| Eczema Food Allergies - Removing Offending Foods
For natural healing, a complete program is necessary. A natural cure for eczema requires not only avoiding food allergies, but also following a complete and balanced nutritional program and including exercise, relaxation, social harmony, contentment. In short, a lifestyle in line with natural living - are necessary for complete healing of eczema through natural means.
If health means wholeness, then we must eat clean, nutrient-rich foods, avoid food allergies, drink clean water, and breathe clean air, be active, develop harmonious relationships, live in harmony with our environment, and feel content with life.
The following recommendations, however, will only concentrate on dietary strategies for healing eczema, particularly food allergies and how to remove offending foods.
The following nutritional strategies are easy to do. It was very important for me to apply a doable and tasty diet for my own healing. Avoiding food allergies and following this nutritional program worked in reversing my eczema and I'm now experiencing the best state of health and vitality I have ever experienced (in 50+ years). You need to read the following nutritional strategies and apply what is doable for you in your own lifestyle.
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Before & After |
Foods That Can Cause Allergies - Removing Offending Foods!
Below are a list of foods that should be avoided because they cause food allergies leading to eczema. When you remove these offending foods from your diet allergic reactions diminish and so does the eczema.
- Remove strong acid producing foods such as beef, chicken and pork for at least 90 days and if you become successful at doing this, then set another goal for an additional 90 days - soon you won't miss these foods. If you must eat some of these meats, at least reduce the amounts significantly. If you don't have a list of alkaline and acid foods, contact us and we'll email you this list. An ideal diet should be proportioned at 75 percent alkalizing foods, and 25 percent acidifying foods. The body needs more alkalizing foods than acidifying foods. It really is as simple as that. Contact me if you would like to have me email you a list of alkaline and acid foods.
Foods are of two types, acid and alkaline. This refers to the residual ash value of a food. (Meaning the type of residue that remains after the food is digested and processed inside of your body). Your body works best when your internal environment is just above pH 7.00 - just to the alkaline side of neutral. If there is an acid residue, the body must neutralize this acid to keep the blood from getting acidic. The acid residue is neutralized with alkaline (minerals). Ideally, there are adequate alkaline substances in the diet to do this. However, if there are not, the body must extract alkaline (minerals) from its cells to neutralize the acid. This causes the cells to become acidic, and eventually diseased.
Many of the health models in our society today recommend eating a high-protein diet, or specifically as, Dr. Gabriel Cousens M.D., calls it a flesh-centered diet. It is true that this type of diet may make you feel good initially, especially for hypoglycemic individuals, because it helps to balance the blood sugar. But you have to understand that there is also a stimulating effect from the adrenaline released by the animal flesh.
Animal flesh also has a high concentration of uric acid, which is close to caffeine in chemical structure, and may also have a stimulatory effect. Initially these effects may seem beneficial. After several months on a high-protein diet, some people begin to feel toxified and arthritic. This is usually because it takes a few months to experience the full effects of the toxic load that comes from the high-protein diet (acid-ash producing foods).
Beef, pork and chicken are some of the most acidifying foods and I recommend you avoid them as you move forward in your healing program. If you cannot avoid meat in your diet, at least try to reduce the number of times meat is consumed from daily to twice weekly. Then once weekly! Also, try to make certain that when you buy your beef, pork or chicken, that it is organically fed, free-range, and free of antibiotics and growth hormones. 
You noticed that I didn't include fish in this list. Fish is also an acid producing food, but it can also provide some valuable nutrients if consumed once in a while, especially oily fish. Unlike beef, pork and chicken, fish is a good source for strengthening bones with its high content of essential fatty acids, calcium and vitamin D. Essential fatty acids are important nutrients for the health of your skin.
An ideal diet should be proportioned at 75 percent alkalizing foods, and 25 percent acidifying foods. The body needs more alkalizing foods than acidifying foods. It really is as simple as that.
- Remove all dairy products (cheese and milk) . A common food allergy among those with eczema is dairy, particularly cheese and milk produced from cows. This is because the protein molecules are large and more difficult to digest. Cheese and milk are also acid producing foods. If you cannot avoid them, then buy raw goat-based cheese (the soft kind) or raw goat milk. Raw goat-based foods leave alkaline ash residue. Try non-dairy milks. These are made from rice or nuts. Do not use soy milk as it will disrupt mineral absorption in your digestive tract.
- Avoid grains that are considered high-glycemic foods. They force a sharp rise in insulin production, as their sugars are absorbed by the intestines too quickly and cause a hormonal imbalance in the body. Examples of high-glycemic grains are corn chips, instant processed grain mixes (i.e., puffed wheat), cakes, pies, pastry, processed breakfast cereals, instant grain cereals, white rice and white flour pastas.
- Avoid breads containing yeast. People can have food allergies to bread because breads ferment in our bodies, and become food for germs and fungus normally present in the intestine. Germs and fungus will produce alcohol from breads. If you eat a lot of bread, your body can make up to half an ounce of alcohol in your intestine every day. Alcohol is toxic because it interferes with many different enzymes in your body. Alcohol has a particularly bad effect on a group of enzymes that are the main workers in the body's detoxification system. Alcohol also interferes with the activity of key enzymes in the transformation of fatty acids into hormones. This is one of the main reasons why people who daily eat a lot of bread made with yeast or drink alcoholic beverages, may have hormonal imbalances. e.g., severe menopausal symptoms, enlarged prostate....etc., and skin problems (Baker, pp. 30-31).
A long time ago someone figured out that wheat flour could be leavened with some of the residue from the wine-making process, and subsequently the residue from the leavening could be passed on in the dough, some of which could be saved as a "starter" to make more dough. The particular fungus in question constitutes a large fungal family called yeasts. So please avoid breads made with yeast.
It may be prudent to consume types of bread that cause less food allergies. These would be breads made from whole rye and leavened with lactobacillus. Also, try unleavened breads that contain no flour, yeast, sugars or oils, and only include the fiber and germ of the whole grain. They are made from sprouted grains, slightly chopped, molded to a loaf and either sun-dried or baked at a very low temperature. The grains are usually some combination of sprouted spelt, millet, flax, oats, kamut, amaranth or quinoa.
- Remove hydrogenated oils and margarine from your diet. These foods have been altered to the point where they are labeled "plastic foods". Simply put, the hydrogenation process ruins the foods' nutritional value. Avoid them completely. Use the following healthy oils for your salads or for cooking your meals:
Cold preparation (condiments and salad dressings - 120F/49C): Flax seed oil, hemp seed oil, or walnut oil.
Low heat (Sauces and baking - 212F/100C): Safflower oil, sunflower oil and pumpkin oil.
Medium heat (Light sauteing - 325F/163C): Sesame oil, almond oil or olive oil.
High heat (Browning or frying - 375F/190C): Coconut oil or ghee (clarified butter).
Do your best to always use unrefined cold-pressed organic oils.
- Avoid non-foods (i.e. salt, alcohol, regular and decaffeinated coffee and tea, regular and diet soft drinks, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, food colorings, additives and man-made synthetic vitamin and mineral supplements, etc.). Avoid enriched flours, even though they may be from organic whole wheat. The word "enriched" means synthetic vitamins and minerals are added to the food.
- Avoid artificial sweeteners . Artificial sugars are chemical additives. They are man-made substances. One of these well known artificial sugars, for example, is composed of three ingredients which are natural, but are never found together in nature in such a combination. It is composed of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, as well as methyl alcohol, also known as methanol.
Methanol is a deadly metabolic poison. One of the reasons methanol is so toxic is because the body lacks the necessary enzymes to detoxify it. Its rate of elimination is five times slower than a similar amount of ethyl alcohol, as found in whisky, beer and wine. For this artificial sugar to be eliminated, the body must first convert it to formaldehyde, then to formic acid and ultimately to carbon dioxide.
One 12 ounce can of most artificially sweetened soft drinks contain about 10 mg of methanol. With this artificial sweetener found in over 80,000 products today, an individual can easily exceed 100 mg. daily, 13 times the limit recommended by the EPA (Gold, pp. 25-26).
If you must use a sweetener, use organic unprocessed sugar cane or a truly natural and healthful alternative such as the juice from the Brazilian shrub, Stevia, which is 30 to 40 times sweeter than sucrose. Stevia has been used as a sweetener in South America for hundreds of years and in Japan for 20 years. Two drops of the liquid extract equals one teaspoon of table sugar and is less than one calorie. One teaspoon of finely ground Stevia powder is equivalent to one cup of sugar.
- Except as noted below, avoid soy products. Soy products did not serve as food until fermentation techniques were developed. Fermented soy products have been used for many centuries in the Orient. Precipitated (Western) soy products can cause serious health problems because most of them are not fermented.
Among the harmful substances in soy are potent enzyme inhibitors, which block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. Apparently, cooking does not deactivate these enzyme inhibitors, and they can produce serious digestive problems such as reduced protein digestion, chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake, enlargement of the pancreas and cancer. Fermentation deactivates these enzyme inhibitors.
Soybeans are also high in phytic acids which block the uptake of essential minerals in the intestinal tract, including such important ones as calcium, magnesium, iron and especially zinc. Again, only the process of fermentation will significantly reduce the phytate content of soy products.
Avoid tofu, soy milk, soy baby formula, soy yogurt, soy ice cream, soy cheese, soy flour for baking, and soy protein that vegetarians often use as a meat substitute.
Exceptions: Good soy products are fermented soy products such as tempeh, miso and tamari sauce.
Click on the following links to get details on some incredible healing foods:
References:
- Baker, Sidney. (1997). Detoxification and Healing.
New Canaan , Connecticut : Keats Publishing, Inc.
- Gold, Mark. (1995). "The Bitter Truth About Artificial Sweeteners."
Nexus . Oct./Nov. 1995. PP. 25-28.
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