Food Allergies, Eczema, and Chronic Inflammations

Food allergies is something I became deeply aware of first when I worked with groups planning parties and menus that had common food allergies and gluten sensitivities.

When I started in catering, there were only vegetarian food categories other than the menu everyone else ate from.

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

At some point, I saw peanut and nut allergies crop up. When I dug deeper into creating menus for food allergies, we found that guests who had some peanut allergies could eat some tree nuts like pine nuts. We never had a problem with food allergy association groups.

Thankfully I didn’t work with shellfish menus often in my management work travels.

An affected person who has even a trace of the shellfish they’re allergic to in their body can send them into a threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis shock.

We always had Benadryl in the First Aid kit nearby.

In food awareness, we then slowly learned about Celiac Disease that can cause severe allergic reactions because gluten triggers the immune system.

And as we evolved, allergies and preferences became the norm. Restaurant servers greeted you at your table asking, “does anyone have any allergies?”

It almost became unusual when a guest like myself had no allergy requests.

A century ago that would’ve never been asked.

My Eczema Journey

And in my life journey, I discovered a skin allergy called eczema that was no fun. One day, that came from accumulating sweets, that tipped the scales and  brought out the itchy spot allergy symptoms.

I learned this effect was dramatically reduced with low daily refined sugar intake and cutting out most processed flour. That’s not good news for someone who likes to bake where flour and sugar are core ingredients.😭

Buf I kept baking (and still bake today!) despite the facts… I found that baking isn’t a deal breaker. The answer for me was healthy baking and using certain triggering ingredients in moderation and in good quantity control.

Even better, I substitute for healthy ingredients that the body likes and doesn’t show food allergy reaction to. That’s aligned to my healthy and happy sensibilities.

And moderation is a good idea for all of us. 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 plant-based 🌱 as in nature and not plant-based as in factories 🏭 helps your entire system run better.

Adding more healthy variety, and nutrient-dense plant-forward foods is a win for our bodies and our earth. It can be easy as exchanging pasta made from flour, once in a while for spaghetti squash. See easy spaghetti squash recipe below. 🍴🍝

Your lifestyle and food choices impact your healthy and daily running Body.

You can experience body inflammations  that  become chronic, and where seasonal and food allergies play a role and can be the canary in the coal mine. You can change your ways from those clues.

In awareness, you can optimize your healthiest body for the set of conditions you’re given.

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

It won’t hurt to reduce high amounts of processed, sugary foods, and alcohol as you can, and keep small quantities in your life.

Reducing junk and fried foods and excess from your diet can help reduce and potentially prevent inflammations from happening.

Replacing emptier calorie and excessively sweet snacks (most foods have sugar) to healthier nut snacks, high quality dairy, and  lean proteins help curb hunger in between meals.

I used to fill up on nutritional bars, but often they’re loaded with sugar.

I went back to foods like chickpeas with rice, hummus dip, and lean proteins, and then more savory foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

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 inflammation episode and in my mindfulness.

I realized that there was a connection bridged between spiking sugar inflammation and foods.

And that there are very few perfect foods, and even my beloved bananas have a high glycemic index that can add to inflammation.

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.

Just like your body keeps score, your mind can keep a rough tally of what you consume over a week or month, that has a healthy, tasty, and enjoyable balance, so you don’t have to always jot down every food eaten.

There’s three people in you: your mind, your body, and you.

This natural way of preferring healthier variety and mixing up foods is one perk of being a Vata and someone who loves food. ♥

But if you do want to add new foods and be mindfully healthier, keeping a daily food diary or list is a good way to see and evaluate what you want to add or subtract out.

If you have episodes like acid reflux, heartburn, or a sensitive stomach, by writing down your meals you can discover what food allergies, patterns, and combinations don’t sit well together in your stomach.

This is how I figured out that pizza tomato sauce and yogurt are not good to have back to back or in your stomach at the same time.

(And one theory as to why Italians never have milk drinks or cappuccinos after 11:30 am where they could start their tomato-based lunch siesta. Just sayin’! 😉)

In moderation, some are based on what you have in your systems. Coffee can be difficult if you already have a heartburn episode going on while after that has blown over, you can go back to your cuppa joe. But I recommend the newer cold brew coffee method if you don’t wanna give up your coffee. ☕️

And you can find that garlic isn’t favorable to your body. But that doesn’t mean you have an allergy. It could just mean eat less if you don’t wan to tip the scales to inflammation.

In moderation, all can be good, but you don’t know the exact limit your body has before a warning is issued through inflammation and flair ups. So you want to stay mindful of your quantity.

You could discover your body based on healthy Ayurveda, likes more astringent or bitter foods like in Kapha body types.

Every healthy food ingesting micro action you take accumulates, and can help toward your physical health as you also evolve and change habits.

You may also find certain food allergies or excess can affect your moods and mental health and can change over time and quantity.

Parts of your mind influenced by your senses are telling you to consume, when it’s better if you just stop, knowing there’s a lag time in mind-body communication.

That’s why it’s better to pause eating before you’re full so your body can catch up and notify your mind, “whoaaa… no more please!” 

A yummy piece of cake to the body is neutral until it starts breaking down and processing the ingredients. The pleasure is up in the mind.

So getting your mind-body aligned is a better strategy here.

Gluten Food Allergy Sensitivities

Our society acknowledges that certain individuals have a deep allergy sensitivity to gluten, especially over the past decade where Celiac disease has been identified as a potentially serious health condition.

Frequently asked questions include: what foods are high in gluten? Whole grains are healthy. They’re also guilty.

Wheat, barley, and rye are high offenders.

But corn, oats, and quinoa are gluten-free. And corn is the largest agricultural crop produced in the United States. So there are still many options for gluten allergies.

And like how I turned to healthy baking, someone  who is gluten sensitive, can lean on so many other gluten-free foods and ingredients.

I witnessed this growing gluten allergy in planning hotel and restaurant catered parties. This growing trend is not Celiac Disease that’s an autoimmune disease, even though both have gluten as the offender.

Serious gluten allergies didn’t exist and people weren’t as picky. Now we have healthy food sections and those who only shop and eat gluten-free breads and foods.

This has led to new cooking flours and healthier choices for everyone and not just Celiac Disease people.

Managing Food Allergies

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

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. Red spots are common food allergy symptoms.

But as life moved, this was no longer an allergy trigger so children who grow up want to stay open with food choices as our bodies are changing.

We want to keep a variety of foods and food categories as diversity helps the gut and body.

To better manage, you can read food labels, and test with small bites along your journey to see if anything happens. See what patterns arise. Maybe the same ingredient in one food is in another that triggers an allergic response.

And you can also order a medical allergy prick test at an allergist’s office.

Another place to check is to self-diagnose your stress causes in your life and list out all the potential stressors for additional revelation.

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 your inflammation body life.

Situational stress can be a more obvious correlation for a pimple or a gray hair that’s in the mind-body connection.

You can start with these less serious body symptoms that show up, and try to connect dots in your life, chronic inflammation, and health history.

This could lead to learn something new about how to restoratively and preventatively take care of your body to operate optimally now and in the future.

If you need or want help in those areas, you can take the 2-minute body balance quiz to learn more about how to restore your healthy-happy body balance.

For now, I leave you to enjoy this gluten-free spaghetti squash recipe with your favorite sauce or at plain. One squash will yield about as much as a pasta box you would buy at the store.