Fixing a Leaky Gut: 2 Ways to Spot a Hidden Food Intolerance
Can fixing a leaky gut really cure your food allergies? If I told you it was possible, would you be willing to heal your gut once and for all?
Food sensitivities can be an unknown Kryptonite. Often times they go unnoticed and cause chronic inflammation, autoimmune reactions, mood swings, and restricted fat loss.
There’s a way out though…
In most cases, food intolerances/sensitivities/allergies are caused by a leaky gut. When undigested food particles enter the bloodstream, the body learns to recognize the food as an antigen, and the immune system begins to go into fight mode.
Sometimes your immune system can get so overwhelmed that the offending foods can trigger an autoimmune response which makes the body attack its own tissues!
For example gliadin, a component of gluten triggers the immune system to make antibodies for it. Then these immune cells get confused and end up attacking gut lining cells. This eventually leads to a leaky gut and an autoimmune condition called Celiacs.
Since a leaky gut can be a major player in developing food sensitivities, fixing a leaky gut can actually reverse common food intolerances.
First, you need to identify your intolerances, remove them from your diet, and then start a healing regime designed for fixing a leaky. Try Gut Rehab if you’re interested.
Common Food Allergens
- Wheat and other gluten-containing grains: spelt, barley, rye, *oats (usually contaminated with gluten)
- Corn
- Soy
- Conventional dairy
- Eggs, whites or yolk
- Coffee
- Citrus
- Nightshades: eggplant, tomato, peppers
- Peanuts and treenuts: cashews, almonds, walnuts, etc
- Shellfish
Fixing a Leaky Gut and The Cross Reaction Conundrum….
I’m going to tell you why gluten is the gateway drug for food sensitivities. It increases levels of an enzyme in your digestive tract called zonulin which controls your intestinal permeability.
Essentially gluten opens the flood gates in your digestive tract, allowing undigested food particles to slip through the cracks into your bloodstream to trigger even more immune reactions to other foods.
Gliadin can keep these gates open for as long as 20 minutes during your meal! Imagine how much food can get in during that time! More on this in Dr. Alessio Fasano’s lecture below: The Gut Is Not Like Last Vegas
The Gut Is Not Like Las Vegas:
What Happens In The Gut Does Not Stay In The Gut
This now leads to cross-reactions, your immune system reacts to substances that are either structurally or genetically similar to gluten. Other foods that can also cause this cross-reaction are dairy (specifically the milk protein casein) and coffee (sorry!)
“Coffee, in fact, according to the researchers at Cyrexs Labs, may be the single most cross reactive substance of them all.” – Nora Gedgaudas, Primal Body Primal Mind.
Think about all the times you had a sandwich or pizza… by now you could have developed a reaction to your favorite toppings. Or how about a coffee with your go-to favorite breakfast, maybe now you have a sensitivity to eggs?
Taking into consideration all these cross-reacting foods, your list for potential hidden food intolerances grows…
Fixing a Leaky Gut Starts With Testing For Food Intolerances
Official lab testing for food intolerances can be expensive, many can give false negatives, and the needles suck! Luckily there are 2 simple ways you can test for hidden intolerances and sensitivities at home that can give you a good blueprint to work with.
If you insist on taking a traditional test I recommend Cyrexs Labs.
The Pulse Test
This is a quick test you can do at home in under 3 minutes based on the work of Dr. Arthur Coca (1956) who discovered that when you eat an offending food, which triggers an allergic reaction in your body, your pulse rate goes up. This is because the food is triggering your immune system and creating a stress response.
Step 1. Get your food in question ready, a pen, a piece of paper, and a clock with a second hand. The stopwatch on your smartphone works great.
Step 2. Sit down, take 5 deep belly breaths and relax. Start when your heart rate is at a normal steady pace.
Step 3. Count your heartbeat for a full minute to determine your starting pulse. You can use your wrist or your neck, just make sure you use the same spot each time. Write down your ‘before’ pulse.
Step 4. Take a bite of food and chew it thoroughly making sure it saturates your tongue and hits all your taste buds. Don’t swallow it. Make sure you taste it for at least 30 seconds.
Step 5. While holding the food in your mouth, take your pulse for 1 full minute again. Write down your ‘after’ pulse. If this food is regarded as a stressor for your body, your pulse will have elevated. An increase of 4 or more beats is considered the result of a stressful reaction. The bigger the pulse change, the more stressful your body considers this food. Don’t be surprised if you experience a reaction with an increase of 10 or 20 beats per minute. This would be a clear-cut sign of a food intolerance.
Step 6. Unless you have no reaction, spit out the food.
To learn more about the pulse test you can download Dr.Coca’s book: The Pulse Test. This is public domain material provided by The Soil And Health Library.
The Pulse Test +PLUS
Like all tests, Dr.Coca’s Pulse Test isn’t 100% accurate. There are a lot of variables that can interfere with your results such as running, drinking a cup of coffee, living in a moldy house, being sunburnt, and taking medication that controls your heart rate (calcium-channel blocker).
So to take this test one step further and improve its accuracy, Dave Asprey of Bulletproof created an app (free to download and use) for your smartphone called Bulletproof Food Detective.
It’s one of the best food sensitivity testing apps to help you hone in on your hidden food intolerances because it does all the hard work. It measures, records, and tracks your pulse for you.
Plus it goes the extra mile of reminding you to measure your heart rate 2 more times after you’ve eaten the food in question. Oftentimes you can experience a delayed reaction that you would otherwise miss when doing the standard Pulse Test.
“Bulletproof Food Detective provides a tool for detecting food sensitivities that may contribute to low-level inflammation.
If you are sensitive to certain foods, you may not experience symptoms, though your body reacts by elevating your heart rate after eating an offending food. The food sensitivity feature will detect this elevation in heart rate which can occur anytime up to 1 ½ hours after eating an offending food.
Using a compatible heart monitor or manual entry, Food Sense monitors your pulse three times after eating and assigns either a red “X” (sensitive) or a green checkmark (not sensitive)”
The Skin Sensitivity Test
This technique is used by Dr.Natasha Campbell-McBride to check for food intolerances during the GAPS Protocol.
Step 1. Before bed take a small bit of the food in question and place it on the inside of your wrist. If the food is solid, mash it up with some water.
Step 2. Let it dry and go to sleep.
Step 3. In the morning if the spot is red or itchy, this signifies a food intolerance. Avoid this food for the next couple of weeks and try again later after working to heal your leaky gut.
Fixing a leaky gut is easy once you identify your kryptonite foods and remove them from your diet.
Following a gut rehabilitating program that incorporates plenty of bone broth, homemade fermented foods, and probiotics will fast-track you. Now that you know Fixing a leaky gut and intolerances but upgrading your life for a brighter future of strong robust health.
Cheers,