Food Intolerance
The modern western diet containing high proportions of refined carbohydrates, food additives and processed foods bears little resemblance to the simple foodstuffs our ancestors ate. This together with our intensive farming processes and with the more toxic environment we live in means the 45 per cent of people who have symptoms linked to food intolerance is hardly surprising. People are increasingly aware that they are intolerant to certain foodstuffs however food intolerance has been difficult to diagnose because symptoms

• vary in each individual
• may not be experienced immediately and could therefore take several days
• can come and go
• can vary in sensitivity
• cannot always be easily linked by doctors to the offending foodstuff

Food intolerances should be differentiated from food allergies. Food allergies are IGE mediated and which may provoke a much more serious and life threatening condition e.g. anaphylactic shock. Food intolerances, however, fall into two categories

• Sensitivity - where the body’s reaction is proportionate to the amount of the foodstuff an individual is eating. Often absence from that foodstuff enables the body to ‘unlearn’ its sensitivity.
• Genuine Intolerance - means the intolerance is not related to the amount of foodstuff that the individual is eating.

There is no golden benchmark test for diagnosing food intolerance. The only reliable way has been elimination diets which are very difficult for some people to adhere to particularly when there are intolerances to multiple foodstuffs and foods need to be eliminated one by one.