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Hoots : Bread and acid reflux I have been told that bread can cause acid reflux? What in the bread would cause this and is that found in other foods that are not usually associated with gerd? - freshhoot.com

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Bread and acid reflux
I have been told that bread can cause acid reflux? What in the bread would cause this and is that found in other foods that are not usually associated with gerd?


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While whole grain bread is said to have some healthy effects (lowering chance of diabetes II compared to white flour bread), it also contains anti-digestive substances from the grains - unless it has lots of sour dough which fermented that. I am not sure whether those anti-digestives already impact the pre-digestion in the stomach, though.

Okay, disclaimer, what follows now is solely based on my personal experience (and what some friends told). Perhaps it's over the scope of the specific question - but if you're interested to get rid of reflux no matter whether it comes from bread or something else, here you go:

I would say that any "simple" food alone is not very likely to cause acid reflux, unless you eat a lot of it and then drink some fluid.
It is when some certain different kinds of foods, or even foods in different stages of pre-digestion, meet and mix in the stomach, and potentially also if you add fluid at certain stages of pre-digestion.
Since this is based on experience (confirmed by some people I know, but maybe it's not universal), I can't give exact definitions of those things.
But you might be able to make sense of symptoms and connect some dots if you experiment yourself.

The occurrence of reflux, or at least some pre stages of that, like unpleasant feeling and smelling gas coming up the throat, seems to be most likely if you ate a generous meal which contained lots of everything. Lots of protein, lots of fat, lots of carbs of different kinds (starches, sugars).
It may get worse if then fluid is added.
It may get real bad if you generated a mix in your stomach for which, for some reason, the stomach needs a long time before it opens the passage to the small bowel. It sometimes almost feels like some sort of fermentation is going on.
Then if you eat something again, perhaps because you eat in typical intervals, while the stomach still has this "difficult mix", taking longer than "normal", it can get even worse, if fresh food is added to that which is already in there for too long.
Especially if you add fruit or sweets to a very fatty meal of some time ago.

I have seen this also when mixing (in the stomach) lots of whole grain bread with cheese and some time later lots of nuts.

I do not have such problems anymore (> 10 years) since I moved to eating my peculiar "diet". For one thing it's plant based. But I guess most relevant here being that I usually avoid mixing "lots of everything" in my stomach. I might eat a big bowl of salad. Some potatoes with some peas. Or just a mix of veggies, perhaps with a little oil or avocado, not a ton of dressing or gravy with sugar + fat. Or some non-salted non-roasted nuts without anything. Or some fruit.
But when I feel there still is some remainder of something in the stomach, I do not eat anything, period. In the morning, when many people say you should stuff your belly when it feels weird, I do not eat - the weird feeling (that I rarely have anymore) goes away by itself when I'm fully awake some hours later. Then I eat. Something feels strange in the belly? I do not eat.

Oh, and when you ate something late, which contained lots of fluid or you added some to your stomach content after eating, and then only 1 hour or less later, you go to bed - if you have a tendency to rotate such that your belly presses against the mattress - that may cause reflux! I.e. mechanical reasons.

While I can't say what exactly of all this helped - belly problems are a thing of the past for me.


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