What Is Food Intolerance and Why You Need to Know Yours + #AskNDph Launch

When was the last time you know you were eating right?  What is food intolerance and how is it different from food allergy?

I have accepted the challenge of avoiding foods I’m intolerant to for the next three months. I am doing this for my health and well-being . Plus the fact that I want to see the big difference it will do to me in terms of my weight, my waist, my sleeping patterns, my feeling of bloatedness , loss of energy at times and other discomforts I suffer like headache, lower bach ache and cramps.

Recently, I took the Food Detective Test, an easy-to-use food intolerance self-test that gives immediate result. The kit cost around Php6,000.00 ++ and its a simple procedure where you take a certain amount of blood for sampling. The test will take about 40 minutes to get the result and while the process is simple creating such fast and efficient test kit took a lot of time and study. Which means this is realiable. The kit is exported from Cambridge Nutritional Sciences United Kingdom who has advanced techonology and resources when it comes to medical research and practices like this.

 

 

Anyway, there are 46 kinds of food included in the list that you will be tested on, most of them are basic food kinds that we eat everyday. There is a more extensive food intolerant test that cost around Php23,000 +++ and has about 200+ types of food enumerated.

The 46 foods  included in the list are:

1. Oats
2. wheat
3. rice
4. corn
5. rye
6. durum wheat
7. gluten
8. almond
9. brazil nut
10. cashew
11. tea
12. walnut
13. cow’s milk
14. whole egg
15. chicken
16. lamb
17. beef
18. pork
19. white fish mix
20. freshwater fish mix
21. tuna
22. shelfish mix
23. brocoli
24. cabbage
25. carrot
26. leek
27. potato
28. celery
29. cucumber
30. peppers
31. legume mix
32. grapefruit
33. melon mix
34. peanut
35. soya bean
36. cocoa bean
37. apple
38. blackcurrant
39. olive
40. orange and lemon
41. strawberry
42. tomato
43. ginger
44. garlic
45. mushroom
46. yeast

Out of all the 46 in the list, I was found out to be intolerant of Cow’s Milk!

The test also indicated that I am not intolerant of shellfish however, I am allergic to it.   This does not mean I can eat it though.  I was told that if you are allergic to it then by all means try to avoid it as well.

 

In the test result interpretation you will see different shades of blue, the darker the shade the higher the risk of your intolerance and that you should avoid it right away to get your back to healthier gut and a healthier you in general.

Why avoid foods you are intolerant to?

The test happened at the launch of AskND.ph (an online portal for everything nutrition in the Philippines) while having a conference with a room full of nutritionist and doctors .  While I was being bombarded with a lot of medical jargons, I was drawn into the discussion because it was very interesting.

Dr. Nigel Abraham from UK gave a very interesting talk on gut health and the mast cell involvement in inflammatory disease.  He mentioned that avoiding food you are intolerant to (IGG Diet) can be the answer to all diseases in the world if not most of it. In a study they conducted it showed that following an IGG Guided Diet have reported a signifance improvement in their condition.

I have learned that being allergic and being intolerant to certain kind of food or foods is different .  Allergic triggers reaction that are immediate and may cause death.

 

Food intollerance are associated with an inappropriate immune response to a particular food. It manifest wide range of unpleasant symptoms and many chronic conditions. Unlike food allergies, food intolerance is unlikely to be life threatening. Food intolerance are associated with an inappropriate immune response to a particular food or foods. Symptoms can appear up to three days after eating the offending reactive food and can last for weeks.  That said it is very difficult to pin-point which foods could be causing the symptoms that is why in the test blood specimen is used for the assessment.  Knowing which type of food or foods to avoid will lead to gut health.

 

 

Our gut’s health is dependent on what we eat, while the gut is able to process the food that we are intolerant to , our gut absorb all the nutrients which are causing reactions in the body, disrupts the balace of the gut’s ecosystem theyreby causing mal-absorption of nutrients and triggering health issues. Such as:

 

1. Resipiratory (rhinitis, sinusitis and asthma
2. Musculoskeletal (arthritis, joint pains, aching muscles and weakness)
3. Gastrointestinal (vomiting, abdominal bloating, cramping, excessive wind, water retention, nausea, constipation, diarrhoea, wight control problems and colic.
4. Central Nervous System (migraine, headache, impaired concentration, mood and behavioural changes depression, anxiety, fatigue and hypeactivity)
5. Dermatoligical (urticacia, atopic dermatitis, eczema, itchy skin and other rashes)

A diet that eliminates the problem food will often be enough to prevent the onset of the above symptoms.  Where your test shows an elevated level of antibodies to a specific food, you should eliminate it completely from your diet for a period of at least 3 months.  When the symptom subside, the eliminated foods can be reintroduced one by one and the effects monitored.  They said you can have the food intolerant test again after a year just for monitoring.

 

What next?

I am lucky to have only one type of food to avoid but if you have a lot of positive result like John Bueno, it will be very challeging to eliminate all the food at once.  It is recommended to avoid the food with a moderate and strong reaction and rotate the foods showing mild reaction.

For me, Cow’s Milk is challenging to eliminate in my diet because I love ice cream , cheese and pizza! They are my life.  However, I want to see if there is indeed a change in my well-being if I change the way I eat. Afer all, there’s an alternative to cow’s milk and I make sure that the kind of milk I use is not cow’s milk.  Alternative cow’s milk source is soy milk, sheeps milk, goats milk.  As for cheese and pizza , I was told I can have it occassionally or until after 3 months .   With this in mind, I therefore accept the challenge.

If you would like to get your own Food Intolerance Test (Food Detective or the other extensive one) you may visit AskND.ph accesible via @AskND on Facebook or you can email them at askndph@gmail.com.

 

AskND.ph have partnerships and affiliation with international institutions and practitioners .  They want to pave the way for Filipino to a well-guided and effective personalized nutrition programs, supported by accurate information and up-to-date medical tools.  This will take away the guessing  and having to follow fad diets or trend diets.

It was asked in the forum if Filipino’s are ready for such platform.  I think we are.  Most now are health conscious lately which is a good sign.

Please do let me know if you took the test and lest exchange notes of our experiences along the way!

Stay gorgeous everyone!

Watch how the Food Intolerance Test / Food Detective Test is administered in this video: