One thing that a lot of people that I’ve talked to about my fibromyalgia agrees on is that learning to deal with food sensitivities play a big part in the recovery.  Food sensitivies can show themselves in something as innocuous as indigestion after eating to asthma and full blown allergic reactions.  Fortunately most of us never have to experience the effect of a full blown allergic reaction, but to the friends I have with peanut allergies it is a most terrifying experience.

Most of us never fully recognize that we are suffering from food senstivities as most reactions never produce anything that we would consider more than a slight inconvenience in our lives.  Runny noses, rosacea, acne outbreaks, muscle cramps, irritability are often attributed to daily life instead of what we are eating, but they generally don’t stop us from living our lives. 

Another thing that makes sensitivities hard to determine is that sometimes it can take over 48hrs for the symptoms to show.  It difficult to relate that piece of wheat bread you had on a Monday with the flu like symptoms you experience  later that week unless you are keeping a very detailed food diary.   An example of a such a senstivity would be my mother’s rosacia.  When my she was doing a low-carb diet last year she cut out/dramatically limited eating wheat and other grains, she never noticed until I asked her, but her rosacia improved after only a couple of days of no grains.   When she started eating grains again, the rosacia reappeared.

One advantage of following “Eating For Energy” is that most foods that cause sensitivites are easily avoided.  Generally sensitivies are cause by foods that you don’t encounter when you are eating raw, the exceptions being the nightshade veggies (tomatoes, peppers, etc), citrus and some of the nuts.   Even if you are not planning to following a 100% raw diet, you can use the plan to identify what foods you react to.  Follow the plan for 3-5 days and then reintroduce ONE of the common foods that cause sensitivies ie: something with gluten.  Follow the plan for the next couple of days and track your body’s reaction.  Did you suffer from increased allergies? sore muscles? heart burn? acne? sore ears? IBS?  Bloating? Constipation?  Repeat the process the next week with a different food.  I can tell you that from my reaction to having a toasted BLT over the weekend, the reaction for me was enough to avoid trying that food again for a long, long time….

The second advantage to “Eating For Energy” is that over time your sensitivities should decrease.  One reason may be that eating raw foods restores the body’s digestive process and can help correct leaky gut syndrome (another common symptom in fibromyalgia patients).  Leaky gut syndrome causes the body to have an auto immune response to the foreign particles in the blood stream.   Rheumatoid arthritis is another affliction that is classified as auto immune which may also respond well to a raw food diet.   

It was actually through digging though internet articles on Leaky Gut that I found the recommendation to eat raw foods to correct the condition.  The same articles were also enough to scare me into realising that it was a condition I had to take seriously if I was to ever get my health back.    If anyone is interested in reading the articles, let me know I have links to them at work that I can post here. 

Off to go make a waldorf salad for lunch tomorrow…