Читать книгу The Food Intolerance Bible: A nutritionist's plan to beat food cravings, fatigue, mood swings, bloating, headaches and IBS - Antoinette Savill, Antoinette Savill - Страница 59

This is the traditional method for identifying foods to which you have an adverse reaction. There are variations on the theme, but the most strict type is to avoid all food and go on a water fast only for three days, and then introduce lamb and pears only. You do this for a period of time, from two to four weeks, then reintroduce individual foods one by one, with a gap of a number of days (usually four) in between each reintroduction. If the avoidance of a food leads to a reduction in symptoms and its reintroduction leads to a worsening of symptoms, then you are intolerant to that food.

This approach requires time and attention – and it is recommended that you record your reactions in writing as you go.

Following this method is difficult, and there are also problems related to malnutrition and care of the individual who embarks on this process. It is also difficult to confirm results with other modes of testing. With multiple food intolerances, it may prove very difficult to identify them all, since your symptoms may not improve even if you do avoid culprit foods because other foods contributing to your symptoms have not been avoided, even in the limited exclusion diet. This is where it may be best to consider a blood test.

Additionally, if there are complicating conditions as highlighted in Part 2, it may not be possible to identify whether symptoms are related to the food or to something else, such as a bacterial overgrowth or a liver detoxification problem. Lastly, this type of testing is not so suitable for unmasking delayed food intolerances as opposed to immediate reactions – which would in any case require medical attention.

A variation on this type of approach has been outlined in Chapter 1, and involves ‘simply’ eliminating the most obvious culprit foods from the Usual Suspects list for a period of time and then reintroducing them one by one. This is much more straightforward and produces good results without the extreme measures of the full Elimination Diet. The recipes and Resources in this book should greatly help you to implement this simpler approach.

Again, it is important to warn you that those with more serious conditions such as asthma should not undertake this approach because it is possible that reintroducing culprit foods will trigger a more severe reaction than when you were consuming it every day.