Benefits of an Elimination Diet

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These are the top foods to which people are sensitive. Of course, the list can go on and on, but these are the foods to begin eliminating and challenging with a food elimination diet. Of course there are many more foods to which you can be sensitive, but it is best to start with these foods first. 

 

• Gluten (in wheat, rye, barley, and some oats). 

• Dairy

• Corn (found in a lot of sweeteners)

• Eggs

• Soy

• Sugar

• Tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts)

• Nightshades are a family of vegetables that include potatoes (except sweet potatoes and yams), tomatoes, peppers (green, red, yellow, orange, jalapeno, chili, and pimentos), eggplant, tobacco, spices (from peppers like cayenne, chili, red pepper, curry mixes, paprika)

• Citrus

• Yeast (baker’s, brewer’s yeast, and fermented products like vinegar)

   

Causes of Food Sensitivities

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Variations in Nutritional Status

 

Variations in nutritional status, including nutrients involved in modulating the immune response, supporting detoxification mechanisms, and protecting the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract can determine whether someone develops a food sensitivity.

 

Too Much of One Food

 

You can become sensitive to any food you eat too often. Many people eat a relatively small number of foods several times a day. For example, wheat, a common food sensitivity, is found in breakfast cereals, the bread used to make a sandwich at lunchtime, and the spaghetti eaten at dinnertime. Also, wheat is a thickening agent used in food processing, so it is a common hidden ingredient in many processed foods. Our bodies don't know how to deal with eating a lot of the same foods.

 

Leaky Gut Syndrome

 

The digestive tract plays a vital role in preventing illness and disease by providing an impenetrable barrier. When the lining of the gut is inflamed from a food sensitivity, small fissures can open between the tightly woven cells making up the gut walls. A condition coined "leaky gut syndrome" develops. 

With leaky gut syndrome, partially digested dietary protein can cross the intestinal barrier into the bloodstream. These large protein molecules can cause an allergic response, producing symptoms directly in the intestines or throughout the body.  

 

Additionally, hundreds of yeast and bacteria are released from the gut into the bloodstream where they set up infection anywhere, including muscles, joints, bones, teeth roots, coronary arteries, or even the brain.

 

Deficiency of Probiotics

 

One of the causes of leaky gut is an absence of probiotics or 'friendly' bacteria in the intestines. The friendly bacteria help maintain the health of the intestines by producing fuel for intestinal cells and killing bad bacteria. Parasitic infections, treatment with antibiotics and other toxic pharmaceuticals, stress, poor diet (sugar and flour), smoking, alcohol, excessive hygiene, candida overgrowth and bottle-feeding your baby can disrupt the proper balance of friendly bacteria to bad bacteria.

 

Over-worked Immune System

 

Constant stress, vaccines, exposure to air and water pollution, poor diet and pesticides and chemicals in our food puts a strain on our immune system, making it less able to respond appropriately to the antigens in food. Not to mention viruses, gut dysbiosis, chronic infections, autoimmune and all the other health issues that are affecting a large number of people.

 

When someone has leaky gut or an overworked immune system, there can be a reduced secretion of IgA antibodies into the intestinal tract, which bind to undigested food particles and protect against their toxicity.

 

Genetics

 

Food allergies and intolerances seem to be hereditary. Research indicates that if both parents have allergies, their children have a sixty-seven percent chance of developing food allergies. When only one parent is allergic, the child has a 33% chance of developing food allergies. Specifically, a person may inherit a deficiency of an enzyme like lactase, the enzyme that digests dairy. With nightshade sensitivities, there are ten genetic variants for susceptibility, not all individuals are affected equally or at all. A similar case can be made for other food sensitivities. 

 

Genetic, and perhaps epigenetic, variations can occur in the activities of enzymes and other proteins that activate toxins in foods, detoxify the toxin, transport the toxin, or mount an immunological response to the toxin. All of these genetic variations predict the severity of your sensitivity.

 

Intrinsic Toxicity of the Food

 

Think nightshades, which are slightly toxic. The toxicity of legumes and grains can be mitigated if foods are properly prepared with soaking, aka fermentation. In traditional cultures, this is the norm. Legumes and grains are soaked overnight or cooked for days. Proper preparation of food neutralizes the toxins in food, but this is rarely done in many countries today.

 

As you can see there are a lot of factors at play that cause one to become intolerant of a food. You can't just outline a diet and say, “This is the best diet." This applies to the Paleo diet and any other diet. Due to the complex nature of genetics, environment, intestinal flora, food and our nutritional status, one must figure out the diet that best suits their needs, preferences, and tolerances at any given time.

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Why 30 Days?

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You need to eliminate offending foods for 30 days. Thirty days is the amount of time your body needs to cool off from inflammatory foods and food sensitivities. After you eliminate the common irritating foods from your diet, it takes about 30 days for most people to experience relief from uncomfortable symptoms and calm inflammation. For some it can take 60 days. If you don’t feel relief after 30 days on a Paleo diet, try another 30 days and see if that doesn’t get the job done! Double down your Paleo bet.

 

Detox Symptoms

 

Warning: Individuals doing a food elimination diet may experience uncomfortable symptoms including headache, muscle pains, or fatigue. These are caused by detoxification and withdrawals from serotonin and other neurotransmitters and morphine-type substances in wheat and dairy. You are detoxing or having withdrawals from your food drug of choice. They are nothing to worry about and will pass.

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Testing For Food Sensitivities

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Many people are unable or unwilling to do a food elimination diet. The only problem is that going Paleo alone may not solve all your problems or pinpoint all your food sensitivities. And it may not be the answer to resolving your health issues. You can easily eat up to 50 foods in one meal - and you'd never know which foods were affecting you. This is why I think it is essential for everyone to do a food sensitivities test like the MRT - Mediator Response Test. This test is the most accurate food sensitivities test on the market today. IT not only measures your food sensitivities, but HOW sensitive you are. It's the only food sensitive test that measure this.

 

All food-induced inflammatory reactions involve mediator release, which is the single most important event leading to all the negative effects food sensitivity patients suffer. Mediator release to foods corresponds to volumetric changes in white blood cells like neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils, and lymphocytes, which are measured in this test. The MRT test measure mediator release and accurately identifies your food sensitivities with up to 93.6% reliability.

 

Food Sensitivities testing is essential to stop diet and food-induced inflammation in the body and the many undesirable symptoms that come from eating foods to which we are sensititive. 

 

When the body's immune system is constantly launching a response to foods, it drains the immune sytems precious resources and your energy. Oxford Labs MRT test is an easy blood test that can identify over 150 sensitivites to food and food chemicals.