Food intolerance is probably one of the most annoying things you can experience. Because food intolerance problems express themselves in an inconsistent manner they are harder to locate and diagnose than food allergies which tend to be strong and immediate. Even months of testing and avoiding particular foods may not help you get closer to figuring out the problem. You may need to take a food intolerance test to find the source of the trouble.

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.

There is a fundamental difference between the inability to digest a specific type of food and an allergy to that same item. When you are allergic to something, the body treats it as a threat and acts to eliminate the problem. Conversely, intolerance is simply the inability of the body to handle a food item.

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.

You can find out what foods you cannot tolerate in a number of ways. You can do this by reducing your food intake to a small number of foods that it is known cause the smallest number of problems. It is common to begin with such foods as lamb, water and brown rice. If you eat only these foods for about three weeks, then you can begin to reintroduce other foods one at a time, every few days. You should keep a detailed diary and record any reaction you have. After 6 or 9 months you will probably have an clearer idea of which foods you cannot tolerate.

Another means of finding out which ingredients your system cannot cope with is the ELISA lgG test, specifically designed to determine food intolerances. More than 200 foods can be examined that way, with only a small amount of blood needed to do so. When you begin cutting out the problem foods, you generally discover that you are more energetic, you digest the remainder of your foods more easily, and sleeping is facilitated as well. Lots of people also enjoy the extra advantage of a quick weight loss!