VIEW HealthBit XCV: Simple Food Sensitivity Testing
A lot of us walk around unknowingly consuming foods that are affecting our well-being. Sometimes it is not until we eliminate the inflammatory food, and start feeling better, that we realize how much it was affecting us. Besides items that are obviously bad for our health, like sugar and fried foods, there are things that we may not realize are affecting us, the most common of which are dairy, gluten, soy and corn.
You may also be at a point where you are suspecting that certain foods are bothering you, yet you don’t want to pay for pricey food sensitivity testing. In either case, there is an simple way to determine if any of the foods you commonly eat are no longer serving you.
In order to sensitivity test you need to be off the offending food for two full weeks. This may seem like a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, this is a blip on the radar. Once committed, you need to plan for two weeks of a diet without the suspected food offender- without cheating. That means a diet completely devoid of that inflammatory food- in any form- for two weeks. For example, if you think dairy products might be bothering you, that means nothing made from cow’s milk for two weeks, i.e. no milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, butter, etc.
If you want to follow a protocol to cleanse the body while eliminating the potential offender, please see this VIEW HealthBit.
To test your sensitivity to the eliminated food after the 14 days are up, you systematically reintroduce it and note the changes to the body. You are looking for the following adverse reactions, or “symptoms”, some of which may be obvious, and others more subtle. These are (in alphabetical order):
Bloating
Constipation
Diarrhea
Headaches
Joint aches
Mental clarity
Mood changes
Skin changes (rashes, dry patches, etc.)
Sleep
It often takes a few meals of reintroducing the food to see these changes, therefore it is recommended to eat the food being tested with at least two meals on the day it is reintroduced. As with this above dairy example, this would mean eating, say, yogurt for breakfast and cheese with lunch. I usually recommend doing this pattern for two-three days to really get a sense of whether the food bothers you.