Here is a great article about elimination diet how to’s, from EverlyWell a company that does food sensitivity testing. I appreciate their discussion about the difference between a food allergy test–generally a pin prick test with an allergist, which measures the IgE reactions in your body. Most often testing for food “allergies” would tell you IF you had a severe body response, like anaphylaxis, a closing of your airways. An allergy test is not a food-sensitivity test. Which can be quite confusing.
A food sensitivity test measures the IgG antibody reactions in your blood. These are inflammatory markers. We can be consuming foods that cause an inflammatory response. A food sensitivity test can help you identify culprits.
When I got my first food sensitivity test in 2011 I did the top 95 food panel, and I was shocked to see that I had all kinds of foods that were falling in my medium to high inflammatory response–seemingly healthy items like vegetables and fruits. It quite literally looked like my shopping list. My naturopath suggested that results like this can be common IF you have leaky gut, caused a lifetime of insults to your digestive tract. That was my story. IF you get results like I had, it can be quite overwhelming to think about eliminating a lengthy list of healthy foods. This can be quite debilitating and can leave you wondering, “What Can I EAT?!!
I don’t generally recommend that clients start with a food sensitivity test, as the article suggests. It may be better, for those of you who may have been on your journey to identify trigger foods for some time. If you aren’t sure where to start, I recommend A simple elimination diet. This will clear out common culprits, give your gut a chance to heal, and quell your body’s inflammatory response.
I’m hosting a Whole30 Reset Challenge starting Feb 28th, inside my private Facebook: Optimal Health Blueprint. I invite you to join us, lurk, listen, learn, participate in whatever what feels right for you.
Personally, I plan to take advantage of the current on the EverlyWell website and purchase a kit. They have a discount that expires Feb 28, 2021. I won’t be using my kit until AFTER I do the Whole30, so that I get a clean result and hopefully not an impossibly long list of foods. I feel that doing it in the reverse order, and calming my inflammation first will be a strategy for success–For Me.
Enjoy!