Food Allergies? (And Day 15 - 21 Day Sugar Detox)

Yesterday was the end of my 2nd week on the detox.  I did well with my eating, but keeping busy all day helped a lot so I wasn't focused on my next meal or snack.  Two weeks down and just one more to go.  With the exception of few cravings and one day of feeling bloated, the detox has gone very well.  Better than I expected.  And surprisingly easy to stick to.  

It will be interesting to see how I handle the end of the detox, if I am able to continue to limit my sugar intake and keep certain foods to a minimum... and stay away from Starbuck's Vanilla Bean Frappes.  

This week I will be conducting an experiment of sorts because I believe I may have a food allergy I wasn't aware of before now.

Let me back up a bit, to give you the whole story.

In July, my husband and I decided to try a diet that is void of grains.  We ate up the last of our pasta and bread, and going forward started using veggies (spaghetti squash, zucchini noodles, even Daikon radish) as noodles.  My Hubby tried his hand at making some bread using almond flour, but eventually we learned we didn't need bread of any kind in our diet.  

The end of July, we decided to try the Practical Paleo Fat Loss menu plan for 30 days.  This gave us a great way to start the Paleo lifestyle, looking up the answers to questions we had about certain foods, finding out what foods were considered okay and what foods should be avoided.  And finding out there is a lot of "gray" area, which is where the individual needs to decide if they need or want certain foods in their diet.  

Around the first or second week of August, both my husband and I started to break out with bites all over our bodies, from our necks to our knees.  Because we foster kittens during the summer, we immediately thought it might be fleas.  We checked the kittens and our own cats and none of them were infested.  So I Googled bug bites to see what it might be (had I been thinking I would not have done this search while eating lunch... blech!).  We live in area where there are no chiggers (though chigger bites looked close to what my Hubby and I had), and bed bugs seemed unlikely.  

But, to be on the safe side, we stripped the bed and washed everything.  Still the bites and bumps continued.  So we bought new sheets and threw the old ones out.  More bites.  Hubby and I scoured the mattress for any sign of bugs (with our noses practically pressing against the mattress looking at every cat hair and piece of lint).  Nothing.  Perplexed, we began questioning what soaps, shampoos, and detergent we were using.  Since Hubby and I have our own bathrooms, and have our own preferences on soap and shampoos, we didn't have those in common.

Detergent.  My Hubby had bought the same brand he always does, but a different scent.  Ah ha!  We switched back to the normal scent and the bites and bumps began to fade.  Just with an occasional small flair up, but we assumed we had worn something that washed in the "bad" detergent.  

We continued on with our lives, eating Paleo, using the old detergent and all is good.  

Until the detox.  Toward the beginning of the detox, Hubby had a small flair up.  End of the second week, I have a small flair up.  

Hubby has been doing some reading on eating Paleo/Primal and he came across some information that seemed to put some light on our "bites."  Apparently, food allergies can be masked by the intake of glutton.  So, once you quit eating glutton it is possible that food sensitivities or allergies will come to light.  That made sense to us.  The bites started about the time we moved to a more strict Paleo lifestyle.  And since the detox is elimination type diet, it cleared up whatever was causing the bites.

So why did I have flair up in the past few days?  I have mentioned in a couple of posts about snacking a bit more in the evenings than I probably should have... well, I had been snacking on a serving of raw nuts.  We have been using some nuts in recipes (walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds), but the raw nut mix I have been eating have walnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios, and a large amount of almonds.  Since I started eating the raw nut mix again, I have had more "bites."  

What was my go-to snack in August when my bites were at their worse?  Raw nuts.  Sometimes two servings a day.

Coincidence?  Or food allergy?

I am going to stay away from the raw nuts for the next week and see if this flair up continues again.  Then I will add nuts back into my diet, one at a time, and see which one it is.  I am thinking it may be almonds, which is the prevalent nut in the mix.  Almond flour is also used in quite a few of the recipes, and we've eating it a bit more in the last few days because of the recipes we are making.

Hubby may have some type of food allergy as well, but he hasn't been able to figure out the trigger food is yet.

And of course, there is always possibility that is something else in our house causing the issues... a bug, a detergent, a cleaning product.  We will keep trying different things until we find the culprit.

If anyone has any ideas on what it might be, I would love to hear from you.  We just want the itching to stop!