Teena in Toronto: Food reactions testing

I've been seeing Tara, a naturopath, for the last couple months ... my lower back and right knee have been bugging me so she's been doing acupuncture (I saw her this evening and she used 31 needles!). I find it's been helping ... yay!

We've also talked about making better food choices.

I'd heard about a blood test that could be done to test for food reactions, which are food sensitivities rather than food allergies. I was curious to see if I had any.

A food sensitivity is a delayed reaction that occurs hours to days after the food is consumed. When a reactive food is consumed, the antibody forms a complex with the food antigen. Normally, the body is able to eliminate these antibody-antigen complexes but with excess antigen, small complexes tend to deposit in blood vessel walls where they can cause tissue injury via the release of inflammatory mediators. Over time, this tissue injury may contribute to the development of a variety of health conditions. Research has shown that elimination of reactive foods from the diet improves both irritable bowel syndrome and migraine headaches. Eliminating reactive foods has also been reported to help with eczema, mood disturbances, weight gain, and other digestive disturbances.

I got the results last week and Tara and I talked about it tonight.

Here are my results ...

I don't eat a lot of fish but when I do, it's cod, haddock or halibut.

I put whey protein in my morning shake.
I drink almond milk rather than cow's milk.
The only cheese I eat is mozzarella when it's on a pizza or sub.

I like fruit and tend to eat a fair amount.
I knew that bananas upset my stomach but I was surprised
that fruit ranked so high in my reactions.
Wow! Look at pineapple!