Disclaimer: We are not medical doctors. Nothing in this article constitutes medical advise. This article is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are experiencing health issues please contact your qualified medical provider.
Intolerances and allergies
We have been looking at food for some time, trying to work out which foods are healthier and which are not so healthy. A lot of processed food on British supermarket shelves historically, has contained wheat and dairy. Increasingly people are developing intolerances and allergies to these two groups of foodstuffs. There are multiple replacements in the supermarket ‘Free From’ isles which include seed oil butters and oils, nut and grain milks, soya, maize, rice and potato pastas, breads puddings, cakes and biscuits. But still more intolerances and allergies are revealing themselves. Nut allergy is one of the most serious and wide spread allergies, but reactions to different types of nuts can be inconsistent. Some people will be allergic to peanuts but be fine with most other nuts. Some will be allergic to every type of nut.
There are other groups of foods that seem to be creating issues as well, from soya, sesame, citrus fruit, berries, solanaceae (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, cilli, aubergines, courgettes), onions and garlic to herbs, crustaceans, mushrooms and even, supposedly, compounds in food. The British Anaphylaxis Organisation identifies that some chemical groups in fresh produce can create allergic reactions, such a salicylates, sulphites and amines.
People who never seemed to react to anything are suddenly reacting to foods, and the list of possible reactions is growing longer. So the question is, are people becoming more sensitive to exactly the same compounds or is something happening to the food? Or perhaps a bit of both.
Crop success and failure
To confirm what we have been hearing over the last two or three years we asked people in the UK what kind of success they were having with crops and which plantings were failing (thank you for your input on Twitter, Signal and Telegram). By looking at location, exposure and planting techniques, there seems to be a definite pattern. Where people have established polytunnels, greenhouses, pots and raised beds with new, enriched and mulched soil, the crops seem to be doing well generally. Fruit bearing bushes that are well established and protected seem to have a better chance of a good yield, than newer or more unprotected plants.
When it comes to location however, success seems to be heavily affected by air quality, storms and subsequent soil quality. In the areas where we know air quality to be specifically poor, crops have struggled or failed completely. These conditions are then made worse by storm conditions particularly as a result of lightning. Many seedlings have taken off more slowly than normal, produce is stunted in growth, blighted, pest ridden or deformed. It seems that, regardless of efforts to protect plants in these areas, problems still arise. Air quality seems to be the overriding factor.
Phosphate and Sulphur
During research for the Arsenic Series we discovered there were chemical bonds that were particularly attractive to arsenic, and a compound that could be mimicked by arsenate. This chemical mimicry and attachment can cause problems for plant growth. Plants with the means of storing the toxins safely, allow the rest of the plant to thrive.
Phosphate, essential for energy production in cells, bone growth and DNA/RNA protein formation can be temporarily booted out by arsenate. In experiments with bacteria it has been shown that phosphate will always be used in preference to arsenate, which is encouraging, as other organisms might behave similarly. Whether plants do, is another matter, but for this mini article we will be focusing instead on what arsenic and sulphur get up to.
Arsenic has a chemical affinity with sulphur in geology and also in nature. Single arsenic sulphur bonds are not very strong, however, meaning it can be easily removed during both plant and animal cell metabolism. If the arsenic binds to TWO sulphur containing molecules (cysteine), that bond is a lot stronger. The arsenic has a much greater chance of sticking and causing problems.
This attractive compound is called a ‘disulphide bridge’. It connects different parts of proteins together using these sulphur containing molecules. So let’s imagine that wherever there is a disulphide bridge in a plant or animal protein, there is the opportunity for arsenic to attach. In areas where there is no arsenic or other toxic metals, such as cadmium and mercury, in the soil or water there would be no take up, and all plants and animals would stay healthy.
Animal detoxification
When humans, animals, fish and birds are exposed to toxins like arsenic they have mechanisms that can be used to eliminate them. The primary routes for toxin removal are urine, faeces and vomit, then the skin through sweat and/or rashes. Hair and nails can also provide toxin storage sites if levels are too high. Menstruation and sperm can also be toxin elimination pathways, as can milk production for offspring. Lastly and more shockingly, arsenic can cross the placental barrier in to unborn offspring, it can be excreted in bird eggs and fish and amphibian spawn. Animals have multiple pathways for elimination.
How do plants protect themselves?
Plant life deals with toxins in a slightly different manner. There is a soil cleaning process called phytoremediation. This is where plants are used to ‘clean up’ heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium from the soil. Some plants are better at doing this than others. There are a number of parts of plants that can use as storage or excretion sites for toxins, these include pollen, seeds, fruiting bodies and rhizomes.
What makes certain plants better at arsenic clean up is the number of disulphide bridges they have. The most concentrated area of these useful compounds are usually in the seeds. Seeds are produced by plants in the life cycle and have what are called ‘storage proteins’. These proteins protect the seed overwinter until conditions are perfect for it to sprout in to a seedling again. They then provide the protein needed for the seedling to flourish.
Seed storage proteins include 2S, 7S and 11S. There are other proteins specific to certain plant seeds. Gluten for example is present in wheat, barley and rye. Glycinin and beta conglycinin are soya bean proteins.
Seeds with all three of the 2S, 7S, and 11S storage proteins include Walnut, Soya, Sesame, Quinoa, Pistachio, Pecan and Peanut, Hazelnut, Fenugreek, Edamame bean and Cashew nut.
Seeds with 2S and 7S are Buckwheat, Chickpea and Garbanzo
Seeds with 2S and 11S are Brazil nut, Kiwi fruit (seed), Mustard seed, Pumpkin, Sichuan Pepper
Seeds with only 2S are Canola Bean, Castor bean, Cocoa bean, Lemon (seed), Pine nut, Poppy seed, Rape seed, Sunflower seed, Swede (seed), Tangerine (seed), Tartarian Buckwheat and Turnip seed.
In theory, if a person has a reaction to one of these seeds then they should also have a reaction to the rest of the seeds in the group. It doesn’t seem that things work like that though. Many of us may have sensitivities to just one or two seeds in one group and the rest seem to be fine. How can that be explained?
Sunflowers!
If we cast our minds back to the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia in 2022, suddenly all the sunflower oil disappeared off the supermarket shelves, globally. You could not get sunflower seed or oil for love nor money. Much of it was substituted (seemingly permanently in the UK) with rape seed oil. Thankfully it seems both are in the same seed storage protein group.
A few days ago we stumbled across a site called DSDBase 2.0. It is a disulphide database. It lists many disulphide bonds in plants and animals, probably not all of them, but at least the ones we are most interested in. It also specifies how many disulphide bonds are made by the joining of those arsenic loving ‘cysteine’ (sulphur containing) molecules.
Looking up Sunflower seed we found the 2S Albumin storage protein. It had a total of 33 disulphide bonds where 4 of them were linked to cysteine molecules. That means there are 4 sites in a single S2 albumin storage protein to which arsenic can attach. So if, in the same vein as our imaginary Antarctic quest by the Russians, arsenic (or arsine gas) was somehow being sprayed over the sunflower fields of Ukraine during the war with Russia (remember they wanted the airspace closed), this single storage protein would be sucking up a considerable amount of arsenic to keep it away from the plant. ALL the sunflower plants.
If these seed bearing plants, bound for the food market were grown in parts of the world where there was no arsenic (or other toxins) present in the soil or rain water, would we, for those with a sunflower reaction, be able to tolerate them better?
There are other proteins in the sunflower plant. A seed-based cyclic protease inhibitor protein has a total of 7 disulphide bridges. Yet more attractive bonds for arsenic. Sunflower also has a trypsin inhibitor with a single disulphide bridge, which we talked about earlier this week. Trypsin is really important for the proper functioning of the digestive tract, including the production of Cholecystokinin (CCK). This hormone governs the contraction of the gallbladder after eating. If CCK is blocked then toxins and bile build up in the liver and gallbladder, and sometimes back up in to the blood. Some pregnant mothers suffer from what is called intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy. This is where the hormones of pregnancy coupled with poor functioning of the gallbladder cause bilirubin and other compounds to back up in to the liver and blood, causing intense itching. This condition can cause fetal distress and sometimes in-utero heart attack and fetal death.
Other examples of foods
Grains, pods, peas and legumes are also seeds. Soya bean has been used as a substitute protein in flour making. It has also been researched as remediation for arsenic and lead in water. Soya bean has a trypsin inhibitor with 2 cysteine bound disulphide bridges. Proglycinin in ‘Soybean’ (as written on the database) has 6 of these bonds, where other proteins do not have any. Wheat gluten has an alpha-amylase inhibitor which has 20 bridges, lipid transfer proteins with 4 bridges, gluten with 3 and many more. The gluten protein in wheat is the lowest of the three we identified so far, so it seems strange that it is singled out as the ‘problem protein’ for those who are supposedly ‘gluten intolerant’.
Coeliac disease, by the way, is diagnosed first with an IgG intolerance or an IgE allergen test. If the test is positive then a Marsh test biopsy will be ordered to gauge degradation to the gut. If the damage is total then a grade 4 is given and coeliac disease declared. If damage is grade 1-3 the patient is deemed non-coeliac, even though they have damage, which will probably get worse over time.
Kiwi fruit allergens Act d 2 and Act d 5 (listed on the database) are not even seed storage proteins. These compounds are increased as the kiwi fruit ripens. Act d 2 has a total of 8 bridges, and Act d 5 has 9. In a similar way, people can be allergic to raw fruit of tomato for example, which also has a number of bridges, but be completely fine with cooked tomato. It is possible that the denaturing of the tomato protein during cooking, releases bound toxins like arsenic so that the body is able to process and eliminate them more effectively.
Dairy Milk (not the chocolate)
Let’s pick one more food/drink example. Dairy milk from cows, is rich in protein and fats, perfect for bovine offspring. We know most dairy cows are sustained on feed as well as grass. Some are entirely feed bred, depending on the intensity of the dairy farm. Many feeds are rich in grain and grain-derived protein concentrates, and therefore disulphide bridge-rich too.
Grass shoots seem to have no bridges – these are only present in pollen and grass seed. Toxins might accumulate on grass after rain, but if kept grazed and short, would have less surface area to stick to, reducing toxin intake (laminitis anyone?). As some people have mentioned, grass fed meat is probably much better from that point of view, but does not account for toxin inhalation exposure. In addition, for those who are moving to raw milk, the potential exposure to weaponised arsenic-resistant bacteria in milk is increased. Therefore, we find ourselves in a delicate balancing act. Which is better – or should we just give up drinking bovine milk completely?
Bovine milk is rich in phosphorus and cysteine molecules, including disulphide bridges. Heat treatment of milk causes disulphide bond complexes to form between proteins ‘alpha-casein (α-cas), beta-casein (β-cas), kappa-casein (κ-cas), beta-lactoglobulin (β-lg) and alpha-lactalbumin (α-la)’ aggregating the compounds and leading to a more stable ‘polymerised’ milk according to Čurlej et al, (2022). The treatment of whey proteins in protein isolate also encourages the formation of disulphide bridges according to Yang et al (2021)
In theory, as disulphide bridges are readily formed between these proteins, the potential to further ‘lock in’ arsenic already present, into treated milk and milk products is high.
So the real question is, are people really allergic or intolerant to the food itself, or to the toxins like arsenic that have hitched a ride? If a person with a casein/whey protein allergy diagnosed in the UK were to drink a glass of milk from a cow on a remote island in the tropics, would they have the same reaction? (We are not suggesting for one moment that anyone with a severe allergy tries this!)
If this is the case it may explain why IgG or IgE tests to the gluten, casein or other proteins often return negative results, despite the person eating them clearly having an issue with the food. Given there are multiple proteins and enzymes loaded with disulphide bridges that are possible targets for arsenic, the scope of these tests seem quite limiting and rarely identify the problem. People who ditch gluten and dairy are frequently known to develop more problems to the replacement food ingredients.
Oral allergy syndrome, where the person shows an allergic reaction around the mouth, with a rash or redness, rather than an internal reaction to the food, is said to be having a cross-reactivity to a food that has a vague relationship to another food or plant. Tree pollen and parsley is a good example. It might actually be a toxin lingering on the surface of the food or herb creating the reaction. The same toxin may be exuded in tree pollen, AND be present on the surface of some foods, rather than some wild explanation of how a completely unrelated food protein can create a round-the-mouth skin reaction just because the same person once sneezed a pollen molecule out. Oral allergy syndrome may also be a hives-type reaction in a person who is already completely full of toxins and cannot squeeze any more in without the immune system going in to meltdown!
Back to growing food
If it is possible to grow food successfully in one small valley microclimate of the country, when just 20-30 miles away everything is stunted and failing, we must be able to create an environment for our veg and fruit patches that helps the soil stay healthy and protects the plants from ‘poor air quality’.
Remediating or rotating our plants might be a good approach. As some beans, grains and pod seed plants seem to thrive in polluted grounds, allocating areas to these on rotation, then removing the whole plant when it has grown to maturity with full seed pods might be a good approach. Everything in the plant is then removed from the plot along with toxins. The only issue with this is that we would not be able to eat the beans or grains as they would be toxic - if of course the plot is in a toxin saturated area. Allowing them to rot in place would just allow toxins back in to the plot. It might be sufficient to harvest all the bean pods and dispose of them to landfill, allowing the stalks of the plant to rot back in to the soil. It might also be worth overwintering the soil with a protective covering of mulch, straw or other material.
Rewilding or restoring land takes, we have been told, about 10 years to reach peak ‘cleanness’ (dependent on clean air of course). This is when the remediating weeds no longer spring up like … well weeds, and a beautiful floral meadow appears in the Spring. Currently east Lincolnshire has copious thistles, nettles and other quite spikey weeds that are persistent in their annual return. Perhaps this year chopping off the flower heads before they seed and allowing the rest to rot back down might suffice. Next year hopefully the poppies might stand a chance. They do have lots of disulphide bridges after all and would at least be a pretty and less spikey remedial plant.
Other options for those with greenhouses, polytunnels and pots, is to empty the potting soil each year in to a bed, which is then given over to remediation plants, and to refill these with fresh, bought-in compost and top soil mix.
Buying food
Shopping for fresh food is also interesting. Grower location, whether in a good or poor air quality area, and whether crops are under glass, seems to have a significant bearing on quality of produce. Buying fresh fruit and vegetables from other lands sometimes seems infinitely more attractive from the perspective of having really ‘clean’ food, and can taste a lot better too! Sorry Greta.
Whatever happens, now we have found this great resource on some of the key foods containing high levels of cysteine-linked disulphide bridges, we will be able to navigate which foods, and from where, are best to keep in our diet and which are probably best to give a rest… at least that is until the land has been cleaned and we are no longer in the grips of 3limate 3hange.
Thanks Seb!
Great article as always!
Food for thought 😊 Growing our own isn’t easy in the first place, this is a whole lot more to build in to the planning and growing. Never give up, never give in 🙌