A food intolerance, or sensitivity, occurs when a person’s body has difficulty processing a particular food, creating inflammation and pain in the gut and often elsewhere in the body. As well as digestive problems, certain foods may aggravate skin and respiratory conditions. Any symptom that the human body can produce, may be as a result of food; it won’t always be, but it might be.
Food intolerance can be triggered by many things; adverse reactions to / long-term use of medications, such as anti-inflammatories, steroids or antibiotics for example. Sometimes people report that a particularly stressful incident; such as a bereavement, car accident or shock, were the trigger of their symptoms. Often it is quite simply down to overeating one particular food group, or excessive consumption of alcohol, or junk food laden with artificial ingredients. Whatever the trigger, once the food intolerance is present, it is more often than not here to stay, unless you make changes to your diet and sometimes your lifestyle.
Often symptoms may occur immediately after eating an offending food, or may take hours or even days to make themselves known, and the degree of severity may vary widely between individuals. Due to people eating regularly, this may make identifying offending foods difficult on your own. People are often told that they have IBS and are either medicated or sent away to live with the symptoms. IBS is an umbrella term that encompasses many conditions and digestive issues, where most or all of their symptoms may be alleviated by eliminating offending foods. If you are taking medication for a digestive complaint, you are possibly only masking a symptom. The pain you get from eating an offending food is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. By continuing to eat the food and masking it with medication, the problem is still very much there. Eventually, your body may find a different way of letting you know and it might not be as easy to ignore.
Most people assume they are intolerant to the ‘main culprits’, such as wheat, gluten, dairy, egg, caffeine – and more often than not, they’re absolutely correct. However, the average person who takes a test is intolerant to multiple foods and the other offending items may be something seemingly harmless, like lettuce, sweetcorn or broccoli - further clouding the detection process. Confusing things further, people with the most severe intolerance to certain foods can occasionally eat them when cooked differently. For example; someone with a wheat intolerance may be able to eat breadcrumbs or batter if they’ve been deep fried. Additionally, someone with an intolerance to onions may be able to eat them if they’ve been cooked beyond recognition. Simply put, anything that changes the molecular structure of the food may also change how the human body reacts to it. So, while it may make confirmation of certain foods via guesswork more difficult, it may also mean that all foods within an offending group might not be entirely off limits with a little experimentation.
The complete elimination of foods that you have an intolerance to may bring substantial improvements to your digestive and all round health. The only thing standing in your way is your own willpower and dedication – and I can help with that! Visit the Testimonials page to strengthen your resolve!
