If you have a food intolerance, you know how aggravating it can be. Intolerances aren't allergies, which means that they sometimes have an effect, and sometimes don't. In this framework, you could avoid a food for weeks, and still not discover exactly what is causing your illness. If this has happened to you, you might want to try a food intolerance test, to explore the food related symptoms more closely.

To start with, just because you cannot tolerate a food, that does not necessarily mean that you have an allergy to it. They are just simply not the same thing at all. If you have an allergy, the symptoms usually come on without warning, and are anything but mild. Intolerance is more mild and slower to appear. A food intolerance test, however, can clue you in to what should be avoided.

When you have a food allergy, you have an allergic reaction to a particular food, and your immune system fights back much the same as it does if you have an allergy to pollen. Food intolerance is different in that the immune system is not involved in the body's reaction.

Your body won't recognize that fact that it has been invaded by an outside substance. However, the places that usually work to eliminate food, like your stomach and intestines, are intolerant to certain parts of the food so will have an adverse reaction to those ingredients.

When the body of a person stops to produce particular enzymes or chemicals, which help in digesting a specific food, then there is food intolerance. Many people experience this during their growing stage. Hence there are people who are intolerant to lactose, since the enzyme produced to digest lactose is decreased from the age of two years. Only when a person grows older, he develops symptoms that are unpleasant.

There are a couple of ways of discovering which foods you are intolerant to. You can reduce your diet to just a few foods that are known to cause the least amount of problems, brown rice, lamb and water are the common starting foods. After about 3 weeks of eating only these foods you can then reintroduce one food at time, every 3 or 4 days. It is a good idea to keep a very thorough diary to see if you get any reactions. After about 6 to 9 months you should have a clear picture of which foods you have an intolerance to.

The other way to discover which foods you are intolerant to is to take an ELISA IgG blood test for food intolerances. This only needs a few drops of blood and over 200 foods can be tested. Once you start avoiding the foods you are intolerant to you will typically find that your energy levels increase, digestion improves, you get better sleep. Many people also find an added benefit of fairly rapid weight loss!