This post is written by a very talented, young guest blogger, Hannah, from Gapalicious.com.
Allergies seem to be cropping up at an alarming rate these days. People allergic to gluten, casein, and corn are no longer surprising, but what would we see if we looked closer at why people are becoming allergic to these things?
I’m convinced that we would see three things that lead us towards becoming sensitive to innocuous things, and eventually becoming allergic to the world.
You may think that I’m joking about being allergic to the world, but I’m not.
Many young people today are becoming so sensitive to foods, that if we don’t stop it, they will eventually not be able to eat.
So what leads our bodies to see normal, natural things as invader?
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Processed Foods
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Probiotic Decline
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Break Down of the Gut
Processed foods have been blamed for a lot in the past several years and deservedly so. Devoid of nutritional value, the brightly colored packages that sit for ages on our grocery store shelves, are one of the biggest players in destroying our gut’s health.
When we aren’t able to digest our food it takes a toll our our digestive system.
Besides being hard to digest, most pre-packaged foods contain a lot of sugar which plays into the second reason – probiotic decline. In our gut we have millions of bacteria that play an important role in our health, but sugar feeds the wrong kind of bacteria.
The bad kind.
This turns our gut into a factory that makes toxins, and at this point our gut begins to break down – the popular term being “leaky gut”. Food particles begin to leak through our guts and infiltrate our bloodstream. This puts our body into high alert, and rightly so. In response to that our body begins to attack the invaders which we interpret as an allergy or sensitivity.
It’s that easy, and it can happen with anything.
The correct question is, how do we heal our guts so our bodies can reset and we can eat gluten, casein, etc again? Over the years I’ve heard many explanations, but the simplest one seems to be the right one.
You heal your gut by eating real, nutrient dense, digestible food.
Taking out the hard to digest foods like starches, grains, and sugars and replacing them with healthy fats, protein, bone broths, and fermented foods is the biggest step you can make in your gut health.
It is what will help you reclaim your health… and ultimately your life.
Hannah is a 21 year old who’s suffered from Gut and Psychology Syndrome™, but after going on the GAPS™ diet is now on the road to recovery. She loves writing on her blog – GAPalicious – about all things GAPS and cooking in the kitchen with her Mom.