How do you know if food sensitivities may be causing your symptoms? Well, you can do some of your own detective work, or you can cut straight to the chase and find a detective, like a functional nutrition or functional medicine expert who knows where to look. Here are some tips for you to think about if you are experiencing symptoms such as joint pain, skin issues, headaches, or other symptoms.
Symptoms are not normal. What’s worse, as symptoms can have multiple causes. This makes it hard for us to figure out what is the root cause or causes that are making you sick. Foods are often sources of inflammation that lead to symptoms. You can get an inflammation checklist here to help identify common symptoms of inflammation. The good news is that you can start by looking at what you eat.
1. Start by Looking at Food
Do your own research first: While food sensitivities can cause a variety of symptoms that may be related to other causes, it’s good to rule out whether it may be a food sensitivity, as this can be corrected by eliminating a suspected or identified food or foods.
Explore changing your diet
- Anti-Inflammatory Diet – Eliminate foods such as processed and packaged foods. Eat organic if possible. You can try an anti-inflammatory diet on your own.
- Elimination Diet – Unfortunately, with symptoms, an anti-inflammatory diet and/or eliminating suspected foods may not resolve your symptoms. An Elimination Diet is a stricter diet which can be tough to do. It’s a good idea to get a functional practitioner to help determine if you need to do a strict elimination diet. This type of diet is not done long term, but for a few weeks. Typically, foods are eliminated such as dairy, wheat/gluten, soy, eggs, alcohol, coffee/caffeine. Once the diet is completed, a specific process is used to add back foods slowly to figure out which one(s) may cause food sensitivity symptoms.
2. Get in Touch with Your Body
Track Your Symptoms – It’s a good idea to be in touch with your body and notice how you respond to foods after a meal. Recording your response to a meal and the specific foods within that meal can help you figure out whether you may be reacting to a certain food or food(s). There are a variety of food diaries or apps that can help you with tracking your response to food.
Eliminate foods causing symptoms – If you notice any symptoms that recur after eating a certain food or foods, eliminate these foods. When re-introducing foods, if any symptoms occur, remove the food, again. You may need to eliminate a food or food(s) for a longer period of time or in some cases, you may have a long-term sensitivity.
3. Get Tested
Understand the different types of food reactions – Food sensitivities, food allergies, and food intolerances are often difficult for people to figure out. A description of the differences can be found here.
Test to try to figure out specific foods that are causing sensitivity or allergy – Testing can be helpful to identify what is triggering your symptoms, as although an anti-inflammatory diet targets the common culprits for causing food sensitivities, symptoms are often very individual and unique to what the person has been exposed to in their diet. While food sensitivity tests vary in their reliability and the types of foods they test, some may be more reliable than others. Here is an explanation of how food sensitivity testing works.
Specific food sensitivity testing – In addition to more general food sensitivity testing, there are specific tests available from some labs to test more specifically. For example, there are tests called zoomers for wheat, dairy, eggs, lectins, soy, nuts, or other types of sensitivities. A practitioner can help identify if more specific tests may be helpful.
4. Fix Your Gut
Find out if you have a leaky gut – Food sensitivities may be an indication of issues such as a leaky gut. Often food sensitivities increase over time with a chronic leaky gut. In some cases, people may test sensitive to a significant number of foods, which may resolve with healing the gut and slow re-introduction of foods. There are also functional lab tests that identify whether you have leaky gut.
Eliminate gluten – Eliminate gluten forever if you have tested positive for sensitivity to it or have autoimmune disease. Gluten-containing foods should not be added back to the diet if you are sensitive to gluten. Continuing to eat these foods can lead to increased risk of autoimmune diseases and other chronic illness.
Heal your gut – Healing your gut is hard to do on your own because there may be multiple factors involved and not just sensitivity to food. Dietary restrictions, supplements, diet journaling, healing foods are some of the strategies used by practitioners to help you heal. However, identifying the root cause of why you have food sensitivities is important to solving the issue, as the aforementioned strategies will at best resolve issues temporarily if toxins, emotional stress, or pathogens are causal factors that need to be addressed. While in some cases it is not clear as to what came first, a holistic approach is important to healing.
5. Get a Reliable Practitioner/Health Coach
Find the right practitioner and/or health coach – If objective testing is important for you to do the detective work to find out what is causing your symptoms, find an expert practitioner. For allergies, where you have immediate reactions to foods, you may need an allergist to do the testing. A functional practitioner can help with testing for food sensitivities and resolving leaky gut. Symptoms of food sensitivities, including gluten sensitivity, may or may not be gut related such as diarrhea, gas, or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They also include migraines, joint pain, brain fog, headaches, or mental disorders such as depression, anxiety or even schizophrenia.
For gluten-sensitivities, a certified gluten-free practitioner can help you with more specific gluten-sensitivity testing and coaching regarding gluten-free foods.
Using these 5 ways to figure out if you have food sensitivities that are causing your symptoms can help you not only find but eliminate food triggers, identify underlying causes, and understand who can help you overcome them. Resolving issues with food is often a journey that requires patience and mindfulness. Working with a functional practitioner and sticking to a plan to find the right foods and correct any imbalances in your body takes time. In the long run, through your healing journey, you can develop a better ability to feel how your body responds to different foods.
