I have multiple severe food allergies. If I eat wheat I get intense abdominal pain and gas.  If I eat pineapple my mouth will bleed.  Anything with yeast or sugar makes me itch instantly all over.  I haven’t drank milk in years, and if I did I would almost certainly have instant diarrhea.  I am so grateful for coconut milk ice cream!  Coffee makes the skin on my fingers swell, split and bleed within half an hour.  I guess you could say that for these reasons and more I study nutrition faithfully.

I stay away from these things most of the time, but for 30 days I want to commit to eating an allergen-free diet, catered specifically to myself.  We are all sensitive to the foods we eat to a certain degree. None of us have the same allergies, but you can bet that the foods you eat the most often are likely food sensitivities.   Most people eat the same foods day in and day out.  And most people are sensitive to these 5 things: milk, wheat, sugar, corn, and soy.  I am sensitive to the first 4, but for estrogen-dominance reasons I try to avoid soy as well.

Without going into too much detail, your body can come to crave the foods to which you are sensitive and those  foods can become drugs on which you are dependent.  Take coffee for instance.  A few days without your morning java and you could have yourself a nice little detox headache for 24-72 hours. If you are curious, go cold-turkey.  I had mine for a solid 48 when I stopped regular caffeine consumption.  You might as well add coffee to the common allergen list above at #6.  And if you eat bananas every day, your body can become sensitive and dependent on them too.  The same rules generally apply.

This is why I want to give my body a break.  I want it to heal substantially.  I want to feel even more energy on a daily basis and I want to identify the foods that are holding me back.  To aid my quest for optimal health, I will use my food sensitivity screening as my guide. This test uses your hands to complete an energy circuit and give you detailed information on how your body reacts to food.  It’s not expensive.  I believe mine was somewhere in the $120 range.

From my test I learned that there are:

118 foods to which I have a severe intolerance

34 foods to which I am moderately intolerant

16 foods to which I am mildly intolerant

And 139 that I am perfectly capable of eating!  Finally, some good news.

My method of attack in this 30-day challenge is to stick to the list of foods I can enjoy. I glanced over the list of foods I need to avoid, but there is no need to dwell on things I am not supposed to eat.  Mangoes were a surprise.  But then again I reacted to organic mangoes after my 31-day water fast back in 2007.  Mango skins gave me a rash and I was in denial.  My body knew back then that it didn’t want to eat mangoes.

As I look over the list again, there are no big surprises and nothing I can’t live without for at least 30 days, and I’m kicking off the challenge right now with a tall glass of high quality H2O 🙂  I will keep you posted as to how things are progressing – the ups, the downs, the meals, etc.