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If you have a food intolerance, you know how aggravating it can be. Intolerances aren't allergies, which means that they sometimes have an effect, and sometimes don't. In this framework, you could avoid a food for weeks, and still not discover exactly what is causing your illness. If this has happened to you, you might want to try a food intolerance test, to explore the food related symptoms more closely.

The first myth that needs to be disregarded is the one that says that people who are sensitive to particular foods are allergic to them. Food allergies and food intolerances are not synonymous. Indications of food allergies occur suddenly and are generally quite violent. Intolerance to food has less drastic symptoms and can take as long as 3 days to appear. Taking a food intolerance test helps you to find out which foods are the main offenders.

With a food allergy, your body is in fact allergic to the food in question and the reaction is that of your immune system itself fighting back, very comparable to if you were allergic to pollen. With food intolerance, the immune system does not come into the picture.

Your body won't recognize that fact that it has been invaded by an outside substance. However, the places that usually work to eliminate food, like your stomach and intestines, are intolerant to certain parts of the food so will have an adverse reaction to those ingredients.

If your body stops producing or doesn't produce specific enzymes needed to breakdown a certain food then an intolerance will occur. As we grow and our bodies change this can sometimes happen to us. For example, many people become lactose intolerant because the chemical needed to suitably digest lactose decreases as we age. It can take several years for the unpleasant intolerance symptoms to show up.

When trying to determine foods that your body is intolerant to you have a few different options. One way is to eliminate everything in your diet except the few foods such as; brown rice, lamb and water that most don't have issues with. Eat only these foods for approximately three weeks. Then after the three weeks you can start to reintroduce one new food every few days. If you keep a food diary throughout this process you will be able to document which food you had problems with and which your body processed normally. In 6 to 9 months of continuing this process you will have a pretty good idea what foods affect you negatively.

The other way to discover which foods you are intolerant to is to take an ELISA IgG blood test for food intolerances. This only needs a few drops of blood and over 200 foods can be tested. Once you start avoiding the foods you are intolerant to you will typically find that your energy levels increase, digestion improves, you get better sleep. Many people also find an added benefit of fairly rapid weight loss!

Possibly one of the most frustrating things that you can suffer from is food intolerances. Unlike food allergies, which can be recognized by the reactions, food intolerances are a hit and miss proposition. In this case a food intolerance test is the logical way to go to find out what is causing your problems. Just because you cannot tolerate a food, it may not mean that you have an allergy to it. Once you know the foods that you can not tolerate and begin eliminating them from your diet, your digestion will improve as will your energy and sleep. Another unexpected benefit that everyone loves is rapid weight loss.