Eat only rangefed turkey and lamb, baked or boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes (with salt and pepper only), rice and millet as your only grain, cooked green and yellow squash for your vegetable, and for fruit, pears and diluted pear juice. Drink a ricebased beverage drink in place of milk on cereal or The Elimination Diet in cooking. Do not yet use soy beverage. Take a calcium supplement. (Rice products, such as rice beverage, ricebased frozen dessert, rice pasta, rice flour, and millet are available in nutrition stores.)
This may seem overwhelming at first. But if you are right, it will be so worth it! At the end of two weeks, or sooner if your symptoms subside, gradually add other foods to your diet, one every four days, starting with those less commonly allergenic (such as sunflower seeds, carrots, beets, salmon, oats, grapes, avocado, peaches). Wait a while before you add wheat, beef, eggs, nuts, and corn. Avoid for the longest time dairy products, soy products, peanuts, shellfish, coffee, tea, colas and other beverages containing caffeine, chocolate, tomatoes, and citrus fruits. Vegetables and fruits are often tolerated in cooked form sooner than in raw form. If you are eliminating for your baby’s colic you also want to avoid gasproducing vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, green peppers).
In 2006 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began requiring food manufacturers to list food allergens on their product labels. This makes them easier to read. Under the ingredients it will list in bold print all of the major allergens in the product (like, wheat, dairy, soy).
A word about corn allergies: This is a tricky one because it is hidden in so many things under the names “citric acid, ethyl alcohol, and xantham gum”, which are all corn derivatives. If you add something to your diet that gives you an unexplained reaction even medicine and vitamins consider corn as the source of the problem.
Could you have a food allergy? Food allergies and intolerances are extremely under diagnosed. I meet people all the time who are probably suffering from a food allergy and don’t know it. I wanted something succinct and helpful I could give to people I meet, describing food allergies. So I wrote this. I hope it is helpful to you.
Feel free to contact me! Deena deenasao@hotmail.com
Does your baby have eczema? Do you
me and my family
have unexplained stomach pains? Is your child’s behavior erratic? Maybe it’s a food allergy. Your problem could be solved by eliminating a food from your diet! Allergies can start at seemingly random times. Even if your symptom is “new” it may still very well be a food allergy or intolerance.
My story My 7 year old son was always sick. At first we thought he was faking it to get out of school. But then he started throwing up too. We thought it was strange that he threw up whenever he was at a birthday party. Then came the stomach pains. He was missing a lot of school and his behavior was out of control too. We took him to the Doctor. They did x rays and tested his urine. They didn’t know what was wrong with him. But I had friends with food allergies and I was beginning to suspect this is what was wrong with him because the problem had been so ongoing (two years!!) It just couldn’t be a “virus”. I recalled an incident when he was a baby. I had made homemade bread with whole wheat and then eaten a lot of it. After breastfeeding him he broke out in hives from head to toe. I took him to the emergency room where they gave him Benadryl and he was fine.
Remembering that incident, I thought wheat would be a good first food to try eliminating. So we did and I was right. He is gluten intolerant, which means he can’t eat wheat, barley or rye. If he were to eat gluten now he would get extremely ill. On a gluten free diet I have my son back. He is happy and healthy and painfree! *** My son is not the only one in the family with food sensitivity. My husband is lactose intolerant. He didn’t figure this out until he was an adult. For years he suffered from stomach pains and diarrhea whenever he ate dairy. This is actually very common. Most Asians and Africans are lactose intolerant.
The Pulse Test Take your pulse before and after each meal. If your pulse rises by more than 10 beats per minute, it could be a reaction to the food.
There is lots of support and information online for people with food allergies. There are also lots of cookbooks. Even common grocery stores now carry alternative foods (like gluten free cookies for my son). Also, consult your Doctor. There are some medical tests that can rule out or confirm food allergies.
What to do if you suspect a food allergy or intolerance? Start writing down what you eat and what happens afterwards. Reflect back on previous triggers. Like my son at birthday parties the wheat in birthday cake always made him throw up. Also consider any allergies among your relatives. These can give you good clues as to what your trigger food is. The next step is an elimination diet. This is where you eliminate the most allergenic foods and slowly add in different categories until you identify which one (or ones!) are the cause. On the back of this brochure I reprinted an elimination diet based on the book: Detecting Your Hidden Allergies, by William G. Crook, M.D