Detoxification Diet Leawood KS

How to Go on an Elimination Diet

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To identify hidden food allergens, follow this elimination diet, prepared by Alan R. Gaby, MD, a specialist in nutrition and preventive medicine in Maryland, and recommended by Mary Saunders, LAc, an acupuncturist in Boulder, Colorado:

Step 1: Commit to eliminating the following foods for two to three weeks:
Dairy products
Wheat
Corn
Eggs
Citrus fruits
Coffee, tea, and alcohol
Refined sugars
Honey, maple, or barley syrup
Food additives, including artificial flavors and sweeteners
Known allergens
Any other food you eat more than three times a week

Step 2: Keep a journal, recording how you feel. Symptoms that may be due to a food allergy include fatigue, anxiety, depression, insomnia, food cravings, and an inability to lose weight. As these symptoms start to subside—usually within two to three weeks—you’re ready for the next step.

Step 3: Slowly start adding the forbidden foods back into your diet, one at a time. If you have been on the diet for four weeks and feel no better, contact your healthcare practitioner for further instructions. Most patients do improve. But don’t be tempted to continue eating this way; it is essential that you start to add in some of these foods after two to three weeks. If you wait too long to retest, your allergies may “settle down” and you will not be able to provoke your symptoms by food testing. Then, you won’t know which foods you are allergic to. If reintroducing certain foods causes a recurrence of symptoms, you are probably allergic to those foods.

Helpful Hints:
1. Eat a relatively large amount of each test food. For instance, on the day to test milk, have a large glass at breakfast. If after one serving your original symptoms come back or if you develop a headache, bloating, nausea, dizziness, or fatigue, do not eat any more of that food and put it on your “allergic” list. Also, wait until your symptoms have subsided to test other foods. If no symptoms occur, eat the food again for lunch and supper and watch for reactions. Even if the food is well tolerated, do not add it back into your diet until you have finished testing all of the foods.
2. Foods may be tested in any order. Begin testing on a day you are feeling well.
3. Test different foods that fall under the same food category (e.g. dairy) on different days. For example, test milk and cheese on separate days; test the whites and yolks of eggs on separate days (using hard-boiled eggs); test oranges, grapefruits, lemons, and limes on separate days (all citrus fruits); test coffee and tea on different days and do not add milk, non-dairy creamer, or sugar.

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