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Expert food sensitivity dietitian Joan Breakey

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What causes food reactions?

September 9, 2020 by Joan Breakey   Blog

Have you wondered about which food chemicals cause most reactions?

The following reactions were found in my detailed study of 113 families which I followed up very carefully over 18 months for my Masters Degree. My work had followed up a study of 500 families published in the Australian Journal of Dietetics.

Of 100 people who react to artificial colours and flavours:

87% still reacted to flavoured but uncoloured lollies
87% reacted to chocolate (even though cocoa was allowed in the Feingold Diet, that started the thinking about additives back in the 1970s)
80% reacted to tomato sauce
77% reacted to smells, especially paint and petrol
69% to perfume, especially to bubble bath
67% had symptoms get worse when they had an infection
65% reacted to soy sauce. Now we know that soy sauce contains monosodium glutamate but is also high in amines!
57% reacted to the benzoate preservative in naturally flavoured canned lemonade when they did not react to the naturally flavoured, non preserved Schweppes lemonade in plastic bottles.
53% reacted to the BHA or BHT preservatives in oils. (Nowadays oils no longer contain these.)
49% reacted to the nitrate in bacon or ham. (There would be amines there too.)
44% reacted to Vegemite (high in amines).
44% reacted to natural lemon flavour in the Schweppes in plastic bottles (so these did not even get to test for the benzoate preservative in the canned produce).
43% reacted to carob powder in home cooking.
42% challenged with mint toothpaste but reacted.
37% reacted to lemon juice cordial with sulphite preservative, but not to home-made.
30% reacted to propionate preservative in bread.
28% reacted to vanilla in all natural ice cream
27% reacted to plain ice cream with artificial vanillin flavour (so the reaction is to the flavour itself)
17% reacted to natural coloured margarine.

It is interesting to look back at what needed to be clarified in the 1980s and 1990s. Now more information on the risk of a reaction to over 300 foods is available in my book Tolerating Troublesome Foods  https://foodintolerancepro.com/tolerating-troublesome-foods/

You can read about much of my research in the section called Evidence Base in the Articles section on my website especially about Basic and Applied research in https://foodintolerancepro.com/evidence-base-food-sensitivity/

My thesis details the early development of the low chemical diet. Available here https://foodintolerancepro.com/product/thesis/

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Joan Breakey

Joan Breakey is the author of foodintolerancepro.com.  She is one of the few dietitians in the world who has a lifetime of specialisation in the area of Food Sensitivity. She is a  Dietitian, Home Economist and Teacher. In 1975 she began her first work on Diet and Hyperactivity, investigating the effects of the Feingold diet on children’s behaviour. For more than 45 years Joan has been writing books and articles, publishing and presenting the results of her ongoing research in this area.

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