Millions of Americans needlessly suffer, often for years, with
food allergies simply because they have been undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or cannot effectively manage their known food allergies. You may be one of them if you experience intestinal distress, headaches, joint pain, fatigue, or a myriad of other systems that seemingly cannot be explained.
Food Allergy Symptoms
A food allergy (supported by MealMixer's
Food Allergy Diet Planner) is a severe or mild inflammatory reaction to a type of food. An anaphylactic (or IgE) reaction is the most severe, and is often associated with swelling of the face, hands, throat and/or other parts of the body. It is considered an emergency situation and requires immediate medical attention. Some foods that can cause an anaphylactic reaction are shellfish, soy, and peanuts.
An IgG, or food sensitivity, reaction, (also supported by MealMixer's
Food Allergy Diet Planner) can cause great discomfort but is not life threatening. There are potentially hundreds of foods that trigger the formation of IgG antibodies, which, if eaten regularly over a period of time can build up and cause fatigue, headaches, joint pain, intestinal problems and many different types of skin conditions.
Commonly known conditions of food sensitivities are lactose-intolerance, and
celiac disease, and more recently many researchers are seeing links to
Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD.
How to Manage Food Allergies
If you have long standing symptoms that you think may be related to your diet, we recommend you work with your physician, dietitian or naturopathic doctor to determine to what, if anything, you may be sensitive. Often times this will require clinical study as well as certain types of blood testing (IgG or White Blood Cell).
With hundreds of foods that have been shown to cause symptoms and the length of time between eating the food and symptoms occurring, it takes a trained practitioner to properly diagnose the majority of cases. Many good tests are available from reputable companies such as
Great Plains Laboratories.
Once diagnosed, however, you can recover quickly if and only if you completely avoid the offending foods. While this may sound simple, it can be a very daunting task. Packaged foods often contain ingredients that the average shopper would not know to be dangerous to them. For example, hot dogs commonly contain milk protein as a filler, bacon is cured with sugar, and soy is very widely used in virtually every class of packaged food.
The safest and quickest way to heal is to prepare food yourself using only ingredients that are free of the allergen that your body reacts to. This would quickly become a logistical and shopping nightmare if it weren't for products such as
Food Allergy Diet Planner which not only creates a complete weekly meal plan based on specific food allergies—complete with tasty recipes and an easy to use shopping list, but it also tracks your diet to assure you are getting all of the nutrients you need, which is a common problem for those with food sensitivities.