Food Allergies and Food Intolerances

What is a gluten allergy ? How difficult is a gluten free diet, what gluten free foods and products are available? Is it the same as a wheat allergy? What is a wheat allergy symptom? Is gluten free the same as wheat free? Am I likely to also have a dairy allergy or an egg allergy? Do I need to go dairy free too?

Most people don't have a food allergy they have food intolerances. A food allergy is usually when you have a severe reaction to a protein in a food such as anaphylactic shock where your throat or lungs swell up and breathing is restricted. In severe cases you can die within minutes.

The top allergenic foods are dairy, eggs, some types of meat, shellfish and fish, wheat, peanuts and soya. Symptoms can include the following, respiratory distress, hypotension (low blood pressure), fainting, unconsciousness , urticaria (hives), flushed appearance , angioedema (swelling of the face, neck, and throat) , tears (due to angioedema and stress), vomiting , itching , diarrhea , abdominal pain and anxiety .

Food intolerances such as gluten intolerance, usually develop from a digestive disorder and proteins from your food manage to get from your gut into your blood stream and are then attacked as foreign bodies.

You may just have problems digesting certain foods, such as lactose intolerance for cows' milk which many people find difficult to digest as we are designed to be weaned by the age of 5 and never really built to have cows' milk.

 Zedz foods products are not only gluten free and wheat free they are also mostly vegan and thus dairy free and egg free, reducing the number of ingredients that are likely to cause intolerance and allergy reactions, and also are free from saturated animal fats which are not beneficial for health.

 Our products are naturally high in fibre as we use brown rice flour and whole maize flour, and thus useful as part of a cholesterol lowering diet.

 If you think you have a food intolerance a qualified nutritional therapist can recommend a blood test that will tests your body's reaction to certain allergenic foods and products.

For more about allergies, food intolerance, allergy symptoms such as asthma and allergy immunology  please visit

http://www.allergyuk.org/

http://www.anaphylaxis.org.uk/

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/foodintolerance/

For food intolerance tests and allergy treatment,  please see

http://optimumnutritionists.com/

http://www.ion.ac.uk/