference for sure. and no squirts.
May 7, 2011 at 8:09 PM
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May 9, 2011 at 11:59 PM
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