Why it is Difficult to Identify a Food Allergy
Why is it difficult to recognize ones own food allergy?
This is difficult because of the often delayed nature of food allergies. Allergy symptoms may show up hours or even days later, after a food is well absorbed into your system.
This difficulty is compounded by the fact that certain foods such as dairy and wheat are so prevalent in our diet that many people eat them nearly everyday. Therefore connecting your symptoms with your eating habits is often nearly impossible.
Also allergic symptoms can be difficult to pinpoint, symptoms vary greatly and some may be unique to a particular sufferer.
What causes a food allergy?
Humans have only recently introduced many current day foods into the diet, so it’s not surprising that the immune system does not recognize every food as a friendly substance.
A wide variety of foods can cause allergic reactions, including animal products, fruits, vegetables, seeds, spices. Most common trigger foods are cow’s milk, eggs, nuts, Soya, fish, shellfish and wheat.
When mast cells produce excess mediators (histamines, etc) in error this causes a food allergy. The IgE antibodies react to an antigen in apparently harmless substances like cow’s milk, instead of reacting to bacteria and viruses.
Thus the antigen fits the antibody, the mast cell is triggered and mediators are produced.
Only the following foods to be eaten for the first 21 days:
Plain Meat – beef, pork, lamb, turkey, duck, no chicken
Plain fish – plaice, mackerel, trout, haddock (not smoked or processed)
Fresh vegetables
Fresh Fruit – (not citrus – oranges, lemon, limes)
Drinks – spring water, filtered water, fruit juices, herbal tea
Condiments – salt, pepper, herbs
Diagnosis
A proper diagnosis depends mainly on making a full assessment of the symptoms, and taking careful accounts of dietary history, family history. The suspect food(s) are removed from the diet for a specified period to see if symptoms improve.
Re-introduction of foods
Re-introduce foods one at a time. Wait about 8 hours to see if any symptoms are present then eat a second portion of that food. If no reaction then the next day repeat with a new food.
Using this method will gradually come up with a list of foods causing symptoms.
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