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Last Update: 8/7/06
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Introduction A recent clinical study, unrelated to food intolerances, indicates that olive oil is effective in the treatment of migraines (Journal of Adolescent Health 2002 Aug;31(2):154-161). My own tests indicate that a minimal spraying of olive oil onto a serving of food is often enough to reduce or eliminate the headache and/or fatigue that would otherwise result from that food. Thus, this method may substantially reduce dietary restrictions arising from food intolerances. Olive oil is not the only cooking oil that helps prevent headaches but care must be exercised in choosing an oil, as discussed below. Later, I will describe how mineral supplements may also be used to fight some food intolerances and replenish deficiencies resulting from a restricted diet. Under no circumstances should my methods be attempted on foods that cause severe symptoms.
I have found the oil-spraying treatment to be useful on a wide variety of foods including meat, fish, dairy foods, nuts, and many fruits and vegetables. It has overcome most of my amine intolerances, and reduces my gluten intolerance to the point where I can eat low-gluten foods such as rye and millet. The ability of fats to facilitate absorption of nutrients into the blood stream is well known to nutritionists. Thus the idea of spraying food with an oil is just an adaptation of this knowledge, although the mechanism by which this method reduces food intolerances is unclear. An important point to consider for anyone who might attempt to duplicate my results is the context in which the results were obtained. I scrupulously avoid foods that have soy or wheat (e.g. bread, cereals, salad dressing, pasta, and soup) since I am extremely sensitive to them. I prepare nearly all of my own meals, using only foods with few or no additives. Severe restrictions on the intake of food additives are necessary to gain control over extensive food intolerances because diet is complicated even without these added risk factors (see www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info). I have not found my method to be at all effective against the effects of food additives. Most cooking oils, even those sold in health food stores, have been refined to enable them to withstand high cooking temperatures. The extraction and refining processes used on cheap mass-produced oils are often so harsh that they destroy nearly all of the distinctive nutrients that characterize the plants from which the oils are derived (e.g. a temperature of about 520ºF (270ºC) is used on soybean oil). I have spent several months ingesting various cooking oils and have found that just a few drops of any of the cheap varieties is usually enough to give me a headache. Fortunately, there is an alternative oil-extraction method called expeller pressing, which applies relatively mild heat and thus retains some nutrients and avoids production of oxidized contaminants. Most expeller-pressed oils are subsequently refined but again only using moderate heat. Unrefined oils are preferable to refined oils for use up to 300ºF (150ºC) because of their higher level of nutrients but have a greater likelihood of inducing symptoms of food intolerance since they contain a relatively large abundance of non-lipid ingredients. Virgin olive oil is a good initial choice for testing against food intolerances because it is unrefined, widely available, and has generated many favorable reports from health research. Anyone who has an olive oil intolerance has a wide choice of alternatives, both refined and unrefined (unrefined oils have "unrefined" on the label). Two oils that I have found to be good alternatives to olive oil are refined almond oil and unrefined corn oil. Anyone who has an intolerance for oxidation products in oils must always be wary of encountering cheap cooking oils in any food that they have not personally prepared. There are 2 potential complications that may arise from any cooking oil, regardless of how it is manufactured. The first is that cooking oils are acid foods and therefore have to be used in conjunction with an antacid for those people who are afflicted by acid indigestion. I use a homemade antacid, consisting of a solution of vinegar and baking soda, which can be conveniently applied to food via a pump spray bottle. The second potentional complication is that oil spray cans are very likely to contain soy and thus cannot be used by those who have a soy intolerance. However, alternative procedures can be easily substituted in such a case (see the recipe page). Neurological responses play an important role in food intolerances, and they begin as soon as food contacts the taste buds. Hence, food needs to be treated externally rather than via an internal method such as swallowing a fish oil capsule. Cooking oil is an ideal additive for treating food because: 1) it can be applied via a spray bottle; and 2) it is effective in a small enough quantity that it doesn't significantly affect the taste of the food. Mineral Supplements (New section; created July 2006) During the past year, I have been testing powdered vitamin and mineral supplements to determine whether they are useful against food intolerances. My strategy is similar to the oil-spraying technique described above, except that now I am sprinkling a powder on the food. I have experienced substantial success with mineral supplements, and so I will describe my method in detail below. I have not experienced any benefits from using vitamin supplements in this way, and so I will not discuss that subject any further. The idea of sprinkling a multimineral supplement onto food is a simple concept but presents potential hazards to food intolerant people. Each mineral contained in a food supplement (e.g. calcium carbonate) consists of a metallic component (e.g. calcium) and a nonmetallic component (e.g. carbonate). Only the metallic component is nutritional. The nonmetallic component is not only nutritionally useless but also, in some cases, can trigger an intolerance. For example, I have an intolerance for gluconate compounds, and thus I cannot tolerate calcium gluconate supplements even though calcium is beneficial. In fact, due to problems such as this, I cannot tolerate any commercial multimineral supplements. Instead, I have to buy each mineral supplement individually, and then find a substitute for each supplement that causes a problem (e.g. I use calcium carbonate instead of calcium gluconate). The important points to extract from this discussion are:
Another obstacle to implementing my mineral supplementation method is that hardly any good sources of powdered minerals are available on the market. Some powdered supplements contain minerals but also include a large number of extraneous ingredients which can present complications for those with extensive chemical intolerances. The only way that I have been able to get around this problem is to buy mineral capsules that contain powder and are easy to pull apart. I extract the powder from the capsule, put the powder into a shaker, and sprinkle it onto food. I have found this method to be effective on mild intolerances for fresh fruit and vegetables. Both this method and the oil-spraying method described earlier work better when they are used together. An additional advantage of using mineral supplements is that they can correct for possible mineral deficiencies of people who are intolerant of many types of food. I can clearly feel an increased energy level when I use mineral supplements in my diet. Calcium has the most obvious effect but using a full set of mineral supplements is better than using just calcium. Many nutritionists downplay the importance of vitamin and mineral supplements but their conclusions are not based on studies of food intolerant people. If you test these supplements yourself, you can easily draw your own conclusions about whether they are worthwhile. For specific information about the mineral powder that I use, go to my recipe page. If you would like some general background information on vitamins and minerals, the following links may be helpful: Review of Food Intolerances and Their Treatment To distinguish whether your headaches are the result of a food intolerance or a food allergy, you should consult an allergist. The allergist will likely give you a RAST test or ELISA test to diagnose whether your health condition satisfies the medical definition of an allergy (i.e. an immune system response) or is instead a food intolerance. Food allergies are caused by proteins and cannot be alleviated by the recipes given here.
The subject of food intolerances is complicated because it involves not only the digestive system but also the nervous system (via the taste buds) and the endocrine system. Some people suffer immediate adverse reactions while others experience delayed hypersensitivity reactions after periods ranging up to a full day. Reactions to food include indigestion, migraines, chronic fatigue, mental afflictions, muscle pain, heart palpitations and canker sores. The foods responsible for most food reactions among the general population are milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, peanuts, tree nuts, soy and wheat. Preliminary medical studies indicate that fish oil and olive oil may each serve as a headache remedy by favorably influencing serotonin levels in the central nervous system. If you want to keep up with the latest medical research, a good place to start is the Pub Med site of the National Institute of Health or the publication-searching site called "Find Articles". The scarcity of attention given by the traditional medical community to food intolerances is surprising considering that the problem is widespread . One reason for this is that nutrition research has to compete for limited funding with research on life-threatening diseases. A second reason is that no one is going to get rich from offering a simple home remedy. The most comprehensive information that I have found on food intolerances is from a maverick group of doctors who belong to the AAEM (American Academy of Environmental Medicine). A list of AAEM-approved doctors is given at the AAEM Web site. One such doctor has written a review (CISRA: Synergy Health Newsletter, Issue #5) that includes references to books, journal articles, and support groups. Identifying which foods in your diet cause your food headaches can be very confusing due to a bodily defense mechanism called masking. Such masking may manifest itself in headaches which arise only from the most potent of several harmful foods. Thus, removing just a single food from your diet may only stop headaches temporarily before you start noticing an increased sensitivity for one or more of the remaining foods. This process may repeat several times, resulting in what may seem like an exercise in futility. Solutions which have been proposed for this problem are: 1) the elimination diet and food challenge tests; 2) the rotation diet; and 3) the pulse test. The chemical compounds most frequently blamed for food intolerances are amines (e.g. tyramines in red wine, and phenylethylamine in chocolate) but lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, and fructose intolerance are also common. Amine intolerances occur in people who apparently have a deficiency in a digestive enzyme called monoamine oxidase. When undigested amines enter the blood stream, they cause dilation of blood vessels in the head, and hence a headache. If you decide to try my food treatment method, please report your findings via the form on Web page 3.
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