Thursday, September 3, 2009

Restricted Diets

By Charlie Monaghan Carter

If you are among the ever increasing number of people who must restrict their diet due to food intolerances, you will know that staying within the guidelines can be tough.

Even though all of our packaged food is labelled with detailed contents, it is still very difficult to avoid particular food stuffs. Common intolerances such as Gluten and Dairy are relatively straight forward to avoid most of the time, and only really becomes an issue when eating out. The problem that many people face is that many chefs dont understand the implications of a specific ingredient on a person suffering from an intolerance.

It is quite common for a chef to add a little flour to a sauce to thicken it up, believing that the intolerant person will not notice or be affected by such a small amount. And if the sufferer doesnt explode there and then (and usually they dont) then the chef believes that he got away with it and that the person indeed is not suffering from that little amount. What they dont realise however is that the intolerance usually comes into effect as the food is being digested an hour or two later and the effects can then last for days.

Eating out is therefore very difficult for people with intolerances to common foods and as it is very difficult to find good food that doesnt contain the common foodstuffs that people are intolerant to, you will soon find that eating out becomes a bigger and bigger risk and so dont be surprised of the amount of invites you get to come out to dinner drop significantly.

Foods that your body has an intolerance to make very hard work for your body to digest, so you should avoid foods that trigger your intolerances at all costs so that your body doesnt have to be put though the trauma of struggling with something. However if you only then eat a few foods that you know are safe, there is a chance that you will develop intolerances to them as well.

It is important to monitor what you eat and to be aware that this can happen. It is also important for this reason to maintain as wide a diet as possible. This can be difficult, as many people find foods that dont upset them and stick to those as the wider range of foods you eat, the more likelihood there is that you will be intolerant to one or more of them.

About the Author:

No comments: