My husband and I recently had a food sensitivities blood test (called MRT – Mediator Release Test) done through our nutritionist and her husband who is a doctor. We got our results back, and it truly has been eye opening to know what foods we are sensitive to; we now know what has been causing inflammation to our bodies and/or giving us digestive issues.
It turns out that we were consuming some of the foods we are greatly sensitive to sometimes more than three times a day. For example, I was having almonds in various forms (raw, flour, butter, milk) with almost every meal, every day…and with the MRT test, I learned that almonds are extremely inflammatory to my system and that I should avoid them. My husband had tomatoes and cow’s milk almost every day in some way, shape or form, and we both learned that those are highly inflammatory to his system and that his body does not do well with them.
Now, you may be thinking “but I thought these are really great and healthy ingredients, so what are we supposed to eat now?” Well, every body reacts differently to different foods, so what may be a very reactive food for me may be a non-reactive food for you, and vice versa. Food sensitivities make a person feel sick because the immune system reacts to certain foods and causes the release of chemicals called mediators (like histamine, for example) from white blood cells. Mediators are what cause inflammation, pain, and other symptoms. So when your immune cells release chemical mediators due to reactive foods, you know you are sensitive to these foods. Significant reactors are broken into either Reactive (red) or Moderately Reactive (yellow) categories, and insignificant reactors are placed under the Low-Reactive (green) category.
After my husband and I learned what foods fell under the red and yellow categories for each of us, we decided to simply remove these inflammatory foods from our diet; we each had a list of like 15 foods we could not eat. And guess what? After removing these, a TON of our digestive issues have disappeared. Juts like that. I cannot tell you enough how amazing this feels.
Since we were in awe of the results, we decided to follow our nutritionist’s advice and go full force with the LEAP ImmunoCalm Dietary program. She put together a strict diet for us to follow, where we are only allowed to eat from the green category for 15 days. Once that is done, we’ll introduce one food a day to our diet and see how it makes us feel. If foods we introduce cause any bad reactions, then we know we are to stay away from them for a little while longer…at least until our guts are healed and healthy again.
So, hubby and I are on day 7 of this strict diet. It has been challenging, since we crave many foods we can’t have, but we have been feeling incredible. We are more alert and energized than ever, a lot less bloated, and many of our digestive symptoms are melting away.
I have been cooking up a storm at home to make sure we have prepped food for all of our meals. We can each only eat from a list of 20-25 ingredients, so I have been forced to get extra creative in the kitchen. Sometimes it’s when you are the most restricted where creativity truly shines through.
One of my husband’s allowed ingredients is the lovely pecan nut (I cannot have this food yet.) So I have been making him pecan butter, milk, waffles…you name it.
Today, I am sharing with you one of the pecan recipes I made for him this week…Pecan Milk! You can add this delicious nut milk to your coffee, enjoy it along with some Paleo granola, add it to your smoothies, or use it for baking. 🙂
I will have a great Pecan Waffle recipe soon on the blog for you. so stay tuned…it calls for pecan milk, so it will be a great way to use this delicious recipe!
Get the full recipe here!
