Posted by Dan Perkins on January 2, 2005, at 17:09:47
In reply to more MAOI diet questions - sorry, posted by KaraS on January 2, 2005, at 16:07:19
Take a deep breath and relax. There is no need to be overly worried about diet interactions with MAOIs, these problems are few and far between and seem to be mostly limited to a small group of people who are very sensitive to tyramine/MAOI.
It can be worrisome at first navigating the MAOI diet, but I think you will soon realize that there really aren't that many foods you need to watch out for.
I was on 70-90mg of Parnate a day for over a year. I ate out at least 1-2 meals per day, I never paid too much attention to the finer points of the diet (though I was careful to avoid things like fermented soy - ie. natto - and I didn't have any very aged cheese), and I never had any problem.
The best advice I can give you would be to post your concerns and read other people's experiences in the message board on Yahoo dedicated to MAOIs. It's a very supportive and knowledgeable group that has a ton of experience with MAOIs and will take the time to answer your questions in detail. Here is the link: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/maois/messages/
And here are my experiences with the foods you mentioned:
Pepperoni is fine. I have eaten many a slice of pepperoni pizza while on 70-90mg of Parnate. Same goes for baked ham (even moreso than pepperoni).
I don't see how one could get a crisis from eating pancakes with soy mix in them. I have had many protein shakes containing soy mix while on Parnate. Unless the soy is fermented then it is not a problem, and soy mix is not fermented.
Same goes for soy protein isolate or concentrate. I've had tons of shakes with isolate and concentrate as the main ingredient and never had a problem.
Raisins are not a problem and neither is raisin or tomato paste.
I've never encountered fava beans (I think it's fava, not kava) in anything I've ordered at a restaraunt (and I eat out a lot). It's just not an ingredient that is likely to be put in a dish without being explicitly listed. And I've never heard of Chinese pea pods or any other pea pods being a problem.
Avocados are no problem at all!
And I've never had a problem with soy sauce either. As long as you don't have a ton of the stuff, you should be fine. So, even if the steak is marinated in soy sauce, it's not a problem.
poster:Dan Perkins
thread:436844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041228/msgs/436870.html