Should You Take A Food Intolerance Test?

Should you take a food intolerance test?? I get a lot of questions about food intolerance tests because there are so many out there. And so I wanted to write this post to share a bit about how a food sensitivity test can help you, if you should take one, and how to figure out if you have a good one!

Should You Take a Food Intolerance Test?

If you are struggling with unresolved issues like body aches, fatigue, physical pain, acne, migraines, weight gain, inflammation, you likely have food intolerance. All these symptoms are connected to leaky gut. If you want to learn more about leaky gut and what it is – read this article here.

If you are intolerant to a food, it will cause inflammation in the body and can trigger any of the above symptoms. Healthy food to unhealthy food to chemicals can trigger an immune response in the body.

The most common alternative to a FI test is to try an elimination diet.  This involves removing a list of common irritating foods for a period time and then 1 by 1 adding the foods back in and noticing if symptoms reappear. The goal is to note which foods are causing the symptoms.

Both elimination diets and testing have their limitations, so let’s explore both sides.

3 Problems with the Elimination Diet:

1. You are only removing the most common irritating foods.  Did you know you could have a food intolerance to anything including healthy foods??  This would take years to figure out and sometimes symptoms are delayed so you really have no idea what food it was that caused the issue.

2. It can be a lot of work to figure out.  First you follow a plan for the first 8 weeks of avoiding all these foods and then you have plan to slowly add the foods back in while still avoiding the other foods. This can take a lot of brain power and planning and most people are juggling too much to make the effort to do this.

3. It encourages dieting. Many people with physical health issues already have eating issues. Trying another diet can trigger unhealthy eating patterns. It can also trigger food fear and avoidance of unnecessary foods.

3 Problems with Food Sensitivity Tests:

1. They have a large room for error.  Most FI only test for 1 stage of immunity and doesn’t look at the full picture.   If there is a large amount of error – how can you trust it?? You could easily be avoiding or eating foods that are triggering an inflammatory response.

2. They only test 150 or less foods.  There are WAY more foods than just 150 to eat, and you cannot know if foods that were not tested are not an issue.

3. They don’t tell you where these foods/chemicals are hiding. You might think that avoiding celery or an apple would be easy. But then you learn that these foods are added in other foods as flavoring or binders. Navigating where every food/chemical is hiding can be tricky and spending hours researching can eat up a lot of time.

What do I Recommend?

I recommend using the food intolerance test ELISA/LRA!

This test bunks all 3 common problems with Food Sensitivity tests AND provides accelerated results. 

3 Ways ELISA/LRA Test is Different.

1. ELISA test shows how your body reacts to up to 409 FOODS/CHEMICALS!!! HOLY! Like I said above most only test for 150.  That is almost 3x as many.  This is so helpful for more accurate results.
2. ELISA doesn’t test for only 1 stage of immunity.  This test does all 4 stages!! You can react to foods up to a week after eating them. This can be awfully confusing to keep track of if you did an elimination diet.  And by testing all 4 stages, you have a much more accurate result.
3. ELISA provides a full report explaining common places you can find each food/chemical.  They even provide substitutes. This is another amazing resource because you don’t have to research and look everything up!!

These are the reasons why I love the ELISA/LRA test and why it is the one I use with my clients.

The last point I want to share is that food sensitivity tests can be very helpful, but they will not alone heal the body. But doing a test is critical to reduce inflammation, healing the gut lining, and then do further testing to figure out why the food intolerance occurred in the first place.  The end goal is to be able to eat as diverse of a diet as possible without experiencing any symptoms.

Want to learn more about taking a food intolerance test? Send me an email at chelsea@cjwellness.com or apply for a consultation here. For a limited time and for a limited number of people, I am offering a free 1:1 30 minute consult with the purchase of any food intolerance test! This is a great first step to healing so don’t pass up this opportunity! xoxo

Chelsea Jolene