Imagine a scrape that begins healing and scabs over…then continually gets scraped again and again. The same happens within the body when we continually eat irritating foods.
Although there are over 170 foods that are known to cause food allergies, there are 8 most common ones that make up 90% of the reactions in the American diet.
These eight most common food allergy causing foods are:
- Milk
- Egg
- Peanuts
- Tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews)
- Fish (pollock, salmon, cod, tuna, snapper, eel and tilapia)
- Shellfish (shrimp, lobster, crab)
- Soy, and
- Wheat
Not to mention, chemicals used in processed food. You know, the “food” that comes in boxes and packages. The chemicals that are used to process and preserve what’s in the box are VERY common to cause allergic reactions, not to mention their unhealthy amounts of salt, sugar and trans fats (unusable fats for your body).
You’ll remember, as pediatric chiropractors, the second thing we check when evaluating your child’s digestive system, is the amount of possible overload your child could have as a result of dyes, sugars, chemicals, and processed foods. (In other words, any ingredient you can’t pronounce on the ingredient list of the food your child eats.)
Even though this is a difficult topic and time and energy are a precious resource…taking the time and preserving energy to eat properly truly makes all the difference for your child’s digestive system and brain development.
The non-real-food in what your child is eating will destroy the physical nature of the cells. For instance, if you think of scraping your leg. It hurts and it takes time to heal. And it will heal if it can be protected and not constantly re-scraped.
The same goes on within our bodies. If we’re constantly eating things that irritate, cause inflammation – scrape – the inside of the body, it isn’t able to have the time or ability to heal.
It’s important for you to know, neither the communication within your child’s body nor the possible overload that they may be experiencing will resolve on its own. It must be evaluated.
Allowing this re-injuring to go on is what directly irritates the brain and spine.
Here’s what happens…the nerves go back into the spinal cord and tightens up the movement of the spine in that area…which further affects brain input because the quality of brain input is determined by the quality of spine movement.
The food allergy reactions are especially common in young children. An allergic reaction happens when the body’s immune system perceives a substance as harmful to the body.
In food (real food), the immune system is usually reacting to a protein.
The reaction sets off a domino effect that can take anywhere from an immediate response to a few minutes to even a few hours to manifest itself. The results can range from mild to severe, and even life threatening.
For example, itchy throat, runny nose, cough, and progressing to more severe with trouble swallowing, swollen throat, hives (rash) covering the body, to difficulty breathing, to the scary experience of inability to breathe.
You’ve heard of food allergies as well as food intolerances.
Just to be clear, food intolerance is different from a food allergy. Symptoms of an intolerance range from stomach cramps to diarrhea and aren’t life threatening…just rather (that is to say, very) unpleasant.
When we’re talking about the immune system, it’s important to remember that everything in the body is run and controlled by the brain.
Which is directly affected by the health of the body and spine.
The best way to keep track of what your child’s body is reacting to in food is to read the ingredient labels (like we’ve mentioned before and you can read more about here.)
Understand that many times eggs, wheat, milk and other allergy-causing ingredients are called by other names.
So basically, nutrition describes how the food choices that you make, and that you help your children make, affect overall health and brain function, including how your child’s body functions at the level of the cells, tissues, organs, and skeleton.
The bottom line is, as pediatric chiropractors, we can do a lot to resolve your child’s physical ailments but when you add in the Super Mom ability to do these five things:
- Bring your child in for regular chiropractic care,
- Read food labels,
- Read your child’s reaction to foods that their immune system may be struggling with,
- Add in foods that are packed with the vitamins and minerals needed to grow, repair, heal and sustain their body’s systems, cells, organs and skeleton and
- Eat together at meal times…no screens…
…then together we make a winning team. Come in today and let’s get started!