Most people are familiar with the concepts of food allergies. They often are known for causing rashes, itchy mouths or even anaphylaxis. However, a similar food sensitivity that often gets pushed to the wayside due to its perceived unimportance is that of food intolerances. Often thought to be less important simply because the symptoms are minor in comparison, food intolerances should get all of the same focus as food allergies. This is because they are just as important and relevant when it comes to your relationship with food.
Allergy vs intolerance
A food allergy is when your body assumes the incoming ingredient or food is a threat and uses its abilities to fight it. Its goal is to destroy the food and this creates an allergic reaction. A food intolerance, on the other hand, is when your body is simply unable to digest a certain ingredient. It creates discomfort in your system as it struggles to digest it, and this results in digestion-related issues.
Understanding the difference
If you want to make sure that you understand what’s an allergy and what isn’t — sometimes the symptoms can feel similar and being certain is important— consider getting a test for food intolerance.
Just like allergy testing, an intolerance test will point out foods and ingredients that cause your body to react with them, and you’ll be able to avoid those foods and the negative reactions that they can cause in your system.
Can you test for a food intolerance?
There are some people out there that believe that you are not able to test for food intolerance simply because you can get false positives and other inconsistent results. The reality is that this is not the case when it comes to getting your intolerances tested in a professional lab.
When you get professional food intolerance testing done, you are relying on a highly scientific and sophisticated testing process that is designed to be precise and accurate against the 700+ foods that your sample is tested against. This will give you professional results that you can use as concrete evidence to help you understand what foods agree with your body’s natural systems and which ones don’t.
Testing for intolerances is a highly tuned science
Despite what those negative people may think, the testing is carefully refined and highly scientific. The food intolerances can be relayed to chemicals, enzyme issues, histamines, and even toxins.
Each of these potential triggers will help identify the problem food or food ingredient so that you can learn to avoid it and enjoy your relationship with food even more than you did before you knew what was hurting you.
What it all comes down to is, yes, you can test for food intolerance, and yes, the results that you will get from the test are going to be detailed, helpful, and supportive of making your food-related life better than ever. It’s up to you to divide whether or not you want that kind of freedom.
