5 Mistakes to Handling Food Allergies

It is quite possible you started looking into my blog and others like mine because you suffer from some kind of food intolerance or allergy and you were looking for <insert food type here>-free recipes. I get questions from readers pretty much hourly on how to make one of my recipes gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, grain-free, nut-free, and even chocolate-free.

I have learned this first hand with my own experience in healing my own food intolerance.

Before I go any further, however, I just want to say that I can already anticipate a lot of comments about how serious food allergies are (like peanut allergies for example). I am not disputing this and agree this is a very serious life threatening issue. I am purposely taking on this topic because I feel it is so important for us to face this head on. It is a fact that the incidence of food allergies is dramatically on the rise. This increase should give us pause. Our children are like the canaries in the coal mine. Their bodies are telling us something and we should listen.

5 Mistakes to Handling Food Allergies

1. Believing an elimination diet is sustainable. I have been there. I also spent many years avoiding gluten, dairy, eggs, and soy on a so-called ‘elimination diet’. However, is this how you want to spend your life? Is this how you want your child to live their life? Avoiding the foods you love and always constantly worryied about coming into contact with a certain food? This just isn’t sustainable over the long term.

2. Focusing solely on elimination of problem foods and not on healing the body. When we have food intolerance or allergies, this means our body is trying to tell us something. Something isn’t working properly. Most of our immune system is located in our gut. When our gut flora is out of balance, we can end up with an inflamed gut, also called ‘leaky gut’. When this happens, our immune system gets out of whack. Our bodies see food as the enemy. Healing the gut is a huge part of healing food allergies and intolerance.

3. Thinking that your list of foods to avoid will remain constant. When we have leaky gut and our immune system is out of whack, we have, in the simplest of terms, entered a ‘reactive state’. I experienced many years of feeling like I could not eat ANYTHING. I literally felt like I was allergic to everything. Nailing down which food was the issue was like a full time job. Each time I took an allergy test something new would pop up. Why? Because I was simply reactive to everything. I needed to heal my body and settle down my immune system. How many of you have experienced the same thing?

4. Believing there is a quick fix. As it turns out, healing our gut from leaky gut takes a really long time. Avoiding certain foods for a month and then trying them again will likely result in failure. I am still healing mine after two years of avoiding gluten. I am able to eat some gluten about once a month now, any more than that and my body tells me it is too much!

5. Thinking food allergies are not reversible. I know. This one is controversial. But food intolerance can be reversible. You just have to find the protocol that is right for your body. Consistency in your approach to full blown therapeutic gut healing is the key to success. I know many people committed to healing their bodies who have literally tried almost every protocol known to man when they finally hit on something that works for them. It takes time, listening to YOUR body, and patience, but for most, you should be able to overcome your allergies with good success.