Category: Allergies

Inflammatory eczema allergy foods is something I became deeply aware of when I experienced adult eczema in a nightmarish way during the world pandemic.

Backing up some, I was familiar with the common allergy foods as I planned parties and food menus working with thousands of groups with food allergies and gluten sensitivities.

But heightening my own sensitivities to food allergies showing up as adult eczema for the first time took the cake. It was a 3 month saga I’d love to forget.

Gluten didn’t help as a common offender in food and white flours so I’ll mention more on that below.

…Another food category was sweets!

That’s probably no surprise as too much sugar can make your skin crawl and no research has sanely suggested that sugar is good for you (other than your taste buds 😋).

But that’s hard news to swallow when you’re a sweet tooth (and a Vata body like me).

…And if sugar-tipped over the edge, then eczema can be the outcome where rashes mysteriously appear around the body.

They stay until the body is calm. It’s not like a mosquito bite where the poison and bite effects fade after a few days.

But I’m happy to say that even though I love baking (and do it weekly), I’ve learned how to bake healthy and keep eczema at bay. And yes the bakes are delicious (otherwise why bother?).

Firstly, I’m a foodie…

And when I started in catering management for upscale hotel chains, there were only vegetarian food categories other than the menu everyone else ate from.

Then common requests grew like “hold the onions” and “hold the garlic.”

At some point, I saw peanut and nut allergies crop up.

When I dug deeper into creating menus for food allergy group requests, we found that guests who had some peanut allergies could sometimes eat tree nuts like pine nuts.

With awareness, we never had a problem with food allergy association groups.

Shellfish can be another tricky area, but gratefully I didn’t work much with those foods.

An affected person who has even a trace of the shellfish can experience a life threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis shock.

We always had Benadryl in the First Aid kit nearby for general allergy reactions.

And by the time I was planning party events for busy American restaurants serving authentic Mediterranean cuisine, food awareness had grown even further.

Celiac Disease grew. It’s an allergy disease that can cause severe allergic reactions because gluten triggers the immune system.

And I can attest that gluten in moderation is better even for eczema skin allergy symptoms.

Your body gives different health conditions signs as warning. But a warning is a warning.

It can’t give a sour face. ☹️ Only you and I can do that. But it can give a health condition as a sign.

And the source can be the same ingredient culprits.

And so as we evolved in the world, allergies and preferences became the general norm.

Restaurant servers greeted you at your table asking, “does anyone have any allergies?”

A century ago that would’ve never been asked as you ate what you could and anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods didn’t exist.

Anti-Inflammatory Eczema Allergy Foods 

In my trial-and-error food tasting experiences, I learned eczema was dramatically reduced with low daily refined sugar intake and cutting out most processed flours.

Those foods created inflammation that showed up as skin inflammation.

So learning healthy food substitution to sugar and flour was the healthier way.

And there is plenty of healthy alternatives in our abundant earth and sourcing grocery stores.

Anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods include vegetables, whole fruits, lean healthy proteins, healthy fats and whole grains.

All grains are not created equal. How they are prepared and the details of their ingredient profiles change the effect.

A frequently asked question is: what foods are high in gluten?

The answer: whole grains are healthy. They’re also guilty. 

Wheat, barley, and rye are the sources.

Being smart about healthier low-glycemic index starchy carbs and nutrient-dense foods pays off.

Also corn, oats, and quinoa (pseudo-grain) meals are good ideas since they are gluten-free so they bypass some decision fatigue.

Corn is the largest agricultural crop produced in the United States.

So there are still many options for gluten allergies.

Oh, and we also should consider…

Our different bodies where we react differently.

…What spikes the blood sugar of one person is different for another.

Getting to know your body with individual foods and enjoying in moderation is a good idea for all, and each of us living in our bodies.

Plus, lowering processed gluten foods for everyone is a good idea in general, considering all the environmental factors and chemicals (plastics, pesticides, and phthalates) we have no control over in the current state of food manufacturing processes.

For foods, adding more organic plant-based 🌱 in nature when possible, and not plant-based in factories 🏭 helps your entire body system run better.

Every little bit of our effort counts…

Adding more healthy variety, and nutrient-dense plant-forward foods is a double win scoring points for our bodies and our earth. 🎉

It can be as easy as exchanging pasta made from flour once in a while for spaghetti squash. See easy spaghetti squash recipe below. 🍴🍝

 

Focusing on anti-inflammatory foods and including Mediterranean Diet foods that overlap in your meals, helps.

According to the American Heart Association, The Mediterranean Diet is known to be the healthiest diet overall for preventative cardiovascular health and brain health today.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/mediterranean-diet

Overlapping with anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods, focusing on healthy foods is as important as minimizing the bad food buckets, such as:

Processed, white sugar foods

Fried foods and unhealthy fats (such as high processed meats)

Eliminating these excesses from your diet can help reduce and potentially prevent life-shortening diseases and precursor chronic body inflammations from occurring.

These are lifestyle choices we get to make.

Replacing emptier calorie and excessively sweet snacks to healthier whole fruit and nut snacks, high quality dairy, and lean proteins help curb hunger in between meals.

Some foods may be classified as healthy, but are still just as bad. I used to fill up on nutritional bars as filler snacks… but the problem is often they’re loaded with sugar.

I realized I would have been better off with a Snickers.

So I quit the bars habit along with sodas for breakfast.

…Maybe you can relate with your food habits?

I replaced sodas for black coffee and unsweetened teas that are more enjoyable as a caffeine morning practice.

I now do and recommend a cold brew coffee method if you have a sensitive stomach or acid causes issues. ☕️

Changing your habits like a regular sweet one for a plant-based breakfast is doable. I’m living proof. 😊

And I take a page from my catering days where Crudite was a platter offered at almost every event.

That’s basically raw veggies like cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus.

Those are good sources of fiber that your body needs to better absorb foods.

We often forget about the fiber as we’ve been primed to think of the macros (protein, carbs, and fat).

So fiber is my prime start of the day… and maybe yours (now)?

The Inflammation Free Diet for Food Allergies

The book I had been using as a guidebook for preparing meals, The Inflammation-Free Diet, re-entered my memory after my pandemic eczema inflammation episode.

I realized that there was a connection bridged between spiking sugar inflammation and foods and that made me even more on purpose for consuming anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods.

In making healthy food choices, moderation and choosing to balance good back-to-earth foods seems to be the better ageless answer to healthily feed our bodies.

Getting anti-inflammatory food ideas for meals waved in front of us doesn’t hurt either! 😉

Using your natural Ayurvedic healthy body to sway to your advantage helps too.

You could discover your body likes more astringent or bitter foods.

This is common in Kapha body types so lean in on this healthy advantage.

And you can find food like garlic or onions aren’t favorable to your body. But that doesn’t mean you have an allergy.

It could just mean eat less.

Managing Eczema Food Allergy Inflammation

If you experience chronic body or skin inflammations in your life, find out what food allergens could be a trigger for your body. Food triggers change as you age.

Try adding more anti-inflammatory eczema allergy foods like vegetables, fruits, and low-glycemic index grains, and see if those make a difference.

Many people are allergic to nightshade foods because of alkaloids in plants.

As a kid, I would get an allergic reaction when I ate eggplants. A rash would move up my back quickly.

But as life moved, this was no longer an allergy trigger.

So don’t assume what was a food allergy trigger before is still your predicament.

Test in small quantities.

Because we want to keep a variety of healthy foods and food categories in our diet as diversity helps the gut and body.

Plus, foods are enjoyable so we don’t want to rob ourselves.

To better manage food allergies, you can read food label ingredients and gain knowledge and awareness.

Another thing you can do is order a medical food allergy-specific prick test at an allergist’s office.

Also do a self-diagnose check-in on your stress in life.

Stress can come from past, present, or future-related thoughts and situations. Past trauma that you may know about, and future uncertainty can confusingly show up in an inflammation body life.

The symptoms on and in your body tell a story in the mind-body connection.

To help restore balance no matter what the source cause, you can take the 2-minute body balance quiz.

And, enjoy this gluten-free spaghetti squash recipe. One medium-size quash will yield about as much as a pasta box you would buy at the store.

It’s a smart and healthy plant-based way to stretch a grocery dollar.