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Food Allergies, Food Sensitivities and a Rotation Diet
Food allergies and sensitivities can wreak havoc with your body. The symptoms can run the gamut from nausea, hives, diarrhea, bloating, weight gain, and mood swings up to and including death. If you are allergic to shellfish or peanuts, you already know about it and know how serious exposure can be. But what if your allergy or sensitivity isn’t that obvious? What if you’ve never had a problem before and now you do?
You might begin to suspect a food sensitivity if you notice that after eating a certain food, you have indigestion, belch more often, have diarrhea or just don’t feel quite right. Fatigue, irritability and congestion can also be symptoms of food sensitivity.
If this happens, the best course of action is to remove the offending food from your diet for 30 days. Monitor yourself to see if you have those symptoms once you remove the food. Then try adding the food back to your diet, in a small amount, after 30 days. Do the symptoms re-appear? If so, you’ll need to eliminate the food again. If it’s something you’d like to be able to eat again, extend the removal period to 90 days and try again. If it’s something you don’t care that much about, drop it permanently.
For example, if you’ve been eating eggs every morning and suddenly you start noticing gastro distress or other symptoms every morning after breakfast, you should eliminate eggs from your diet. If you no longer have symptoms after dropping the eggs, you’ve likely pinpointed the problem. You might be able to add them back to your diet after 30 days, but only if you rotate them with other morning protein. Of course, if after a few days of eliminating eggs from your diet you still have the same symptoms, you should investigate further as there might be another offending food.
It is possible to develop a food sensitivity due to over-exposure. Chicken breasts day in and day out can cause a sensitivity to all things chicken including eggs and soup. I personally have to watch my powdered protein exposure as I will develop a sensitivity. If I continue to drink the protein shakes in spite of the symptoms, I can possibly push that protein powder into the never again column.
As with most things in life, not all people will develop sensitivities and some will develop them to such an extent that going on a rotation diet is the only alternative. A rotation diet is one where you divide foods into families and only eat from each family once every four or seven days.
The websites below go into great detail about rotation diets including offering a sample four-day rotation.
Principles of a Rotation Diet
Food Allergy Rotation Diet