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Even with the last 50 years of massive scientific breakthrough, wonderful new techniques in surgery and fantastic new drugs to cure almost every ailment and disease, it seems to me that more and more people are having to live with health issues that no one seems to be able to successfully deal with. Suffering with conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, skin complaints, mood swings, chronic fatigue and after many unproductive trips to the GP’s an ever increasing number of people are searching elsewhere for a solution to their problem and a huge number of those are looking at food. We, in the UK, have 10,000 chemicals and additives in our food chain now that we didn’t have 50 years ago. 

The choice of highly processed, irradiated, chemically fiddled with foods is mind blowing and everyone is trying to get the GM foods out of the supermarkets and go back to organic produce. We know it’s the food that’s making us ill and we’re working hard to try to correct it but from what I’m seeing on a day-to-day basis, we’re still not there yet. I meet tens of people every week who complain of uncomfortable bloating after eating, or migraines when they eat certain foods, or having huge energy crashes after some meals but not others. We are sensitive to our foods but we don’t know which ones or what to do about it. The popular press is full of articles and advertisements, which focus our attention on new ways to eat for better health or new products to eat for an increase in well being and vitality. 

All of our supermarkets have aisles, which are dedicated to wheat free, gluten free and dairy free and are stocked with organic, non-GM biscuits to cream cakes. In fact the elimination diet seems to be very a popular path that sufferers are going down, and well they might. There is tremendous amount of evidence that supports the theories that our bodies are taking unexplained and illogical dislikes or ‘sensitivities’ to normal, everyday, ‘healthy’ foods and that these sensitivities causing the general malaise we are suffering from. We all know of a friend or colleague who cut bread out for a week and felt significantly healthier for it, or the person who was sure it was cheese or coffee that was to blame for her migraines. 

But in most cases cutting out cheese, coffee and bread, whilst it brings an improvement, doesn't solve the problem completely. In fact there is strong evidence to suggest that your sensitivities are unique to you and seemingly as irrational as you could imagine. Its not that the food is bad for you but rather that your body irrationally doesn't like the food. It might not be just wheat or dairy as the media have targeted, but it could be carrot or black pepper or turkey or apples as well. But how would you know? The traditionalists would have you go on an elimination diet. Cut back to a very bland diet for a week or two, of rice, pear, pork and peas. Then week by week reintroduce one food at a time and monitor your body’s reactions. 

This has to be by far the most laborious and unsuccessful method I have ever come across to establish food sensitivities. I really feel for anyone who has been advised to go through this, it really can’t be fun. What if you react badly to rice or pork or pear or peas and your symptoms never go away? What if you slip up on your diet and are forced to eat a chicken salad sandwich whilst out one day? Do you go back to the beginning and start again or do you now include chicken, lettuce, tomato and bread as safe? Even if you stick to the plan, to be able to safely eat only 100 foods you would have to be following the diet for 2 years and consider how unbalanced that diet would be for the first six months. 

All in all not the best method but then what do you do? For a number of years now, I have been using a blood test with my clients to assess their food intolerances and I have found it to be very successful. The test is called an ALCAT test and it assesses the reaction in the white blood cell when a person’s blood is mixed with one of the 100 trigger foods tested for (The most commonly eaten foods in the UK). 

One advantage to using this blood test over others on the market is that it observes a process called degranulization in the white blood cell rather than looking for one particular immune response. What that means is that when a food to which you are sensitive comes into your body, your immune system will, in some way attack it (It attacks you too at the same time and that’s why you feel ill) and the immune system has various ways to attack the invader. 

Most of the blood tests on the market will only look for one specific type of immune response, so missing all the others that could be used. To use a military metaphor, on the field of battle one side will send out scouts (white blood cells) looking for the enemy (trigger foods). Once they find the enemy they contact the field command centre (degranulization), which then chooses how to respond. With tanks, or troops or air strike. Some tests will look for either tanks or troops or air strike but not all three. 

Causing the other lines of defence to be missed. An ALCAT test monitors the scout. If a scout calls a food the enemy, ALCAT will call the food the enemy, no matter how the immune system chooses to attack it. I decided to use blood tests with my clients because of the advantages of specificity and since then I’ve seen people’s lives really changes for the better. None of these conditions of general malaise are any fun at all; they take over people’s lives and squeeze the joy out of them. 

Some of my clients have reacted very strongly to coriander, some to chicken, some to potato. I had some results back the other week where some body has a severe reaction to strawberry and leek! The results are never the same so there couldn’t be just a book you could read or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ diet plan to follow. But when eight or nine out of ten people’s conditions are so improved that they feel like they have their lives back and all this energy to celebrate the fact with, it’s very worth it. 

Even the one or two who aren’t completely sorted out say that they feel so much better on the plan even if it’s not a complete solution. There’s a wealth of information about research and case studies on their web site at www.alcat.co.uk, which should tell you all you need to know about how identifying your food intolerances can help you. People need to be tested for their own individual trigger foods, and if it means that you go without cheese or lamb, or broccoli for a while, it’s hardly the end of the world. I don’t eat bread any more and I feel fantastic because of it. Its not hard to do, I just look at the sandwich and know that if I eat that it’ll make me feel lousy. I don’t smoke for exactly the same reason. 

House prices are going up, interest rates are on the increase, divorce rates are rising, environmental pollutants are at an all time high and the food we’re eating is toxic, genetically modified, artificially flavoured, coloured, and preserved. Its no wonder we’re stressed and ill and until recently we just had to live with it. Well we don’t any more. By correctly identifying the foods in our diets that are beating us up and then by stopping eating them you can get back your get up and go. Enjoy the health and energy levels that you deserve.