Almost everyone that has experienced that if they spend enough time in a dusty environment, they will eventually cough up some thick mucus with dust particles trapped in it. The mucus is used as a method of entrapping a potentially harmful substance so as to prevent it from penetrating deeper into the body, and as a medium for expelling this substance from the body.
From the above observation, it would seem plausible that, if the body responds to the ingestion of a particular food with the production of mucus, then that food contains some substance the body recognises as potentially harmful or toxic. In this line of thought, any food that has “mucus forming” properties is considered to be potentially toxic to some degree.
Mucus is a normal body secretion. All mucous membranes continually secrete mucus as a means of keeping the surfaces moist and lubricated. Ingesting any food, or even water, will give rise to an increased level at the back of the mouth of a healthy, lubricating type of mucus. These facts are often presented as disproving the validity of the mucus theory. Yet it is easy to distinguish healthy mucus from mucus formed as a reaction to toxicity. Healthy mucus is clear and slippery. Unhealthy mucus is cloudy, thick and sticky, and this is the type of mucus produced by mucus forming foods. Once this mucous becomes dry and compacted, it becomes mucoid plaque.
Mucoid Plaque Forming Influences
Although excessive consumption of mucoid forming foods and inadequate levels of intestinal lactobacteria are the principal causes of a toxic bowel, it is not recommended that you immediately switch to a totally non-mucous forming diet. Both the body and the psyche need time to adjust to any dietary change.
In general, it is recommended that you proceed at whatever pace feels comfortable to gradually eliminate most mucus forming foods from your diet while replacing them with non – mucoid forming ones. This evolution may take place over the course of several weeks or of several years. How far you want to go is up to you.
However, performing a gastrointestinal cleansing program provides an ideal opportunity for you to make dietary change because doing so will enable you to feel more satisfied while eating much lighter foods than before. Most people feel they could never be satisfied eating just vegetables, fruits and sprouts, and this is quite true when the intestines are laden with mucoid plaque . Remove the mucoid plaque from your intestinal tract, and you will be amazed at how substantial and satisfying a diet of primarily vegetables, fruits and sprouts can be.
The fewer mucoid forming foods you eat, the better the health you will eventually be able to attain. Those who do not want to change their diet at all can still get some benefit by following the a gastrointestinal and lymphatic cleansing program. Remember, however, that superb health can never be attained as long as a highly mucous forming diet is being eaten.
Mucus Forming Foods
For a more extensive list of Mucus forming foods (also known as acid forming foods), please visit our acid alkaline foods page.
The rating of foods according to mucoid plaque forming activity is not something you have to accept on blind faith. You can judge for yourself the mucous forming activity of foods eaten simply by inspecting your stools.
Dairy products from cow’s milk, whether pasteurised or raw, are the most mucus forming of all foods. This includes milk, skim milk, butter, cheese, cottage cheese, cream, yogurt, kefir, ghee and whey. Every one of these is a pernicious mucoid former. Goat’s milk, however, is substantially less mucoid forming than cow’s milk.
Flesh foods – meat, fish, fowl and eggs are almost as mucous forming as dairy products. They usually affect the respiratory system less but the total amount of mucoid is still quite high.
Plant foods vary from highly mucoid forming to totally non-mucoid forming. Before classifying them according to mucoid forming activity, let us define our terms.
Here we will classify the edible portions of plants as either vegetables, fruits, mature seeds or sprouts. Vegetables are edible roots, trunks, stems, stalks, leaves, flower buds, flowers, succulent immature seeds and single celled organisms. When a seed is enclosed in a tender, juicy, edible medium, that medium is termed fruit. Seeds normally eaten along with the fruit they are embedded in are considered part of that fruit. Mature seeds are divided into oily seeds, grains and pulses. Oily seeds include all nuts, coconut and other nutlike seeds such as a sunflower, sesame and pumpkin seeds. Grains are the mature dry seeds of plants belonging to the natural order of grasses. Examples are wheat, rice, rye, corn, barley, oats and millet. For nutritional purposes, we also classify buckwheat as a grain, although the plant does not belong to the grass family. Pulses are the mature dry seeds of pod-bearing plants. These include all beans, lentils, mature dry peas, etc. A sprout becomes a vegetable when it is no longer customary to eat the entire plant as a single unit.
Check your understanding of the above definitions with these examples: Maple syrup, yeast and spirulina plankton are classified as vegetables. String bens, cucumbers, okra, eggplant, zucchini, all melons and all squashes are fruit. Fresh corn on the cob is a vegetable, but corn meal, corn bread, corn chips and corn tortillas are grain products. Fresh peas in their tender, juicy state are a vegetable, but mature dry peas, such as are used in making split pea soup are a pulse. Wheatgrass is a vegetable.
Soy beans are the most mucus forming foods of all plant foods. Their mucous forming activity is similar to that of meat, fish and eggs, and comes close to that of dairy products. The susceptibility of soy products to putrefaction is also similar to that of meat. Notice how quickly tofu or soy milk will spoil. Soy beans have gained much attention as being a nutritionally suitable plant food substitute for dairy products and flesh foods.
They are a suitable substitute not only with respect to protein and other nutrient content, but with respect to mucoid forming activity and putrefactive susceptibility as well. The idea that soy beans are favorable to overall nutrition is based upon their similarity in biochemical composition to animal products (dairy products and flesh foods). If you want to improve health by giving up animal products, then you must also give up the nutritional or rather anti-nutritional intake associated with an animal product diet.
Vegetarians who regularly include soy products in their diets are paying pricey homage to the utterly false and highly injurious idea that their bodies cannot do without animal products.
After soy beans in mucoid forming activity are all other pulses. There is a substantial gap in mucoid forming activity between soy beans and the other pulses. Even so, the mucoid forming activity of the other pulses is considerable. Buckwheat is similar to the pulses in mucoid forming activity.
After pulses in mucoid forming activity are the grains. Next after these are the oily seeds. Millet is a special grain in that its mucoid forming activity is only about one fourth to one third that of the other grains, and so is similar to the oily seeds in mucoid forming activity. Because whole grains are often eaten to assure bowel regularity, it is possible to get the impression that grains are non-mucoid forming, although this is not the case.
Sprouts lose their mucoid plaque forming activity as the sprouting process continues. When used as a grain substitute, sprouted grains have usually been sprouted for 1 to 2 days and still have some, though substantially less, of the original mucoid forming activity. To be completely free of mucoid forming activity, the grains buckwheat and soy beans typically need to be sprouted for six or more days at room temperature. This is usually done by growing the sprouts in a tray of soil. The young plants are harvested by cutting them away from their roots, so that what is eaten would be classified as a vegetable. Pulses other than soy beans will usually lose most of their mucoid forming activity after three or four days of sprouting at room temperature.
Honey will vary in mucoid forming activity depending upon the plant it is derived from. Most honeys have little or no mucoid forming activity. Eucalyptus honey is one that is to be noted for its relatively high mucoid forming activity.
Vegetables and fruits are virtually free of any mucoid forming activity. They are Nature’s purest foods. Exceptions are gas-ripened bananas and sulphured fruit, which are mucoid forming due to the man-made processes to which they have been subjected. Except for figs and dates, all dried fruit should be considered to be sulphured unless specifically labeled otherwise. Food supplements are often mucoid forming. All protein powders, except for 100% pure yeast and spirulina plankton, are highly mucoid forming due to their inclusion of soy, milk, egg or meat derivatives. Many popular “yeast” powders are highly mucoid forming because they contain up to 50% whey. Tableted vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, etc, may also possess a degree of mucoid forming activity.
Herbal foods will often alter the mucoid content of one’s stool. There are herbs that will lessen the mucoid present in one’s stools. There are also many other herbs that, while not mucoid forming themselves, will cause old mucoid present in the body to be eliminated, this may result in increased mucoid in the stools. The jellylike consistency of psyllium husks makes one’s faeces cling together even when a totally non-mucoid forming diet is being eaten.
Many spices possess varying herbal properties, cinnamon to a moderate degree but especially cumin are to be noted for their constipating tendency. And the gelatin capsules that are so widely used for encapsulating powdered herbs possess a residuum of mucoid forming activity. In order to avoid biasing the results when testing the mucoid forming activity of ordinary foods, items such as those mentioned in this paragraph should not be taken.
Airborne Mucus Formers
Airbourne pollutants are generally all mucoid forming. A sensitive person on a nearly or completely non-mucoid forming diet can notice a significant mucoid response due to breathing smoggy air. The secondary smoke inhalation that occurs when one is present in a room where another person is smoking tobacco is also mucoid plaque forming. The mucoid response to airborne pollutants is frequently more easily noticeable in the respiratory system than in the stools.
Removing Mucoid Plaque
By removing mucoid plaque from your body, your digestive system will be able to function more efficiently, parsites will have a harder time surviving and your body will be subject to less toxic acumulations.
There are many different methods to remove mucoid plaque from the body. The most common and probably the most effective is to take psyllium husks and bentonite with water in a ‘shake’ and also take herbs which soften, dissolve and help to expel the mucoid plaque. There are many colon cleansing kits that contain these ingredients and are laid out in an easy to follow program.