How To Determine What Foods You Are Intolerant To
Finding out what foods you are intolerant to can be extremely difficult for several reasons:
1 - You experience symptoms that you consider normal and do not associate with food, such as lack of concentration, feeling tired in the morning, lack of energy, brain fog, irritability, depression etc..
2 - Everyone’s DNA is different, so you may be intolerant to a food you think is good for you.
3 - It takes 5 days for the withdrawal symptoms to disappear from food when you stop eating it.
4 - Your body has become adapted to the food, so you think it’s causing you no harm, when in reality it is slowly wearing your body down.
Due to these factors nobody can tell you what diet is right for you, it is something you must discover yourself. Here are some possible ways you can do this.
Take A Food Allergy Test
        
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A food allergy test can help you determine possible foods you are allergic too, however there are questions over how accurate these actually are.
They may also produce false negatives, whereby you are told you are not allergic to a food when you actually are.
Fasting
Fasting can be a very effective means of determining food intolerance, and is something I have done myself.
However fasting can be dangerous, so you must know what you are doing and what to expect.
Since food withdrawal symptoms will disappear after 5 days, fasting for 5-6 days then gradually reintroducing food and noting how it affects you, can be a very effective method of determining food intolerance.
During your fast it would also be wise to do a colon cleanse, as the length of withdrawal symptoms are largely dependant on how long the food rests in your bowel. This means that if you are constipated the withdrawal symptoms will last longer.
Food Cravings
Make a note of the foods you crave the most, is it chocolate, sweets, ice cream? Often the foods you crave the most are the foods you are most intolerant to, and therefore will experience the most withdrawal symptoms from when you stop eating them.
The next part of this article shall focus on the reasons why people break their diet, and go back to eating junk food.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 7 | Part 8
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October 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I didn’t even know food allergy tests existed. Are these blood tests or have to do with you sampling the food to see what is wrong for you?
October 26th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
if you have a look at the picture next to the heading “food allergy test” that is an example of the most common form of food allergy testing, via a skin test. After a certain period of time the skin is then examined to see what foods you react to.
However this is not entirely accurate, although it can be useful as a general guide.
Determining intolerant foods is a very unique process as your unique dna structure means you react to foods slightly differently than the next person.
However as a general rule eating a “natural” diet is likely to cause you less problems than a refined artifical diet, although you may still experience the occassional natural food that can cause you problems, one of the most common being citrus fruits.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Dude people with Addison’s disease crave SALT bc they have a major fluid imbalance, NOT an allergy. For you t o tell them to avoid salt WOULD BE TO KILL US! mEN THERE’S only shit in your articles. I think with all the blue you’re ALSO DOING THE MIND CONTROL : YOUR HEADLINES PROMISE A LOT OF SHIT THAT YOU FAIL TO DELIVER. SO LONG!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:02 am
Yes you are completely correct. There are people who have rare genetic diseases, so this information may not apply to them.
However I am certaintly not telling people with Addisons disease to avoid salt. Rather this is meant as information for the average general person, of course there are allways exceptions.
This series of article is based upon an interview with one of the leading allergy experts in the world. You can listen to the full interview for free in the first part of this article:
http://www.eruptingmind.com/everyone-has-food-allergy/
The general point that was being made was that most people (although not all) become addicted to foods they are intolerant to. Similiar to how a person may become addicted to drugs.
I am sorry you feel that the design of this website and its colour scheme is a form of mind control. Most people have commented that they like the design and colour scheme, but of course, everyone has their own particular taste.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hey
I seem to get allergic reactions to certain foods and i have had an allergy test but it was negative on the things they tested for which i beleieve were the most common allergies. I also drink about 2 letres of diet coke or diet pepsi everyday which i’m sure is terrible for me so i’m seriously considering fasting. during fasting is it just water you drink?
Oh and another reason fasting would be a good idea for me is my diabetes. i have an insulin pump so i have complete control of what insulin goes in for what reasons. theres the background insulin which goes in every 3 minutes and different amounts for each hour. then the food insulin which i can put in how ever much or little i need whenever i eat. so i could keep my blood sugars fine without eating so that wouldnt be an issue. generally when diabetics fast they only skip one meal and do blood tests during that time to see if the background insulin is correct. for example if you were getting lows at 3 in the afternoon you wouldnt be able to tell if your giving too much insulin for lunch or weather your recieving too much background insulin. so if i fasted for several days i could get the background insulin perfect then be able to improve on the insulin for the food.
the main problem i see is that if my blood sugar goes low i’ll have to eat something to make it go back up. would lucazade or glucose tablets affect fasting? either way if my blood sugar goes low i’ll have to take them i was just curious of weather they would.
you seem to have a good understanding of blood sugars so hopfully that all would have made sense. Oh and incase you don’t know, an insulin pump is a small machine which is connected to a canular in my leg so the insulin goes in constantly.
During fasting would exercise be bad? usually it gives me energy and makes me feel better but surely it wouldnt while fasting?
Great website by the way
Thanks
August 9th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Hi LillyAnn,
Yes coke and pepsi are very bad for you, especially if you have diabetes. I would strongly recommend stopping drinking them, especially the diet versions.
Fasting can be a great tool for detoxification, but it can also be very dangerous. Since you have diabetes it would be a good idea to ask your doctor if it is a safe thing for you to do.
There are many different ways you can fast, water, fruit or vegetable juice are all options available to you.
However i am not a big fan of fruit juice fasting as it can cause rapid insulin spikes. Fruit juice is loaded with sugar, and is no good for you if you drink a lot of it quickly. If you do use fruit juice, sip it slowly over a longer period of time.
A better alternative is vegetable juice, as this should avoid the insulin spikes you get with fruit juice.
Water fasting is a great way to fast, but it is not recommended for beginners as it can cause you to detox very quickly, which can be a bit of a shock if you don’t know what to expect. When i have water fasted in the past i also drank herbal teas, which can help aid detoxification.
Since you are drinking a lot of sugar soft drinks, i think one of the best ways you can detox would be to gradually reduce the amount of coke/pepsi you drink, until you completly eliminate it.
Only then should you consider fasting.
If you try and do to much too soon you can actually harm your body, because you are detoxing too quickly and overloading the body.
So start by eliminating the soft drinks, then replace them with herbal teas. Dandelion tea is good for the liver which will help you detoxify.
Other things you can try are corriander, garlic, selenium, turmeric, chromium and water.
But make sure the water you are drinking is clean water that has gone through a proper filter. This is especially important if you live in Americia, which has very poor quality drinking water. In addition to this a shower filter should be used, as you absorb a lot of toxins in the shower.
Exercise during fasting is recommended as it aids the blood and lympthatic systems, thereby assisting detoxification.
Exercise should be light, such as yoga, incorporating stretching various muscles in the body and raising the heart rate slightly. Although if you have not fasted before, you may feel very weak to begin with and not want to exercise.
If your blood sugar gets low during fasting (which it will on a water fast) something sugary such as fruit juice would help to raise your blood sugar, and give you some short term energy again.
However i would stay away from any kind of soft drink or glucose tablets, as they are very bad for you, and a major contributor towards developing diabetes.
If you are trying to detox this is not what you want to be putting in your body. Do you know what aspartame is? Its in a lot of diet drinks. If you haven’t heard of aspartame look at this:
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html
Did you know that when you eat carbohydrates the food turns into glucose. Glucose can weaken your immune system by upto 50% for 5 hours making you more vulnerable to disease and infection.
So i eat a low carbohydrate diet, which some doctors have found can be used to reverse diabetes.
Overall i would recommend stopping the soft drinks first before doing any fasting. Detox slowly so you don’t do yourself any harm, and speak to your doctor first as there may be complications for diabetics who fast.
This is something you should be looking at over several months, rather than trying to detox yourself within a few days. Remember, body fat also stores toxins, so if you are overweight will you be accumulating toxins there.
In addition to this you can do a colon cleanse, as a lot of toxins accumulate in the bowels, especially if you are eating junk and drinking lots of sugary drinks. Both of which will encourage the growth of bad bacteria, giving you things like candida.