I just saw this graphic on Twitter, and it caught my attention. I actually have food allergies or sensitivities to many foods, especially corn, can’t eat it at all. I am also allergic to casein (a milk protein, so all dairy that has protein in it but not dairy fat 🙂 ) bananas, avocados, pork, cumin, and a few more things. So I’ve actually been on elimination diets for years, to find out definitively what I am allergic to. First you eliminate the foods that the allergy tests show you as being allergic to them. You eliminate these foods for a few months, then you add back one food at a time to see if your symptoms come back. My symptoms are not gastrointestinal, my symptoms are joint pain, so sometimes it’s difficult to say whether I am reacting to a food. Anyway, I have tried to tease out the foods that I can eat and the ones I can’t.

Also it’s very interesting to note that people with mental illness often have inflammation and immune illnesses as well. There is definitely a connection, although it is not known for certain what it is. The gut has it’s own immune system (GALT) and it own “brain” also known as the enteric nervous system, and there is extensive signaling between the gut and the nervous system. Anxiety and depression affect conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and vice versa. Also the neurons in the gut make a lot of the body’s serotonin and this is influenced by our microbiota in the gut.

All is interconnected!

About the graphic above, I really like it, if only it was easy to undertake and be successful at eliminating anger, regret, resentment, guilt, blame and worry! Life would be quite divine. I don’t know why these negative emotions are so difficult to banish, whereas the positive ones just fly away so easily.

One more I’d definitely add to this list is fear. In fact, might all of the emotions not be some derivation of fear? Fear is a survival tool, but feeling it at times when it is not warranted for our survival is so counterproductive and also leads to anxiety, a downwards spiral from which it may be difficult to recover.

Practicing fearlessness, when in the midst of anxiety and fear, it is very difficult, but in instances when I have done it, I have mostly been rewarded by a sense of accomplishment and bravery.

Anyway, I will try to go on this particular elimination diet as much as I can.