Articles of Interest

Food intolerance is probably one of the most annoying things you can experience. Because food intolerance problems express themselves in an inconsistent manner they are harder to locate and diagnose than food allergies which tend to be strong and immediate. Even months of testing and avoiding particular foods may not help you get closer to figuring out the problem. You may need to take a food intolerance test to find the source of the trouble.

The first myth that needs to be disregarded is the one that says that people who are sensitive to particular foods are allergic to them. Food allergies and food intolerances are not synonymous. Indications of food allergies occur suddenly and are generally quite violent. Intolerance to food has less drastic symptoms and can take as long as 3 days to appear. Taking a food intolerance test helps you to find out which foods are the main offenders.

When you have a food allergy, you have an allergic reaction to a particular food, and your immune system fights back much the same as it does if you have an allergy to pollen. Food intolerance is different in that the immune system is not involved in the body's reaction.

Your body does not think that it is being invaded by a foreign body. Nevertheless, your organs, usually your stomach and intestine which is where food is digested and eliminated, will react to certain ingredients in the food in question merely because it is intolerant to that particular food.

If your body stops producing or doesn't produce specific enzymes needed to breakdown a certain food then an intolerance will occur. As we grow and our bodies change this can sometimes happen to us. For example, many people become lactose intolerant because the chemical needed to suitably digest lactose decreases as we age. It can take several years for the unpleasant intolerance symptoms to show up.

When trying to determine foods that your body is intolerant to you have a few different options. One way is to eliminate everything in your diet except the few foods such as; brown rice, lamb and water that most don't have issues with. Eat only these foods for approximately three weeks. Then after the three weeks you can start to reintroduce one new food every few days. If you keep a food diary throughout this process you will be able to document which food you had problems with and which your body processed normally. In 6 to 9 months of continuing this process you will have a pretty good idea what foods affect you negatively.

Another means of finding out which ingredients your system cannot cope with is the ELISA lgG test, specifically designed to determine food intolerances. More than 200 foods can be examined that way, with only a small amount of blood needed to do so. When you begin cutting out the problem foods, you generally discover that you are more energetic, you digest the remainder of your foods more easily, and sleeping is facilitated as well. Lots of people also enjoy the extra advantage of a quick weight loss!