Food Allergies: Causes
What Causes Food Allergies?
It’s important to understand that some people may have an immediate reaction to a specific food again and again, while others may have a dangerous allergic reaction that occurs days later.
Whether you refer to a reaction as a food intolerance, food sensitivity, or full-blown allergy, experiencing one or many of the symptoms listed above may be due to a food allergy caused by eating a trigger food.
Common food allergens include wheat, soy, and dairy. In the most basic form, food allergies are misdirected reactions from your immune system that occur when your body comes into contact with known allergens. The reason that these reactions are misdirected or “misguided” is because food allergens are actually harmless.
Contrary to popular belief, food allergies are a sign that your digestive system doesn’t have the proper beneficial microflora to effectively assimilate nutrients from the food you eat. This imbalance in the digestive tract can occur when outside toxins, like Candida yeast, proliferate to cause a leaky gut, leading to inflammation in the intestinal lining.
A leaky gut has been directly linked to a number of food and environmental allergies2.
If left untreated, a leaky gut can lead to serious digestive conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and colitis. Yet it’s possible for a leaky gut to be present without manifesting chronic symptoms, other than minimal discomfort from bloating, gas, and brain fog.
The good news is that you CAN recover from food allergies and sensitivities. The answer is to detoxify your body from harmful outside toxins and restore balance to your digestive system by eating a probiotic-rich diet.