A Sensitive Issue

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I first came across food sensitivity issues a couple of years ago when Jen was dealing with reactive arthritis. Before then, I hadn't thought there could be a link between food and health issues or reactions. Boy was I uninformed. As I've written in previous posts, Jen's joint and bone pains are caused by two main culprits: dairy and gluten. When she gets rid of those two foods, she is 99+% pain free. It is an amazing blessing that it has been that simple for her to get relief.

And the interesting part of that reality is that most arthritis sufferers world-wide could have the same beneficial results if they would just get rid of dairy and wheat. The proteins in those two foods (casein in dairy and gluten in wheat, barley and rye) are notorious for causing inflammation in various parts of the body, leading to pain. Eliminate the proteins (by eliminating or significantly limiting these foods) and you eliminate the pain.




It turns out that dairy and wheat are the top two of the most common food sensitivity triggers. Millions of Americans unwittingly bring pain and discomfort on themselves with every meal by consuming these two proteins. And they have four other close cousins, all of which are known as common triggers of inflammation and pain. Here's the whole list of top six food sensitivity causes:

1. Dairy
2. Wheat
3. Corn
4. Soy
5. Peanuts
6. Eggs

If you have unexplained joint and muscle pains, sluggishness, foggy thinking and poor memory, and pain and discomfort in your gut, there's a good chance you would benefit by limiting or eliminating some of all of these foods. The top two are the worst offenders, and all six together are wreaking havoc on western society.


So what do you do if you suspect you may be sensitive to these pain-triggering foods? Try a simple elimination diet: take the food out of your diet for a two week time frame, and see how you feel. Between day 8 and 10 you may feel the worst, but at about two weeks you'll have detoxed much or all of the pain-causing elements from the trigger food, and you'll emerge from the pain and sluggishness. If the food(s) in question are the cause, you'll notice improvement and relief in a day or two. Sometimes improvement is within hours.


If after two weeks of eliminating the food(s) you don't feel any better or different, then the food(s) in question obviously isn't the trigger of the pain. You can move further down the list until you've tested out all six as possible pain-initiators. 

If you suffer from regular aches and joint or muscle pains, maybe it's time to try a simple elimination diet for the top six food triggers. If you're like millions of other Americans, you are susceptible to one or more of the six food triggers, and you'll benefit by not eating that food any longer. Just like Jennifer continues to live pain-free by keeping away from dairy and wheat, you'll get relief. Happy eating!

By the Way

The pain-triggering foods I'm describing in this post are actually the cause of food sensitivities, not food allergies. Here's the difference. An allergy is an immediate bodily response due to contact with the offending food. The response is basically an anaphylactic reaction where our bodies seek to protect us from the irritant by an immediate, dramatic, whole-body response (causing swelling, fainting, vomiting, etc.). A sensitivity on the other hand produces its effect more slowly and subtly as a gradual reaction to the food trigger. So when you think food allergy, think immediate (acute), and when you think food sensitivity think gradual (chronic) in timing.