Using Alternative Diets To Your Benefit

If you have food allergies, alternative diets can give you the foundation you need to begin removing food allergens from your diet. Read below to learn more.

A whole-foods diet is one of the most allergy-friendly diets you can adopt...

Using Alternative Diets to Your Benefit

Now that you’ve gotten rid of all of the harmful allergen-containing foods from your home and have begun the process of removing them from your diet, it’s time to find alternative snacks and dietary staples. Completely reconstructing your diet can be grueling, as you say “goodbye” to some of your favorite foods and seek potential replacements. You won’t enjoy every new food you try, because it’s a process. Eventually you’ll find what appeals to you. Remember, as I mentioned in my first blog, there’s no better time to have food allergies than now, and that’s not only because allergy friendly foods are more readily available, but also because you can look toward other dietary movements to guide you as you begin your allergen free diet. In this post I’ll address a few alternative diets that I've explored while working to improve my own health.

When I was first diagnosed with multiple food allergies, wheat being one of them, the first bit of advice that I received was from my doctor. He suggested implementing a gluten-free diet to start reducing wheat allergen consumption. He was most familiar with that diet, since his wife had Celiac’s disease. She’d frequently eat bunless burgers and avoid wheat products at all costs, so that she would not experience any of the awful symptoms associated with Celiac’s. This was one of the first helpful tips I received as I started weaning allergens from my diet. At the time I was completely clueless how to begin my new diet. With my doctor's advice, I began eating “gluten-free” foods, such as lettuce-wrapped burgers, and began reading labels to make sure the foods I ate were free from wheat. I wouldn’t make the jump to eating the more processed gluten-free products, such as crackers, breads, and waffle mixes, until I became more comfortable with label reading and more knowledgeable of the ingredients used. However, beginning my dietary transition with a no-wheat diet worked tremendously for me as I worked toward getting over the learning curve of living an allergen-free lifestyle.

For the first few months of my allergen-free journey I completely avoided any products that even seemed to contain wheat. If I wasn’t sure it was free of wheat I wouldn’t even think about eating it. Initially, in fact, I used this approach for all of my food allergies to decrease my risk of getting sick. But as I gained more confidence in my ability to read labels, and learned about the available brands that cater to consumers with food allergies and intolerances, I began to incorporate what would be considered traditionally wheat-based products with ones that were made from alternative ingredients, such as almond flour or buckwheat, into my diet. Steadily, I began feeling more like I wasn’t missing out on any of the foods I used to love.

Another helpful habit that I adopted, early after my diagnosis, was eating whole foods. A whole-foods diet is one of the most allergy-friendly diets you can adopt, and a diet you may want to seriously consider as you begin your allergen free journey. A whole foods diet is essentially a diet solely composed of foods that include no ingredient other than the food itself. For example, an apple contains one ingredient…apple, and celery contains one ingredient…celery! A whole-foods diet almost completely alleviates the need to read labels, which can often be an overwhelming task to those new to allergen avoidance. Whole-foods diets are great, but before jumping in I highly recommend taking a moment to learn the difference between “whole foods” and “minimally-processed foods”. For example, whereas a pack of cashews may be a whole food (only “cashews” listed as the ingredient), there may be other cashews that may be minimally processed with ingredients such as vegetable oil, natural flavors, and salt, for example. Many packaged nuts, dried fruits, and canned foods that are seemingly whole foods may in-fact be minimally processed and include ingredients that would otherwise go unnoticed had the label not been read. My caution here for understanding these seemingly subtle differences is that some minimally processed foods may contain ingredients that are incompatible with your diet. For example, I often come across nuts that include vegetable oil (often soy oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, or peanut oil), and unless the vegetable oils used in the manufacturing process are individually listed I steer clear of them, since I may be at risk of consuming oils derived from one or more of my allergens: soy, corn, and peanut. So even if you’re adopting a whole foods diet it’s recommended that you label read, if a label is present, to be 100% sure your food is allergen free.

Overall, however, a whole foods diet is one of the safest ways you can eat if you have food allergies. During my dietary transition I found that preparing whole food meals, such as salmon, a baked potato, and broccoli, for example, was easy and enjoyable and amounted to an immediate and noticeable difference in my health. My energy increased, and I didn’t feel groggy or sluggish after meals. In short, adopting a whole foods diet is an extremely easy and healthy way to eat, especially for those with food allergies. Not only are you taking the guesswork out of your diet, but you’re also minimizing the cumbersome task of excessive label reading, a task that may seem overwhelming if you’re not accustomed to doing it regularly.

If you’ve given an alternative diet a shot, please feel free to share your story in the Community Forum if you found one that worked well for you, or if you still had trouble transitioning into a food allergen free diet. Also, feel free to share if there was another method you used to make your dietary transition smoother and less overwhelming. I look forward to hearing your story!

Good luck and stay well!