Food allergies?
Avoiding foods that cause allergic reactions is the first line of defense. But then, the list of foods to avoid keeps growing. The different types of reactions continue to evolve. We become more afraid of different types of foods and restrict our food choices even further. Does that sound familiar?
Then we unfortunately become malnourished in essence, even though there are plenty of empty calorie foods to go around. We cannot digest foods well. The microbiome diversity decreases because there’s less diversity in food. Since over 70% of our immune system is in our gut microbiome, less diversity equals less defense. We become deficient in micronutrients that foods we cannot digest usually provide. Due to micronutrient deficiency and a host of other reasons like chronic inflammation and stress, we become defenseless against viruses and bacteria. We get sick left and right, and our kids get sick, too. Then we can’t sleep at night, and we have no energy to cook “healthy food” let alone make it to school and work on time. We top ourselves off with drugs — allergy medicine, steroids, antibiotics, painkillers, anti-acids, antidepressants, antihistamines, you name it. We are chronically stressed and sick and the cycle continues. In this state of living, our bodies are severely, chronically inflamed. Blood flow is restricted in the areas of the body where the capillaries are narrow and hard to reach due to inflammation (think constant congestion) and we feel tired and drained all the time. Physically, emotionally and mentally.
No amount of drugs can pull you out of this cycle and there is no easy fix. A deep shift in mindset is needed. The fast track answer is that you need to become stronger, in your body as well as your mind. Eat real food everyday that heal you. But you must approach this process with a lot of thought and intention. At first, probably palate retraining is in order so that you stop eating things that please your mouth but make you sick. You then need to find out which foods you actually can eat and digest without problems. Ultimately, the goal is, instead of avoiding different foods, you will become stronger so that these allergens and stressors bother you less. That’s what happened to us after struggling for years. We were gluten free for almost 10 years, until we found out that gluten was not the problem – now we eat real wheat every day with no problems, and actually it is making us stronger. When you’re standing tall, full of muscles in your body, digesting foods well and obtaining all the nutrients from real food, it’s much easier to fight against food allergies and other sicknesses. (Pushing out toxins out of your body well every day is also of paramount importance, but that’s a discussion for another day.) Where are your priorities? A top priority should be how much time you spend in the local grocery stores and in your kitchen. It will pay off. Big time! I’m hoping to help you with that process through this website and more content is coming!
