Food Allergies and Sensitivities
Finding out you have food allergies or intolerances often means changing your entire diet. This can be a huge challenge even for people who already were eating “healthy” or cooking from scratch. Often, adjusting to a food allergy friendly diet means restructuring your many aspects of your life. This resource is intended to help provide links to websites, cookbooks, restaurant and shopping guides. However, we also hope it encourages you that optimizing your well being and healing from food allergies is possible with some effort on your part and the right support.
Often having a food allergy is the result of what some call “leaky gut.” This means….
How to heal the gut in cases of food allergies and intolerances:
1. Remove all food allergens. This, of course, begins with understanding which foods your body is reacting to. As you may know, food allergies and sensitivities may be assessed through blood tests, such as ones ordered by the doctors at Boulder Natural Health, or though an elimination/rechallenge diet. In this diet, all the potential top allergens are removed from the diet for at least 2 weeks and any changes are observed (such as changes in stool, mood, pain and other health concerns). Then foods are systematically reentered one
2. Treat the dysbiosis – repopulate with healthy gut bacteria and kill off any candida or other opportunistic microbes. Fermented foods, FOS, inulin (in jerusalem artichokes, herbal roots such as burdock, dandelion, chicory, elecampagne…there is some in garlic, onion, leeks, asparagus)
3. glutamine – the GI system’s preferential amino acid. High in cabbage and cabbage juice (1 Liter per day).
Resources for Living with Food Sensitivities:
(websites, cookbooks and recipes)
-glutenfree blogspot
-gluten free girl
-celiac foundation
-noursishingmeals.com
-paleo websites (cross link to other post)
-whole foods store website has recipes
-gluten and casein free diet — gfcfdiet.com
-glutenfreeliving.com
-glutenfreedom.com
-gluten.net
-anaphylaxis – foodallergy.org
-celiac.com and celiac.org
americanceliac.org
Cookbooks:
–whole life nutrition cookbook
–baby cakes – many gluten free baking recipes
Specific allergy-aware brands and products:
-gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free bread: Food for Life (brown rice, raisin pecan)
Substitutes:
milk — most can be found sweetened or unsweeteend. soy (foams well but avoid in thyroid issues), almond, coconut, rice, hemp, hazelnut
butter — coconut oil (great baking substitute), coconut spread, earth balance (spreadable vegetable oil), olive oil (in baking).
cheese — almond and other dairy-free cheeses (check for casein if you are also sensitive to this component of dairy)
eggs– in baking 2 Tablesppons of ground flax mixed with water to make gelatinous is a good substitute for 1 egg, applesauce, xanthum gum
gluten — gluten free baking mixes, xantham gum helps as a binder as does egg or ground flax seed
grocery shopping made easier:
-whole foods has lists of food allergen free products, great recipes, good product labeling and in store help
-king soopers – many options and store tours (gluten free)
-sprouts- has a gluten free guide, labelled product
note: many gluten and allergy free products are found in a specific section, sometimes in the freezer section (especially any baked goods)
eating out:
-list of food allery friendly restaurants
-what to check for – hidden sources of food allergies,
-asking your server (specific menu, reminding them of severity, double checking), possible substitutes
-bringing your own dressing or other addons that the dish may be plain without
Food Planning – quick tips
-see the USBiotech food allergy booklet
At Boulder Natural Health, we help people identify and heal both food allergies and food intolerances. We offer a food allergy testing as well as dietary and nutritional counseling and specific supplementation that will help you heal your food reactions.
