food allergy confusion

[veganfamily]

Okay - first of all, where's the smiley where the face hides in the paper bag? That's me... i haven't been on for a looooong time!!

But i DO miss it here!;)

Here's my thing: I was sitting and pondering all the food allergies that seem to be coming up in my children.... Like - we have never tested him for anything, just eliminated and saw significant improvement.... But, our 3 1/2 yo has shown a dairy allergy for two years... (so we've been vegan for two years.)
Then - through a series of problems we discovered his allergy to gluten< most strong with oats. But he can't have sprouted bread either (w/wheat/gluten).

Then we suspected gluten allergy in myself and ds 2 (and dh - but he won't admit it:rolleyes: ) took it out and ds had some remaining issues....like purply red under eyelids, overtired, cranky and extreme meltdowns.. poor guy. And, normallly his poop is good - but yesterday it came out looking like fused milk-duds: know what i mean?

And ds1 has these wierd sproatic bladder issues where he has to pee really bad, panics, and doesn't make it - or he does make it and barely a squirt comes out. So i thought, inflamed bladder? Inflamed organ pushing the bladder? (no infection btw)

All this and the conclusion is corn allergy.

So, this is a multi-question... i just wanted to give background to our situation.

#1 Why food allergies? Why? I mean, i understand how the body get frustrated because society as a whole consumes to much of something: ie dairy/eggs/gluten.... so i can accept our gluten allergy. But why corn? We don't eat 'too much' of it.... and why do i have friends that are allergic to bananas, avocados, and almonds???:eek: (i couldn't go w/ out)

#2 i know that some foods are efficient to detox - leaving the person *thinking* they are allergic - like, our friend eats mangos and relives heroin! So... he can only eat 1/2 at a time;) But what about bananas? corn? avocados?

#3 I was thinking about the "main" allergies...what are they - corn, eggs, peanuts, gluten, dairy...etc and i thought.... hmmm.. you usually don't find these things in a raw diet. So - do those who are mostly or all raw deal w/ allergies? Do they have them in the beginning and then get healed after a time of detox?

As you can tell , this whole issue is wearing on me. I feel frustrated because if i had it my way i would be all raw..... but let's face it - esp. when you have a growing family - it can be REALLY expensive! And we wont buy in-organic produce. SO i am irritated because i know that is what we need to do but i also know we can only afford so much.

please ease my confusion and encourage me.

Thank you guys!!

[juliebove]

My daughter is allergic to 7 foods. Why? I don't know. I can tell you that bladder issues are common with food allergies. She also gets nosebleeds from certain foods. And skin rashes, dark circles under the eyes, brain fog, crankiness, upset stomach, and can't concentrate in school.

I would like to address the oats and gluten. Oats in and of themselves do not contain gluten. The problem is the way they are grown, stored, transported, etc. And as I'm sure you know with food allergies, all it takes is a speck of the allergen to make you sick. Cross contamination of wheat and other grains with oats is why most of them are not gluten free. Now you can buy gluten free oats. These are fairly new and the farmer who grows them has dedicated himself to ensuring that they are gluten free. But to the best of my knowledge, they are not raw.

Now if your son has not been tested, you don't know if he has an actual allergy or if it might in fact be celiac. If it is celiac that's a whole different story and cross contamination is an even bigger factor. If I were to sprout some wheat in my sprouter, then wash it and sprout lentils, the lentils would not make my daughter sick. But she only has allergies. If she had celiac, the minute particles of gluten remaining in the sprouter could be enough to make her ill. People with celiac need totally separate food preparation things that have never come in contact with gluten. Plates and bowls are usually an exception unless they are made of a porous material like wood. Plastic while not exactly porous is an exception because it can get cuts and scratches where gluten can lurk.

Corn is a tough allergy on the SAD diet because high fructose corn syrup is everywhere! They put it in soup, spaghetti sauce and other places where you wouldn't expect it. Last year I was in charge of the food for the allergic kids in my daughter's class. One boy had a corn allergy and the food I could bring for the other two were things he could not eat.

I am lucky that I am not allergic to corn but I am allergic to almonds and that makes it tough to do a raw diet because almonds are in so many recipes. My daughter eats sprouted almonds (she's not allergic) and I wish I could taste them. She is allergic to bananas though and she does love smoothies. We've come up with a way to make them (not raw) without the bananas and without anything else she is allergic to.

I don't know if allergies are in fact becoming more common or if it's just a matter of knowing more about them. Heck, my food allergies weren't diagnosed until I was 46! All my life I was sick to my stomach but I didn't realize how sick till I stopped eating the allergens. And even then it took about two weeks to detox before I felt any better. I know other people who have been told they are allergic to foods but they don't believe it because they stop eating the food one time and don't feel immediately better. They just sort of figure that they've lived till that age with the allergies and they're still alive so why bother to stop eating those foods?

There are also two kinds of food allergies. Those that are life threatening and those that are not. Now granted those that are not can turn into those that are at any time. That's the scary part. If a person eats a peanut and feels their throat closing up to where they can't breathe, they are not likely to eat another one. Not on purpose anyway.

But my daughter and I have the non life threatening kind. This kind is much harder to detect because the reaction is often not immediate or even close to it. In my case it seems it takes 16 hours to react from an egg. And then if I am fool enough to eat a second egg, I get sick within an half an hour.

Now my mom and daughter were already diagnosed with egg allergies so I just quite buying them unless my husband wanted them. So I hadn't had eggs in a long time. I didn't really feel any better because I was still eating dairy and almonds and didn't know about those allergies. But one day at the salad bar the egg salad looked good so I bought some. Got sick 16 hours later. The thought of the eggs kept floating through my mind but I was thinking perhaps it was food poisoning since I didn't prepare them. But the next day, yep, I was fool enough to eat the eggs again and sure enough the same violent reaction (throwing up) 1/2 an hour later.

Then a month went by and I realized I had a dozen eggs in the fridge about to go bad. I made egg salad. 16 hours after eating it I got ill. And still, I was fool enough to try it again. 1/2 an hour later, ill again. This time I knew! That was the last egg I ate. So it came as no surprise when the Dr. told me I was severely allergic to eggs. I suspected dairy since I'd been told I was allergic to milk as a child. But after that the Drs. just kept saying it wasn't an allergy. Just lactose intolerance. I gave up milk (never liked it anyway) and felt better. But I was still eating cheese, not realizing it was a problem. The almonds came as a surprise. As nuts go they were not one I ate the most of but I did still eat them from time to time.

If you really want to know if your son is allergic, then as the Dr. to do a RAST test. This is a blood test. Some naturopaths will also do muscle testing but I'm not so sure about that. There is also a skin test that can be done. But really the whole testing thing is debatable because I've been told people can test allergic one time and not another. I think it has to do with how much you've eaten of a particular thing before you were tested.

If the tests show no food allergies, you should consider having him tested for celiac. Celiacs can't digest the gluten in certain grains and it damages the villa of their stomachs. Many celiacs find they also can't eat dairy, although why I do not know.

[dreamrawalwz]

I know most corn is now GMO. SO I don't know if it's that in itself, or the actual corn. I'm defintely allergic to corn. I havn't been exposed to it for 4 years. I havn't even touched ir or seen it in that long. My reaction was severe swelling and other things like rashes, etc. Well, I brought home some corn cobs for my dad to feed his birds. I put them in the back TOUCHING my tomatoes and apple. The next morning (after I ate the tomatoes and apple) I woke up puffy and had a migrane.

I have intolerances to many foods: soy, all grains, most nuts, most seeds, sugar, and dairy. I think I have true allergies to corn and peanuts though. Corn was the above reaction, but with peanut dust my throat starts closing up. Not good.

A couple months ago I had some oatbran once night thinking that since I'm intolerant to wheat/gluten then I'd be ok (i didn't realize it may have gluten on it) I did havn't grains for a year previous to this. OH MY. The next day my stomach was in SOOO much pain and my GI system was really out of wack.. Oats CAN have gluten in them. In my HFS the gluten free section has "no oats oatmeal cookies" leading to the conclusion that oats contain some gluten. I think it depends which part of the oat you use. For me my blood test came up positive for celiac, but it was a false positive supposedly because my biopsy said i was fine.

To answer you qeustion why? No clue! I think the system is overloaded and worked so it has to show you in SOME way so it grabs on to a food or foods an reacts to theme. Saying "no more stress!! get it out!" That's just my theory haha.

[finallyfree]

Veganfamily,

I have SEVERAL food allergies, and I can say the best book I have ever read on the subject is False Fat Diet by Elson Haas...even though it is meant to be a DIET book, the information in there discusses in detail why we get food reactions, what causes them, symptoms, and how to heal your body from them.

A great read if you are interested.

Finallyfree

[RawNnyc]

First I want to say that I'm a little confused......I thought that when people went raw, after they were on it for a while, their intolerances went away. Isn't raw supposed to cure? And doesn't that include the leaky gut (which is what causes all of these intolerances in the first place.)

I have Celiac Disease, along with sensitivity to corn, dairy, sugar, and eggs. Also, Dreamrawalwz, I wanted to tell you, if your blood for celiac came up positive, YOU HAVE CELIAC DISEASE. Many times, biopsies are WRONG WRONG WRONG. Your doctor could have not taken enough 'pictures' of your small intestine or in the right spots. If your villi were just beginning to get damaged when you got the biopsy, the damage could have started somewhere completely out of reach, and it could be very spotty, and small. Also, ALL oats are HIGHLY cross contaminated with gluten. The only ones that I know of that were proven to be safe are McCanns Irish oats and even still, many celiacs have problems with those because the gluten make up in oats are so similar to that of wheat rye and barley. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that. And SOOOOOOOOOOOO many doctors are way behind in knowledge about testing and diagnosing CD.

Anyway, is there anyone here who had 'intolerances' or even true allergies that went away after being raw for a long period of time? I just want to be compeltely healthy!!! It's kind of depressing if even going raw doesn't fix me..........

[solarliving]

Maybe it's all the chemicals that are floating around the crops not to mention the pesticides. Our food supply is not what it used to be. I wish I had some land so I could grown my own food.

I think I'm allergic to corn as well and you are right is in everything. Even gluten-free products have cornstarch. Sorbitol which is a corn derivitive is in toothpaste. Citric acid that is vegetable based comes from corn and it is used as a preservative in shampoos and soaps as well as food products. It's not surprising that a lot of people have allergies when some form of soy, corn, and gluten are in practically everything. I even read an article where some people break out in a rash from using their cell phones and microwaves because the waves cause a histamine response. Some people are allergic to Nickel and stainless steel cookware has nickel in it. Here I thought I was being healthier by using stainless steel instead of the non-stick pans! A fresh organic diet seems to be the only solution at this point as well as using natural products.

I also want to add that I've done a lot of research on the adrenal glands and the role they play regarding histamine response. It seems when they are fatigued they can't regulate histamine and cortisol as well. The adrenals regulate hormones and with all the hormones in dairy and meat, I'm sure it affects them. Coffee and sugar fatigues the adrenals as well.

[dreamrawalwz]

First I want to say that I'm a little confused......I thought that when people went raw, after they were on it for a while, their intolerances went away. Isn't raw supposed to cure? And doesn't that include the leaky gut (which is what causes all of these intolerances in the first place.)

I have Celiac Disease, along with sensitivity to corn, dairy, sugar, and eggs. Also, Dreamrawalwz, I wanted to tell you, if your blood for celiac came up positive, YOU HAVE CELIAC DISEASE. Many times, biopsies are WRONG WRONG WRONG. Your doctor could have not taken enough 'pictures' of your small intestine or in the right spots. If your villi were just beginning to get damaged when you got the biopsy, the damage could have started somewhere completely out of reach, and it could be very spotty, and small. Also, ALL oats are HIGHLY cross contaminated with gluten. The only ones that I know of that were proven to be safe are McCanns Irish oats and even still, many celiacs have problems with those because the gluten make up in oats are so similar to that of wheat rye and barley. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that. And SOOOOOOOOOOOO many doctors are way behind in knowledge about testing and diagnosing CD.

Anyway, is there anyone here who had 'intolerances' or even true allergies that went away after being raw for a long period of time? I just want to be compeltely healthy!!! It's kind of depressing if even going raw doesn't fix me..........

Ah. I asked the Dr. about the whole blood test coming back positive and the biopsy being negative and he said it was the blood reading that came back as a false positive. Meh, what do doctors know? haha jk. In my opinion I do have celiac by the way I reacted to the oats. I couldn't imagine having wheat! I had Alissa's raw oats and was ok with those, so maybe here's are more pure?

I have had intolerances that have gone away. I used to really react to pineapple and strawberries with hives around my mouth while eating cooked. After my body cleared out and detoxed I was able to eat a lot of pineapple and strawberries wtihout a problem.

[SeaRose]

One of the reasons why I tried raw the first time was to cure my food allergies. The frustrating thing is that I am allergic to mostly fruits and vegetables. Things like zucchini, avocado, pineapple, etc, which makes it quite challenging to make alot of the raw recipes. Anyway, the first time I did raw, I presumed it would heal my food allergies right away, so I ate things I tested positive for, like zucchini, and almonds. Well, I got really sick, actually ended up in the hospital.

This is the second time I have tried raw, and I am absolutely steering clear of anything I am allergic to. One thing I would like to mention, is that there can be a cross reactivity in food allergies. For example, a few weeks ago I made a new recipe that had pumpkin seeds in it. I got really sick from it and didn't know why. Did some research, and it turns out that if you are allergic to watermelon (which I am) you are most likely allergic to pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin. :mad:

Why do we get food allergies in the first place? RawNnyc is correct that alot of it is caused by leaky gut syndrome. I think a sub-par immune system is also to blame. Can you eliminate food allergies? I might die trying, but I will keep researching and testing new things.

One more thing I wanted to mention, I think that when you are dealing with digestive issues, like food allergies, IBS, etc., you need to supplement your diet, much more than a person with a healthy digestive system would. Since your system isn't processing the food correctly, you are not getting the vitamin intake you normally would, no matter how high the quality of what you are eating.

This is my new plan of attack, to continue to eat as much raw as possible, and to take more supplements, especially Vitamin C. High doses of C. I will let you all know if this works.

[Rawkinlocs]

My husband and daughter both eliminated what I will call, intolerances to certain foods. I'll mainly mention my husband's case - at one point in his life, he began to start breaking out in hives, weasing, etc. when under certain circumstances. Then he began to notice that eating certain things such as strawberries and bananas that he'd begin to have an attack.

After we started eating raw, he slowly began to re-introduce those foods (yes, we did end up eliminating them at first) into his diet and now, he can have all the strawberries and bananas he wants.

He needed a LOT of cleansing - bowel cleansing, blood, etc. not to mention the fact that he was passing parasites (GROSS, I know but it's true...I've seen them with my own eyes when my husband so lovingly called me into the bathroom to share, show and tell! LOL!) But unlike a lot of people, he was willing to do the different types of cleanses (liver, parasite, colon) as well as get colonics. I know that all of those are "iffy" subjects amongst us, but it was incorporating more raw, those cleanses and of course, prayer that allowed my husband to not end up with hypothyroidism after his treatment for hyperthyroidism - which is what the doctors claimed would end up happening. Sorry to have veered off topic there for a moment.

But yes, I believe that in many (but I guess not all) cases, one CAN and DOES lose their allergies and intolerances to foods after going raw. How long after? Not sure - I guess it's different for each person.

[Revvell]

When I was very young I became sensitive to citrus, strawberries and asparagus, (the latter being something I loved yet, at the time, came out of a can). At that time, I'd break out in hives.

As an adult, eating the above (minus the asparagus which I don't eat) would knock me out for a couple of hours. Couldn't function.

Since being raw (I don't do percentages so, it's either all or nothing) I now drink as much citrus juice as I wish and eat as many strawberries as I wish with no side-effects. Currently between my husband and myself we're going through two cases of organic oranges and grapefruit. I sometimes drink 2-3 glasses a day.

Revvell

[Moonstone]

I am not sure if this might help veganfamily, but I remember reading that if one is allergic to a certain food, then it is most like that they are allergic to the protein part of the food. Maybe you could cross-reference the proteins in foods that are causing a reaction?

Sometimes I think we are all babies when we try to change what we eat, that we must revert back to infancy, indroducing foods one at a time to see our reactions. If only it were this simple.