Food Intolerance Test Helps Guide Your Diet

Being unable to tolerate a food can be very aggravating. A food allergy, by contrast, is easy to spot, as you will react very quickly after ingestion. But an intolerance takes longer to become evident, and the person who has it might not even realize the cause. Or you can go out of your way to eliminate certain foods, and still not discover what the culprit is. So, a food intolerance test can determine the culprit a lot better than food elimination.

To start with, just because you cannot tolerate a food, that does not necessarily mean that you have an allergy to it. They are just simply not the same thing at all. If you have an allergy, the symptoms usually come on without warning, and are anything but mild. Intolerance is more mild and slower to appear. A food intolerance test, however, can clue you in to what should be avoided.

There is a fundamental difference between the inability to digest a specific type of food and an allergy to that same item. When you are allergic to something, the body treats it as a threat and acts to eliminate the problem. Conversely, intolerance is simply the inability of the body to handle a food item.

While your body will not react as if it is infected by something foreign, your body’s digestive organs (like your stomach and intestines) will respond negatively to many ingredients in food, simply because they are not tolerant of those particular ingredients in those foods.

Food intolerance usually happens when your body no longer produces the necessary chemicals and enzymes that aid the digestion of that food in particular. This is common for many people as they grow up, which is why such a large number of people become lactose intolerant, since the production of the enzyme used for lactose digestion decreases after the age of 2. We generally begin to develop symptoms much later, and these tend to be unpleasant.

You can find out what foods you cannot tolerate in a number of ways. You can do this by reducing your food intake to a small number of foods that it is known cause the smallest number of problems. It is common to begin with such foods as lamb, water and brown rice. If you eat only these foods for about three weeks, then you can begin to reintroduce other foods one at a time, every few days. You should keep a detailed diary and record any reaction you have. After 6 or 9 months you will probably have an clearer idea of which foods you cannot tolerate.

The other way to discover which foods you are intolerant to is to take an ELISA IgG blood test for food intolerances. This only needs a few drops of blood and over 200 foods can be tested. Once you start avoiding the foods you are intolerant to you will typically find that your energy levels increase, digestion improves, you get better sleep. Many people also find an added benefit of fairly rapid weight loss!

Food intolerance generally occurs because your body stops producing certain enzymes that help in the digestion of that particular food. If you suffer from this problem, a food intolerance test is the logical way to go to find out what is causing your problems. The key here is to remember that just because you cannot tolerate a particular kind of food; it does not necessarily mean that you have an allergy to it. Once you know the foods that you cannot tolerate and begin eliminating them from your diet, your digestion will improve as well as your energy and your sleep. Another benefit that everyone loves is rapid weight loss!

- Robert Harrison

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