What is food intolerance testing and does an elimination diet work?

Food intolerance tests are often advertised in health food shops and alternative medicine clinics and I often found myself asking "Are they worth the money?"

I undertook some research about the various tests on offer and you can read the results of my findings at http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-food-intolerance-testing

In the end I opted to try out VEGA testing, and a more detailed account of the VEGA tests and my personal experience with it are described at http://hubpages.com/hub/VEGA-testing

This article describes my experiences with the elimination diet I was recommended to follow as a result of my tests. I hope you can benefit from reading about the difficulties I faced and the recommendations I can make in making your own experience easier.

Well, the test itself had been both fascinating and vindicating, but I was left with a somewhat daunting list of foods to eliminate from my diet. Lydia armed me with a booklet of foods to avoid containing dairy, wheat or yeast (did you know yeast is present in vinegar and dried fruit?) and several tips on how to cope with the elimination process.

Next stop the supermarket, where I start to appreciate the booklet’s advice to allow an extra 20 minutes shopping time for checking ingredients. Most sauces contain vinegar, most stock cubes contain yeast extract, some tins of mixed beans contain yeast extract (why?!) To make up for the lack of available fast foods I decide to be more adventurous in my choice of vegetables, with the result that my shopping bill is rather higher than usual.

The first meal stretched my culinary skills a bit but having explored the supermarket’s offerings more than I would usually I manage to be quite creative and my efforts were very much appreciated by the family. Perhaps a gourmet career beckons. I wonder if there’s a market for people struggling to come up with tasty recipes which are free of certain food types? Perhaps the clinic would be interested in publishing a recipe booklet to go with their other handouts……. One small success can trigger all kinds of fantasies!

At breakfast the next day I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy goat’s milk with my porridge. Lunchtime, however, proves a little more taxing. I usually just slap a sandwich together, or quickly stick some toast on, and my brain goes into meltdown at being required to think too much about what I’m about to eat. It occurs to me that my lifestyle of grabbing a quick lunch probably contributes to my increasing stress levels and is part of the reason why my food intolerance flared up in the first place! I make do with a tin of cow-free, wheat free and yeast-free ratatouille and make a mental note to cook more at tea time so that I can heat up the leftovers for lunch the next day.

By mid-afternoon my stomach is grumbling and my brain puts me on hunger alert. It seems “I mustn’t eat that” has become translated to “There’s nothing to eat” and my hunger pangs are making sure that I go out foraging for any food I can find. I cram some carrots and a packet of crisps and sulk back to my laptop. Hunger has a way of draining the brain of every thought other than the lack of food and I’m driven back to the kitchen. More carrots. Cakes and biscuits bought for the kids beckon at me. I run down to the local shop and buy some rice cakes. Every time I get hungry I threaten it with a rice cake. It seems to work.

I had not anticipated withdrawal symptoms. For a few days my mouth feels constantly dry, although I’m drinking far more water than before, I have a slight tension around my head and, worst of all, I’m starting to feel constipated. And I’m still hungry.

Sticking to a food elimination diet while traveling is almost impossible. Although I had the foresight to make up some salad and take oat cakes and rice cakes for lunches, buying meals out are rather a challenge. The only food I can eat at the Motorway services is chips (though later I discover that chips are fried in the same oil as battered fish so there is likely to be some traces of flour on the chips). Fortunately we are staying near a kebab shop so I opt for chicken kebab with salad. If there’s any risk of something being in there that shouldn’t be, I ignore it. A girl’s got to eat! Most restaurants will be able to tell you whether their meals contain any ingredients you need to avoid, but few seem able to recommend anything that you can eat. It pays to ring in advance and chat to various restaurants about your dietary needs. Some chefs will rise to the challenge and cook something especially for you. If they do make sure you blog about how wonderful they are so others can enjoy a meal out too!

Within a few weeks I’m able to settle into a routine, exploring cookery books and foods in the shops that I would previously not have noticed. Seeds of Change do a lovely Mediterranean vegetable sauce, which mixed with minced lamb has become a family favourite. I try to cook extra in the evenings so that I have something substantial to eat at lunchtime the next day. I actually do feel better and have much more energy, partly because I’m having to take my time preparing meals instead of just slapping any old thing in the oven. The catarrh hasn’t gone yet, in fact it’s rather annoyingly sticky, which I realize is due to the goat’s milk, but the eczema seems to have disappeared. After a few abortive attempts at Soya milk, I settle on Oat-based milk and find Almond milk to be surprisingly nourishing and addictive (though a little sweet). Both Sainsbury and Tesco do a fairly wide range of free-from foods, including the excellent range of Doves Farm gluten-free flours.

I had great difficulty working out free-from recipes but eventually found the books advertised at the start of this article to be useful (I especially recommend Cranks' Ratatouille)

There are a growing number of websites, providing free free-from recipe ideas. At the time of publication I found the following to be useful:

I still haven't found a tasty recipe for unleavened bread, which I found the most difficult food to live without. If anyone has any favourite free-from recipe ideas and photographs, please post them in the comments below and when I have enough I'll compile a recipe book. Recipes will be printed with the contributor's name and town next to it, but please supply details of the source of the recipe if it isn’t one you’ve made up yourself. All the proceeds will go to a charity that researches these conditions – so nominations for worthy charities are also requested!

I have since chatted to many other women, mainly career women, and I’ve discovered that a lot of them have similar experiences. One lady, who had to stop eating meat because of a stomach ulcer, found that, as a result, she no longer suffers with acute period pain.

I must stress that a balanced diet is very important. Whenever a food is eliminated, ensure you substitute another food or take the appropriate vitamins and minerals to ensure you get enough of the nutrients you need. Otherwise you may end up sicker than when you started.

For my part, I had another bad flare up of stomach pains and was strongly advised to go to my Doctor. I was persistent this time in badgering for an answer and eventually underwent an endoscopy, which showed that I had ulcerative colitis or Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Symptoms include acute stomach pains that flare up for a while then go into remission for a period of time, fatigue, catarrh and depression. The medication I was provided with alleviated all these symptoms, including the catarrh.

My experience with the elimination diet taught me first-hand just how important a balanced and healthy diet is. I still regress from time to time into a lazy diet of junk foods, which results in lethargy and irritability and aggravates the IBD, but by reducing sugary foods and wheat and increasing my vegetable intake my energy levels and sense of wellbeing are soon restored again. Sometimes the only effective motivation to quit those addictive sugary foods is the desire to get well.

If you want to know more about food allergies and the various tests you can take this information is provided in the article "Is Food making you ill?" at http://hubpages.com/t/cba45