Eating the right diet is a key part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but if you find yourself feeling unwell despite doing the best you can to ensure you eat only the best of everything, such as organic vegetables and grass-fed meats but are still not feeling your best, it could be the foods themselves that are responsible. If you’re feeling ill, then it’s possible that your diet is making your sick. Here’s how to find out.
Keep a record
The best way to identify which foods may be making you unwell is to keep a detailed journal for everything you eat, preferably for a few weeks. You should pay particular attention to the time when your symptoms appear and eliminate foods you think might have been responsible from your diet.
In addition to food, you should also take a closer look at your environment to ensure that it is not playing a part and makes notes on other aspects of your daily regime, such as the amount of sleep and exercise you are getting, and the amount of water you are drinking as all of these factors can also play a part.
Proper preparation
Sometimes it’s not the food itself by the way it is prepared that can cause you to feel unwell. Greens should always be washed thoroughly to ensure you remove any contaminants. You should also be careful about handling raw meat to ensure bacteria do not spread to other foods you are preparing. You should also wash your hands for twenty seconds in warm water with plenty of soap before you prepare any fresh produce.
Adult onset allergies
Most food allergies are detected in childhood, but it is possible to suddenly become allergic to a food you previously had no issues with at any time of your life. There are also cases in which children grew out of allergies they had when they were young, only to have them reappear. This means you should not discount the idea that you may be allergic to something you are eating on the basis that you had not previously experienced any adverse symptoms.
The most common allergies seen in adults include tree nuts, such as pecans, cashews, walnuts and almonds, peanuts, shellfish and fish.
Check the ingredients
Another alternative is that you may be having a reaction to certain ingredients contained within the foods you are eating. A common issue for many is an intolerance for gluten, a substance found primarily in wheat but also widely used throughout the food industry.
Thankfully, you can now find a wide range of regular everyday products that are being manufactured without the most troublesome ingredients. From gluten free cakes to gluten free mayo, you can find everything you need for your regular weekly shop and don’t have to give up anything.
Other products on the market include those that are free from dairy, wheat or nuts. This enables you to eliminate such foodstuffs from your diet without having to give up any of your favorites. Should you discover that the source of your intolerance or problems lies elsewhere, you then have the choice of reintroducing the original food or continuing with the alternative.