Health Food Stores Battle Food Allergies

At health food stores, customers are complaining about food allergies more often now with statements like, "I can't eat this", or "I can't eat that." Why do so many people, especially those who frequent health food stores, believe they have food allergies? It's funny, I've never heard anyone say, "I'm allergic to coffee, cookies, cakes, popcorn, pizza or candy", and yet these are things that people ingest regularly without a second thought. So, what's up with all these health food store shoppers who have food allergies?

Food allergies occur when the immune system overreacts to a protein molecule in the offending food. This can happen even with those who stick to food from health food stores. The body is unable to break down that particular protein molecule, so it reacts by trying to "get rid of it". It produces a chemical called 'histamine' and symptoms appear in the form of rashes, hives, itching, wheezing, breathing problems, and lots of mucus being expelled through the mouth, nose, ears, lungs, or sexual organs. More serious reactions from food allergies are: vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness, drop in blood pressure, or even death.

Intolerance to certain foods is different than true food allergies, and this is a more common complaint at health food stores. With food intolerances like lactose intolerance, where a person has difficulty breaking down the sugar in the milk, the symptoms are much milder. One may have some bloating, excess gas, cramping or diarrhea. While food intolerance is unpleasant, it is not life threatening like food allergies can be in some severe cases. The usual distresses are intolerances to wheat, soy, dairy and anything at health food stores that the shopper feels is too expensive.

The question that customers at health food stores ought to ask is not, "What food am I allergic to?" But rather, "Why is my immune system reacting to what should be health food?"

When determining specific food allergies and intolerances, some factors to consider are:
1. What is the trigger food?
2. When am I eating the trigger food?
3. Am I improperly combining fruits and vegetables or grains or meat and dairy?

The list can be quite exhaustive to hunt down the offending trigger food and how it is being consumed. In fact, most food allergy experts will tell you to keep a diary of everything you eat, and when you find the trigger food to just avoid eating it. Well, that sounds simple, but if you react to many things, including those that should be health food, it's not so simple? Of course, you can eliminate the most common triggers to food allergies like: corn, wheat, eggs, dairy, and peanuts, but if that doesn't work, then what? The truth is, your immune system can overreact to many substances. The best way to address food allergies is to strengthen your immune system and get in balance with all the systems of the body. Shop health food stores for specific foods to feed your 5 main systems equally: immune, endocrine, digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems. This may be difficult at typical health food stores, but searching online will produce results.

When you feed all your body parts with healthy, whole food nutrients, and eliminate the fake, processed foods in your life, your 5 systems can come into a perfectly natural balance. Then you can eat what you know you should be eating. It is better to strengthen the body's systems with properly combined health food and ward off illness and disease the natural way. When you consume the right nutrients, the body operates at optimum levels for a more relaxed, healthy life. You have access to so much good nutrition at health food stores and plenty of options for avoiding food allergies or intolerances that it's a shame to limit your choices unnecessarily.

Cliff Smith is the owner of an online health food store specializing in properly combined, concentrated whole food formulas that nourish, cleanse and balance the body. Many of his customers have overcome their food allergies and intolerances with health foods that are not sold in typical retail stores. Visitors to the online store are encouraged to take the free alkaline food test, request catalogs, sample products, and discover more nutrition facts.

Improving Health and Nutrition: What You Need To Know About Food Allergies

Food allergies can be a common source of discomfort and symptoms often go undiagnosed. Many people experience the daily effects of food allergies without realizing their unease is actually a food allergy symptom. One of the most common symptoms of a food allergy is weight gain. In the body, water is retained as a way of attempting to protect the body from the irritation of poisonous substances and food allergens. Fat cells also expand to provide a buffer and protect the body. When loosing weight, water is often shed, but the body retains the fat because it is necessary to protect you from these toxins and allergens.

A food allergy specialist will often first ask a patient to write down their three favorite foods and then eliminate those from the diet. A study published in the Lancet found that common food allergens act like morphine-line drugs. This can result in us actually being addicted to the foods that make us sick! The cravings experienced for these foods are based on the same neurochemical responses that lead to drug additions. Removing the three favorite foods from the diet can not only reveal food allergies, without the need for expensive tests, but it can quickly make us feel great after the short period of "withdrawal" to the addictive substances is over.

If tests are required, a blood test is the easiest way to determine food allergies and one blood sample can be used to test with hundreds of foods. The most common blood tests for food allergies are as follows.

• RAST (Radio-Allergo-Sorbent Test)
  


• ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immuno-Sorben Assay)
  


• ELISA/ACT (Enzyme Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay/Activated Cell Test)
  

Not all food allergies result in immediate symptoms and blood tests can detect delayed symptoms as well as immediate symptoms. If the simple elimination approach does not detect the sources of a food allergy, a blood test may be the only way to find it.

Foods contain literally thousands of substances. Many of these substances change form depending on how it being raw or heated, how it was heated, how fresh it is, what other ingredients it is combined with and even natural "ebbs and tides" in your own immune system. Because of this, no blood test can be 100 percent accurate.

Other common causes of food allergies include poor digestion, nutrient deficiencies, too narrow a food selection in the diet and leaky gut syndrome. Food allergy relief can often be achieved by applying greater awareness of the need for a broad selection of whole foods, and the limitation or elimination of processed foods.

Quercetin, a flavonoid, and glutamine, an amino acid can bring relief to symptoms of food allergies by acting as an anti-inflammatory and anti-allergy agent and restoring intestinal membrane integrity. Adding glyconutrients to the diet can provide additional benefit by supporting the "parts" required for proper cell-to-cell communication and therefore proper immune system function. While some people may be able to reintroduce foods which once caused allergy symptoms, as they improve their diet and focus on an improved state of wellness, variations in genetics leave some people with permanent allergies to certain foods. In such cases, elimination is the only true "cure" for such food allergies.

Dave Saunders is a wellness coach and national speaker. Discover more vital truths about health and wellness at www.glycowellness.com and www.glycoblog.com.