Help: Getting Sick From the Garden?

Hi,
We had a bumper crop of lettuce. So, we ate lettuce. Then we got diarrhea.

The soil was treated this way:

Oct-Nov: New Hugleculture. If I can account for one mistake, it was going overboard with fresh manure. On one, I used cow manure. On the other 3, I used goat manure.
The volume was about 30 gallons of manure per bed. The beds are about 1m/1.5m. I dug down about 2.5/3 feet and mixed in the soil. Covered with a few inches of just soil.

Winter: Grew daikons mostly. Didn't eat anything from winter garden. Let daikons rot in soil. Thought 4-5 months would be enough to assuage the fresh manure situation.

Feb-Mar: Put winter compost (kitchen scraps only) on top of hugleculture. It had been accumulating since September. I let it sit for 3-4 weeks on the beds. Everything was pretty broken down by April planting.

April: Planted lettuce and a few tomatoes. Shade garden that is lettuce abundant.

Now, all the plants look healthy, they are growing strong, not burnt or sickly. The soil seems to have been worked pretty well by worms, pretty crumbly. Lots of worms. Everybody seems happy. Except us.

Pathogens or Nitrites? Over-fertilized?
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/chapter7_8.html

Should I be doing soil tests? I have a kit, but it only does NPK-Ph. Would have to send away for professional analysis.

Now, it could be other factors like washing (I double washed the lettuce, didn't use anything anti-bacterial). Or maybe it's just the crazy weather and the lettuce has nothing to do with it. Or maybe I'm just going crazy.

Thanks for the help.
William

Hi William,

The same reaction occurs when someone takes a few chlorella pills. Is the chlorella infested with pathogens or is there something else going on?

Chlorella contains a lot of chlorofyl, the stuff that makes it green. This stuff is very healthy for your body. It triggers a lot of mechanisms in the body to fuel or to get rid of things.

Lettuce, when grown perfectly, contains also a lot of chlorofyl. If your bodies aren't used to it, it starts to work some things in your body.

What happens is your body wants to replace toxins in your body with the good, the healthy stuff. The body wants to get rid of the things it doesn't want to be there any longer. Some toxins can only leave the body with certain carriers to bind to, like heavy metals. Chlorella is used for this, to bind heavy metals to it, so it can be transported out of the body. This mechanism that is used is diarrhea. As long as you keep feeding it as much chlorofyl as needed to get rid of any toxins, you keep getting diarrhea. And that's OK. As long as you keep yourself hydrated that is.

I had series of chlorella and just for a few days, my stomach and bowels where upset. Not that heavy or realy unpleasant, but out of track a bit. After that, my body gained a lot more energy, a lot more rush and excitement. A good feeling and something that made the diarrhea forgotten in no time.

Your stomach, your bowelsystem, your lymphsystem, all these elements will get a detox by getting enough chlorofyl. So no worry, it's natural.

Since you put the manure in oct-nov of last year, that shouldn't be the problem unless some of the manure hasn't broken down yet(which you indicate is not the case). Did you mulch to prevent soil splash from rain/watering?

I'm not sure of the above answer, but if it's true, then I guess your family is detoxing. I'd love to see a follow up of this, as it's quite interesting.

Allan,

I understand if people doubt my statement. At first it didn't sound right to me either. But now I've read a lot of people's comments about detoxing, diarrhea is a very common result. Even better, some people warn when there's no flush of the bowels when taking certain substances, there's something else wrong and you should work on that.

Ever had a lot of magnesium ingested? Like epsom salt, magnesium malate, a lot of dark chocolate or spinach, brocolli or the mentioned lettuce contain a lot of forms of magnesium. This is very good because the body needs much of this mineral. But a side-effect of too much (not dangerous) of magnesium is relaxation of the muscles and nerves. Magnesium is somewhat the core of chlorofyl.

The logic is, when people are infested/infected with a pathogen, the body wants to get rid of it too. When the body has enough nutrients to cope with the pathogen a detox reflex will occur.

We in the West think about symptoms to be unwanted, unnatural and we have to fight the symptoms (hence we have so much medication). But the body is a way more complex system and it is build to survive naturally. We don't need to fight symptoms that much as we think we do. The symptoms are results of the body already working from it's line of defenses (there are many).

Yes, when you've broken down your first couple of defenses by haven a poor diet, it's best to see the doctor or hospital for a quick remedy. But when you've got a strong immunesystem, you only have to feed that system with natural sources and nutrients and your body will work it out. Promised.

Well, let's get some details here . I am a registered nurse and a long term care nurse to boot . Let me tell you - I have seen my fair share of diarrhea in 21 years . There is a stereotype of Eskimos having hundreds of words to describe snow . Us long term care nurses have hundreds of words to describe poop. So, technically diarrhea is 3 or more loose stools in a day . One or two could just be two much laxative or alot of fiber at once. On going diarrhea could be bacterial in nature or a problem such as irritable bowel. So , may I ask if you are eating alot of lettuce at once , or is it just a enough for small salads or sandwich fixings. If you are eating alot at once , it would be reasonable that the lettuce acts as laxative . If you just ate enough for a sandwich fixing and it gave you diarrhea then microbes may be the source , especially if this happens to more than one member of your family after dinner. If you are eating large salads and getting diarrhea then you stop and the diarrhea stops , that is a factor to consider. If you eat a small salad and purge for days and so does everyone else , that is something else. It does not sound as if E-coli would be a problem after so much time in the soil. But life finds a way , and these damned microbes feel that they have as much right to exist as us . I have seen my share of E-coli , clostridium difficile , parasites , amoebic dysentery, salmonella , typhus, food poisoning , irritable bowel , laxative overuse , etc. Before you give up on lettuce or manure try to critically rule out other problems causing these episodes.

totally agree with Wayne above..lots of things can cause a run to the bathroom, one thing that does it for me is corn..fresh corn !! but do I stop eating it..nah.

If you had something really bad you likely would be throwing up too..or have horrible stomach cramps not just diah..probably just a good clean out from eating better ??

Allan Babb wrote:Since you put the manure in oct-nov of last year, that shouldn't be the problem unless some of the manure hasn't broken down yet(which you indicate is not the case). Did you mulch to prevent soil splash from rain/watering?

I usually mulch, but I didn't this time, since the lettuce was so close together. Getting straw in there would have been hard.

That said, the lettuce isn't dirty. It's actually quite clean looking. I've handled salad that was much dirtier and obviously coming from rain/water spash. Granted, they might not have had the bacteria I have.

Thanks for the responses. Good to know about the lettuce=laxative thing. Good to know about the "throw-up test" in judging sickness. And good to know the "how many times in one day" test, since, at least for me that wasn't the case. For my wife yes + cramps.

We slept with only a sheet, and it's not quite hot enough at night to do that. And in Italy being cold can be a major cause of having to run to the bathroom. I thought it was funny until I tried it. Maybe just a random intestinal thing. I believe other people have ate the salad with no problems.

And as for the amount of lettuce, we're talking a medium sized bowl full. We do like lettuce.
W

I agree with Wayne...there is diarrhea and then there is diarrhea. When people aren't used to ingesting large amounts of fresh produce and then suddenly do, they often get diarrhea. I've heard from countless people that "salad gives me diarrhea" and so they avoid eating salad. The body gets accustomed to certain foods and needs an adjustment time for new dietary changes, much like livestock...can't make any sudden feed changes or you get a little scour.

Watermelon is a good example....something you rarely eat until summer and the first big taking of watermelon will give you loose stool. People assume it's because of the watery nature of the fruit but your body absorbs that liquid as any other. It's the doing without it all year and then eating huge servings of the summer treat. The more you eat of it as the season goes along, the less it affects you in that manner.

It happens with me when I suddenly eat dairy after not having any for a long time~big time scouring, cramping, etc. I rarely eat red meat, so I get constipated when I do. Salad is the mainstay of my diet, so my body utilizes it very well and I never have a problem digesting any portion of it. The first fresh tomatoes or corn from the summer garden oft times will clean me out good~I refuse to eat any of either from the store because they taste like cardboard~ but not thereafter. Corn is hard for any animal to utilize in it's entirety, so you will see it undigested in the stool for us all.

I always eat some spoonful of plain, real YOGOURT before or during whatever greens I eat so that the stomach bacteria culture gets reinforcement.
A diarrhea is also an overdue cleansing of the system, but with yogourt or with buttermilk it goes better to overcome the mono-culture of missing stomach bacteria.