What is food for one, is to others bitter poison!

“What is food for one, is to others bitter poison”- Lucretius

Allergic reaction to the foods consumed can cause cerebral edema (swelling), headache, mental confusion, and malaise, all of which cause one to feel “dumb” and to
function poorly afterward.

Allergy verses Sensitivity

Food allergy has traditionally been defined as an antigen-antibody response, or a cell –mediated reactions to food.

Food sensitivity, on the other hand, occurs when there is an adverse reaction to food but no antigen-antibody response.

Discouraging breast-feeding and substituting cow’s milk or commercial formulas has helped to foster generation of food-allergic people. Other factors affecting both incidence and severity of food allergies include hormonal imbalance, infections, metabolic diseases, emotional stress, seasons, altitude, and nutritional imbalances. Heredity and race also play a role in food allergy.

Type of Food Allergies and Reactions:

• Occult (hidden): Pathology (damage) is evidence, but without obvious symptoms
• Immediate: Symptoms are obvious within minutes
• Delayed: Symptoms may not appear until the next day or several days later
• Thermal: Symptoms occur after indigestion of a specific food followed by exposure to cold, heat or light.

Difficult diagnose: If you get a headache within 15 mn of a meal, you have no trouble recognizing that a food is triggering the symptoms. However migraine headache afternoon of the day consuming chocolate is much harder to associate with eating chocolate. A person who feels well when she goes to bed, but who wakes up with a migraine headache, usually reacting to food consumed at dinner.

Allergy/addiction Phenomena: Often you may get surprised from knowing that your favorite food that you may think it gives you relief, you are sensitive to such as coffee, sugar, wheat, eggs, corn, or milk. This phenomenal is an allergy/addiction combined with a masked food allergy. You may be unaware of this sensitivity because eating the problem food makes you feel better when the food is eaten regularly masking occurs with chronic, low graded symptoms. Constant postnasal drip, afternoon headaches or sleepy spells, or spaciousness may be the only evidence of the problem. Try to avoid this food or chemical for 4 to 10 days swill unmask the allergy and subsequent re-exposure to the food will elicit acute symptoms.

You may notice sometimes your allergic response are unpredictable. However, why sometimes you can tolerate a food when some other times it provokes symptoms? I always wondered why and I noticed the following: The total toxic load of your body is the determine factor in this case. A toxic load could be allergens, stress factors or infection.

Source:

“Allergy Relief & Prevention” book, a practical encyclopedia by J.Krohn MD, F.Taylor MA, and E.M Larson