I talk a lot about food intolerances and how they contribute to your Endometriosis symptoms. These are often intolerances to normally healthy foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables. But where do they come from? Have we always had food intolerances or is it a modern ‘affliction’?

The question actually came up in one of my Endometriosis SOS Calls. I was explaining how I focus on identifying food intolerances and then help remove those foods from the diet. She said that she’d heard me talk about food intolerances in my podcast quite a bit and then asked where they came from.

I thought that was an excellent question, and one I didn’t have an answer to at the time.

So, I did some research on it to see what has so far been discovered about the causes of food intolerances but couldn’t really find any scientific insight.

But I do have some thoughts and ideas about what might be going on that I’m going to share with you.

I do think that food intolerances are on the rise and I have also noticed that they are more prevalent in some parts of the world and less in others. They are all elements of modern living.

And I think there are 5 main reasons for this.

 

1.      Our foods are less nutrient-dense than they used to be

Farmers are under enormous pressure to grow lots of produce and grow it fast. To be able to earn a living they need to focus on yield, so growing the variety of produce that provides the highest yield.

It then needs to be harvested and often transported a long way, before being kept in storage until it can go to supermarkets (where most of us buy our fresh produce). Once in store, it needs to have a long shelf-life to make it viable for stores to sell the produce. Now, if any of you have ever grown fruits or vegetables yourself, you’ll know that if you harvest when something is ripe, it will only 1 or 2 days. So, produce gets harvested before it is ripe and is then expected to ‘ripen’ in store.

Unfortunately, although a tomato will change colour and become more pleasant to eat if it is ‘ripened’ in store, it hasn’t actually ripened in a nutritional sense. It needs nutrients from the soil, water and sun to do this. So most of the fresh produce we buy is not nearly as full of nutrients as it should be. This can contribute to nutrient deficiencies, potentially in nutrients that are needed for your gut and for your immune system to function optimally.

 

2.      We grow and eat a much narrower range of species of fruit and vegetables

This point is related to the previous one. Because farmers need to grow for yield, they’ve selected variations of produce that grow fast and big. And as a result, we don’t really have a lot of variation in our diet!

Think for a moment about the different types of apples you can buy in the supermarkets. How many would you say there are? However many you think, it is only a fraction of the actual variety of apple types there used to be and that people used to grow and eat.

Our digestive system is built for variety, not just a variety of different foods, but also variety within a food, like apples. Different varieties have subtly different characteristics and if your gut is a bit sensitive to a characteristic of one variant, eating lots of different types of apple will not create a big reaction. Eating the same type of a apple with that characteristic your gut is sensitive to over and over again then creates an intolerance. Corn is a good example. So many of my clients have an intolerance to corn, and, worldwide, we’re only growing a very small number of corn species.

 

3.      Exposure to herbicides and pesticides and toxic chemicals makes your more vulnerable to food intolerances

More bad news for our gut is the widespread use of herbicides and pesticides in growing our food, as well as using chemicals around the house. When produces is sprayed with chemicals, not only will they be on what we eat, they will also end up in the soil. The soil is what feeds the plant when it grows, so the chemicals also end up in the food you eat.

And when it comes to chemicals used at home: did you know that bleach actively kills your gut bacteria? If you smell it, it’s entering not just your nose but also your digestive system. A healthy balance of bacteria in your gut, your gut microbiome, is a key defence against food intolerances. If you'd like to find out more about this, this article is very insightful.

 

4.      The convenience of processed foods

We have gotten used to eating processed foods. Packaged biscuits, sauce mixes, supermarket breads, even pre-seasoned meatballs; they’re all processed foods and most of them contain additives to make them look fresh, taste nicer, and keep longer.

This is all done with additives: man-made chemicals. And our bodies are simply not able to process these chemicals. Even worse, many are irritants and damage your gut. A damaged gut is a major cause of food intolerances.

 

5.      Obsession with germ-free environments

Over the past few decades we’ve developed this fear of germs. The marketing around cleaning products is all about making us afraid of bacteria. But we are made up of trillions of bacteria and without those bacteria we wouldn’t survive. Of course, there are some bacteria that are a worry, and you definitely need to avoid undercooked chicken and wash your hands after going to the bathroom.  But our bodies need exposure to bacteria. Out of fear of bad bacteria, we’re also killing good bacteria. And overall, that has made our gut super sensitive.

 

Each of these 5 factors in isolation may not cause food intolerances to develop, but most of us are exposed to most, if not all of them and that, unfortunately, means increasing numbers of food intolerances.

Two food intolerances I see in almost all my clients are to gluten (in wheat products) and diary protein (no, not lactose, so going lactose-free won’t help). And that’s why we always start by removing those from the diet.

If you would like to see how removing gluten and dairy from your diet can help you feel so much better but know you need some help doing it successfully, preferably with some recipes to get your going, then check out my course: “Remove Gluten and Dairy from your Diet”.

Of course, if you prefer to have a chat about your options for finding out what your food intolerances are and how to tweak your diet to remove them, you can book a free 30-minute Endometriosis SOS Call.