Espresso in the morning?  YES, absolutely, every single morning – two to four shots to get the day going… and to take the edge off the harshness of that liquid energy – a little whipping cream and whipped cream (because life is short and whip cream SHOULD BE HAD).

I have done this for years – YEARS!  I never add refined sugar or those fancy flavorings chock full of genetically modified high fructose corn syrups, just a simple splash of organic heavy whipping cream and a dollop of whipped cream (which has a wee bit of sugar, but, life is painful enough without some sweetness).

But for the last eleven months or so, I have really been having some issues with intestinal swelling.  There are a lot of potential contributing factors: stress, wheat, cheese, parasites, etc.  I recently tried eliminating wheat and dairy (mostly cheese), and taking a variety of things for parasites – it helped some, but not enough to eliminate my morning espresso ritual.  So back into my diet came the whipping cream and whipped cream.

And back came the swelling – this time maybe worse.  It was almost instantaneous I was noticing.  I thought, hell, maybe it is the coffee (and if that was the case, then maybe I would just have to deal because getting rid of my morning jolt, although surely better for my health, was off the table). I have given up enough things in life, taking out my organic Bitches Brew is not happening.

At first, I kept the espresso and eliminated the whipped cream, which I know has carrageenan, and was probably not positively impacting me (not to mention the sugar, which wasn’t a lot, but my insides were so swollen I was willing to forgo sweetness).  This really made no difference, which was heart-breaking.  To let go of the whipped cream canister and have no positive side?  Life at this point becomes questionable.

And then, I did the unthinkable – I eliminated both the Organic Valley whipping cream and the Natural by Nature whipped cream.  Spartan – I felt like a true warrior in the morning, sipping on this bitter brew to wake me up while abandoning the tasty delivery vehicle of whipped cream goodness two ways.  I had hit the bottom, so tired of my gut swelling and making my stomach unbelievably bloated and icky – I was drinking black coffee.  This is rock bottom.

And in 2 days, most of my swelling was gone.

Why was it that the Organic Valley whipping cream itself seemed to affect me WORSE than all of these other food items that I had eliminated – wheat, cheese, sugar?  I thought that there was just cream in whipping cream… until I looked at the back ON THE LABEL:

GELLAN GUM

Why on God’s green Earth is Gellan Gum in here?!?!?!?  Could THIS be what was rampaging my innards this entire time?  I never even THOUGHT to look at the contents of my whipping cream because I never thought they added CRAP to it.  

I immediately found another brand of whipping cream (Alexandre Family Farms) that does NOT contain gellan gum – and I am not having the issues that I had while using Organic Valley.  I feel like it was the Gellan Gum that is the real culprit of a majority of my gut swelling.

WTF is Gellan Gum?  Well, of course our government says that it is “safe for consumption” (does this really MEAN anything anymore?!?), but what IS IT?

From Wikipedia: “Gellan gum is a water-soluble anionic polysaccharide produced by the bacterium Sphingomonas elodea (formerly Pseudomonas elodea based on the taxonomic classification at the time of its discovery).^[1] The gellan-producing bacterium was discovered and isolated by the former Kelco Division of Merck & Company, Inc. in 1978 from the lily plant tissue from a natural pond in Pennsylvania.”.

So, it is a carbohydrate produced by a bacteria.  ALL NATURAL, right?!?!  Well, technically yes – but remember that hydrocarbons and cyanide are natural substances too – these can kill you.  And there is one level of ‘natural’ when this bacterium was on a water lily in the pond, but what we are consuming is artificially produced by fermenting sugar with the bacteria (test tube gum?).

It sounds like emulsifiers, like gellan gum, can cause alterations in the intestinal bacteria of some people – which can lead to inflammation in the digestive track.  That would make sense for both the bacteria-part and the carbohydrate-part of this ingredient.

Gum additives are pervasive in our foods – ESPECIALLY if you are doing a plant-based diet with nut milks and non-dairy alternatives for yogurt, cheese, ice cream, etc. So if you are having terrible intestinal swelling, like I have been experiencing this past year, I hope you will consider trying to eliminate them from your diet for awhile to see if it helps! 

Did this article help you?  Are you having these issues?  I would love to hear from you in the comments!