Is Your Diet Making You Sick?

You eat well, drink lots of water daily, take your vitamins and even exercise regularly yet you are still tired all the time and just don’t feel 100%.  It’s possible food is the culprit!

If you experience these symptoms on a regular basis its possible you could have food allergies:  bloating, constipation, headache, sinusitis, swollen glands, heart     palpitations or irregular heartbeat, dark circles or bags under the eyes, sore throat, fatigue, arthritis, and skin irritations are just some of the possibilities .  Allergies can mimic any health condition so its important to find out if food is triggering your symptoms.

Today’s food supply is not the same as it was many years ago.  Chemicals added to food (pesticides) can wreak havoc on our cells and cause any number of reactions.  Did you know that certain types of rice contain traces of Arsenic?! The body knows what it likes and dislikes and adverse reactions are a message that something isn’t right!  Allergies are not necessarily a weakness in the body rather a reaction to excessive amounts of certain antibodies.

Sometimes its obvious what causes a reaction.  If you eat peanuts when you are allergic, you know pretty quickly that was the offending food!  This is called an “immediate type reaction”.  Other foods may not show symptoms for hours or even days later!  The body needs to process all the chemical components and then it decides what it doesn’t like.  This is called a “delayed type reaction”.

The best way to determine if your food is causing you grief is to make a list of your symptoms and then do an elimination diet.  The most common allergenic foods are eggs, wheat, corn, citrus, dairy, sugar, chocolate (say it isn’t so!), nuts, strawberries (such a shame!).  Foods that cause arthritic symptoms (inflammation) are the nightshades family: tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, peppers.

There are several ways of doing the elimination diet.

First try eliminating individual items from the list for 3 weeks and see if you notice an improvement in your symptoms.  The down side is this process takes some time to go through the list.

If you don’t see an improvement in symptoms after removing individual items, it could be the combination of foods that is causing your issues. To determine this you must eliminate ALL of the above mentioned items for a minimum of 3 weeks.  Doing a combination elimination is the best way to detect allergenic foods.   For those of you with arthritic symptoms you must remove ALL of the nightshades as mentioned above.  Once the 3 week exercise is complete gradually re-introduce one item back into the diet at a time over several weeks.  Pay attention to how you feel after eating each food.

Take note of what you are combining your foods with.  For example do you eat eggs & toast every morning, or oatmeal and strawberries, or have chocolate every afternoon?  Eating the same food or combination of foods regularly over time can create a sensitivity that manifests itself in many ways, including those listed above.