By Jenny Peterson
Today I am answering all the common questions I get about food allergies and sensitivities so that nothing is left unturned.
If you haven't already, I suggest you read part 1 (Root Cause to Food Allergies & Sensitivities) and part 2 (Avoid These Traps When Trying to Heal Food Sensitivities) of this food sensitivities series. You are missing out on some great stuff, including some very foundational pieces to understanding food sensitivities and the information I will be discussion below.
On another note, if you have read them, you most likely have some questions now that you have a new view on sensitivities.
Let’s get started and dive right into the questions.
1 - What is the difference between food allergies and sensitivities?
The reason I love GNM/GHK is because it simplifies the way we look at symptoms and diagnosis’.
Instead of using the label to find a solution, we use the body systems. So whether a person has allergies or sensitivities doesn’t really matter. The symptom is the most important. The symptom will connect us to the body system. So whether someone has an allergy or sensitivity to a food it really doesn’t matter. The intensity of the reaction is going to be back to the subconscious track connected to the food.
Obviously an allergic reaction that causes anaphylaxis is much more severe and needs to be worked on with caution but they are still resolved the same way.
2 - If I have sensitivities or allergies, can this be passed on to my kids?
As I have stated before, there are very few diseases that are genetic.
Your beliefs, behaviors and subconscious patterns are a huge influence on your kids. From the time they are in the womb until they are 10 years old, their brains are like sponges. Everything you do and say is influencing them.
If they see mom being selective with her food, they will mirror that. If they hear mom talking about her food sensitivities, what she can and can’t eat, or mommy doesn’t feel good when she eats bread, they are subconsciously being programmed to believe that. Very similar to how we are subconsciously programmed to believe that certain foods are bad for us.
When I was dealing with my food sensitivities, my son who never had any issues with food before all of a sudden would start making connections to how he felt and what he ate. He knew that eating bread for me made my stomach hurt so when his stomach hurt, he would blame it on the bread. When we would go to restaurants he would ask if they had gluten free buns. None of this came from me telling him that he has food sensitivities, he created these thoughts from what he saw me doing.
Beliefs about food are very powerful and because the brain doesn’t know the difference between reality or not, if it gets the message that a certain food is bad, there will be heightened alertness around food.
It is not uncommon for mom or dad in the family to have food sensitivities and then the children do based off of beliefs and behaviors that they see. But there is also the possibility that just like how allergies and sensitivities are formed based off of stressful experiences in adults, children are no different.
Our kids are a reflection of us and when it comes to food sensitivities or allergies, sometimes all that it is is monkey see, monkey do.
3 - How do I prevent myself or kids from getting allergies/sensitivities?
I will start with the basics with this question.
Let’s first start with belief. Stop believing that certain foods are good or bad. Every time you label something as bad and you eat it, you are creating a conflict within the mind. Stay away from taking on other people’s beliefs about food. There is no shortage of them everywhere. The beliefs about food that you accept from others are not your beliefs. As soon as you accept them, they are yours.
It’s like someone handing you their bag of shit and you decide to accept their bag of shit. You have the choice not to take that bag of shit.
Whenever I hear someone else’s belief about something that I may consider believing as well, I ask myself, is this belief going to limit me in any way? Is this belief going to make my world smaller? If there is a yes to that, I don’t take it.
For example: The belief that gluten is bad. Will that limit me in any way or make my world smaller? Yes it will. I will have to look for alternatives, I may not be able to eat the same meals as my family. I won’t be able to enjoy something that I really do enjoy every once and awhile.
That belief is not worth it to me. It even comes with bad feelings when I think about it.
Then we shift to the belief that all foods are safe and ok for me to eat. Just by saying that, there are different feelings behind it right? It makes you feel free! This means you can eat anywhere, enjoy pizza night with your family and even have cake at your nieces birthday. There are no limitations.
Now I’m not suggesting that you eat candy bars and chips for your meals. There still needs to be common sense when choosing your foods. But as a mindset goal, you should be able to know that and be ok with eating anything without fear behind it.
So the beliefs that you tell yourself about food or your kids are very powerful. When they question what the outside world tells them about food, you debunk those beliefs right away. Provide an environment that encourages them to challenge beliefs rather than just go with what they hear.
Teach them that they are the only one that can give power to what someone tells them.
So shifting beliefs about food will help you prevent food issues.
Creating safety around food rather than fear is the key. Fear of anything heightens the nervous system and can create a track within the subconscious.
Now, allergies/sensitivities are connected to a subconscious track that is connected to a past stressful event. And because perception of an event is based on a person’s own individual patterns, it’s hard to say that you can completely avoid developing sensitivities. That will all depend on a person’s level of awareness and their ability to shift their response to a stressful event that may happen while eating.
This is why it’s important to talk through situations with your kids that bother them, so they can be resolved right away.
The same goes for you. When something happens that is stressful, the better you are at adapting to that situation, the less conflict you create within the psyche, which means less physical symptoms.
So as a recap - letting go of fear around food and the beliefs about food will help you create a healthy nervous system response to food, preventing “issues” with food. Second, learning how to adapt to life situations will also help not just prevent food sensitivities but all symptoms.
4 - If I clean up my gut and have good flora isn’t that enough to prevent/heal food allergies/sensitivities?
A healthy gut is helpful for general health but it isn’t the root cause of food allergies/sensitivities.
If you are working really hard to eat a certain way or take certain supplements to create a healthy gut, you are spending unnecessary money and also creating extra stress in your life that isn’t needed.
How many people have you met that eat crap food, that probably don’t have a “healthy gut” that have food sensitivities? Not many.
It’s always the ones that are the health nuts and those that center their life around what foods they should and shouldn’t eat. I was a perfect example of that. I took all the supplements, ate clean food and still had sensitivities. Then there is my husband who can eat pizza, beer and burgers and not have any issues.
So do you need to clean up your gut to heal or prevent sensitivities? No you don’t.
5 - I don’t have food sensitivities but I am fearful of certain foods due to what the world says is bad, how do I get over that fear?
Just like I mentioned, in the other question, you get to decide what you want to believe. Your fear is coming from someone else’s belief that you have decided to take on.
You can shift that belief and the fear will go with it.
6 - I haven’t been diagnosed with any food allergies or sensitivities, but feel like I react to some foods, so should I try the elimination diet to identify them?
I highly suggest that you don’t go down this road.
The elimination diet is adding stress in your life that you don’t need. Instead, first shift your beliefs around food and stop blaming food for all of the symptoms that you are experiencing.
Keep it simple.
How do you know you react to some foods? What are your symptoms? Do you have digestion upset, do you get a skin rash? That needs to be the focus. The symptom tells us about the conflict.
So let’s say you get a rash, then that is going to be a separation conflict and you want to identify in your life what you want or don’t want to separate from. Going back to when the rash first started is also going to give us clues around that conflict.
An elimination diet is focusing on food being the problem. Rather than blaming food which can create a domino effect of bad thinking patterns with it, focus on what really matters. The symptom that you are experiencing.
Find the subconscious connections to that symptom and that is where you find your solution. Way less time and energy than spending several weeks journaling and keeping track of everything you put in your mouth.
7 - Are there certain foods I should or shouldn’t eat when trying to heal?
Healthy food will support your body better when you are in the healing phase rather than crap food.
What your body most needs when in the healing phase is protein from animal sources. Without protein, the body will not have all that it needs for repairing. So if you are eating nothing but salads and fruit you are going to want to add more animal protein in.
Eat real food, which includes grains, all veggies, fruit and animal protein. It also is helpful to include healthy fats.
Consider your food the gasoline that fuels your car. Quality gasoline will help your car run better and have less build up which will make a difference in those times that you need to push the performance of your vehicle. The same goes for food. When you’re healing, your body requires more to rebuild and having a supply of quality fuel will help support your healing.
8 - I tried EFT tapping and other subconscious healing modalities for my food sensitivities and it didn’t work, what did I do wrong?
As the saying goes, The tool is as good as the user.
Modalities such as EFT, FEFT, NLP, etc are all great tools. But if you don’t identify the subconscious patterns that are connected to your sensitivities, then using the tools is not going to move the needle.
Subconscious work requires detect work that most of the time we can’t do on our own. It does require a trained eye. But let’s say that the subconscious patterns were all identified when you used these modalities. Then it’s about you putting into action new patterns to replace those old patterns.
This is why that work will only take you so far, even if you make all the subconscious connections. You have to do the work to shift the patterns and create new ones. Once you are consciously aware of those old subconscious patterns, it’s your responsibility to do something about them if they are not working for you anymore.
The modality, if used correctly, is there to help pull out the weeds, it’s your job to plant the flowers!
That wraps up all the questions. Hopefully any questions that were on your mind, I have addressed.
I know the world that we live in has complicated everything. But once you do this work, you will find that all your problems whether they be health or about money, come back to perceptions and beliefs. Keep it simple my friends.
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