Help With Elimination Diet...

[carsie252]

I have a severely leaky gut since contracting giardia 15 months ago, and still get terrible food intolerance symptoms, mostly GI, CNS related. Did a YorkTest. Came back with 30-odd foods....

All GRAINS (including rare ones)

DAIRY

All NUTS/SEEDS

LEGUMES/BEANS/SOY

EGGS

BEEF, PORK

and a few vegys/fruits.

I would like to do an elimination diet to sort out a permanent eating plan but I just don't know which foods to start with, as I already eat a lot of the commonly hypo-allergenic foods, and many of the foods down on the safe list I eat every day (such as various fruits/veg), others are common allergens - yeast/mushrooms. I tend to eat fresh foods in season, so should I start with out-of-season/exotic fruits/veg? How do I use the YorkTest as a basis for an E.D.? It just seems so restrictive to use as a full time diet, but I am stuck as where to start on the ED.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Rich.

[AliB]

Hi Rich. Welcome to the Forum.

There are several different elimination diets around - the Failsafe Diet is one. Quite a few of us on here who have similar food intolerance issues are following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and gaining good results.

As it seems that as quite a lot of the foods you are having problems with are not consumed on the SCD anyway it may be worth considering as an option.

Although some foods that you can't cope with at the moment, like eggs, nuts and seeds are 'legal' SCD foods those almost certainly would need to be avoided at least for a while until the gut starts to heal. I had issues with quite a lot of foods when I started - there was little I could eat - including eggs, but after a few weeks I was able to reintroduce them ok, as long as they were well cooked.

You may be able find more about the Failsafe Diet by Googling it, and if you wish to know more about the SCD, the official website is 'breaking the vicious cycle'. 'Pecanbread' is another good site - it is designed for kids and adults with Autism/ASD but the SCD information is very useful for anyone with health issues that may respond to the diet.

The SCD works for those who respond by removing all grains, starches, sugar and most dairy and concentrating on good, wholesome and preferably organic if you can get it (and afford it!) meat, fish, poultry, veg, fruit, nuts, honey and home-made live yogurt for probiotic support which is essential to help restore the decimated gut flora.

There is an SCD thread on this section that you are welcome to read (if you have the time - we are up to 77 pages and still counting!) and post on. There is also an SCD recipe thread in the Recipes section.

Many of us can sympathise with your situation. We've been there too!

Ali.