The Crimes We Commit Against Our Gut: These Foods are KNOWN To Trigger Allergies Through Leaky Gut!

Your gut lining is the major modulator of your immune system. If we have chronic inflammation in the lining of our gut, it creates micro tears or “leaks” from our digestive tract into our blood stream. This is a PRIMARY cause of systemic allergic responses that can manifest as mast cell activation, histamine intolerance, food intolerances, hives, rashes, and even mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, and fatigue!

More about Foods that Trigger Leaky Gut in Sensitive People

The primary foods that can trigger leaky gut are additives in processed food that have documented inflammatory effects on the digestive tracts. I will discuss this in detail in the content below. However, there are also other compounds in foods, primarily ones such as oxalates and lectins, that are in many whole foods that are generally thought of as “healthy” and even “gut healthy”. Make sure you read all the way to the end of this post to learn more!

     Many people are turning to nutrition for answers to their chronic health issues and learning to use food as medicine. So let’s discuss a major issue that leaves a lot of people stalled in their attempts at healing. With so many dietary approaches gaining popularity, the processed food industry is playing catch up. Now you can get all sorts of packaged and processed food options that are proudly labeled “Organic!” “All natural!” “Paleo!” “Keto!” “Vegan!” or “Whole30 Approved!”

I want to make this very clear: You will not experience the full benefit from your attempts at healing with food if you don’t clean up your consumption of processed foods and additives first. Because most packaged foods proudly displaying targeted advertising to people trying to eat “healthier” are still truly junk food.

The additives used to make processed and packaged foods shelf stable, flavorful, and ADDICTIVE are the same ingredients that cause INFLAMMATION and DAMAGE in your gut lining- the same inflammation that leads to leaky gut and all the aforementioned chronic allergy symptoms that are becoming rampant in today’s world.

Here is just a short list of common food additives that have been demonstrated to damage our gut bacteria and cause inflammation in your gut lining, triggering allergic responses in the body:

• Artifical colors, especially those that include a letter or number (Vojdani A, Vojdani C. Immune reactivity to food coloring. Altern. Ther. 2015;21:1-00. https://doi.org/10.4172/2157-7110.s1.019)
• Caregeenan, a common food preservative (Borsani B, De Santis R, Perico V, Penagini F, Pendezza E, Dilillo D, Bosetti A, Zuccott, GV, D’Auria E. The Role of Carrageenan in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and Allergic Reactions: Where Do We Stand?. Nutrients. 2021 Sep 27;13(10):3402. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13103402)
• Sodium benzoate, a common food preservative (Shahmohammadi M, Javadi M, Nassiri-Asl M. An overview on the effects of sodium benzoate as a preservative in food products. Biotechnology and Health Sciences. 2016;3(3):7-11. https://doi.org/10.17795/bhs-35084)
• Polysorbate 80, a common food preservative (Sun H, Yang R, Wang J, Yang X, Tu J, Xie L, Li C, Lao Q, Sun C. Component-based biocompatibility and safety evaluation of polysorbate 80. RSC advances. 2017;7(25):15127-38. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ra27242h)
• Magnesium stearate, a common food preservative (Hobbs CA, Saigo K, Koyanagi M, Hayashi SM. Magnesium stearate, a widely-used food additive, exhibits a lack of in vitro and in vivo genotoxic potential. Toxicology reports. 2017 Jan 1;4:554-9. doi: 10.1016/j.toxrep.2017.10.003.)
• Xantham gum, a common food preservative (Ostrowski MP, La Rosa SL, Kunath BJ, Robertson A, Pereira G, Hagen LH, Varghese NJ, Qiu L, Yao T, Flint G, Li J. The food additive xanthan gum drives adaptation of the human gut microbiota. bioRxiv. 2021 Jan 1. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-607163/v1)
• Guar gum, a common food preservative (Okubo T, Ishihara N, Takahashi H, Fujisawa T, Kim M, Yamamoto T, Mitsuoka T. Effects of partially hydrolyzed guar gum intake on human intestinal microflora and its metabolism. Bioscience,biotechnology, and biochemistry. 1994 Jan 1;58(8):1364-9. https://doi.org/10.1271/bbb.58.1364)
• Seed oils such as soybean, canola, safflower and sunflower oils (Kodirov ZZ, Rakhmatovna MI, Saydillaevna KN. Study of the process of sample refining and deodorization of sunflower and soybean oils. Innovative Technologica: Methodical Research Journal. 2021 Dec 6;2(12):8-15. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/S42CR)

Common Misconceptions about “Healthy” Foods and Their Effect on the Gut:

It is a SHOCK for many people to hear that the so called “GUT HEALTHY” foods they have been eating may actually be an obstacle to progress. This is especially the case if you have been working on “gut healing” for years now and making NO or LITTLE progress. The problem is, the people with the most damage in their gut are going to have extreme reactions to compounds in foods that other people have no problems with. So the supposed “benefits” of certain whole foods may not be able to override that irritating effects. Think about scratching an already irritated wound- and some of these foods do exactly that when there is dramatic damage already in the gut lining.

What are these foods? Namely, OXALATES and LECTINS.

That is why my famous Low Histamine Gut Rebuilding Diet cuts out your intake of these inflammatory and irritating compounds to catapult your gut healing progress to the NEXT LEVEL. Remember, these eliminations are TEMPORARY- I want you to add these back in eventually IN MODERATION to help build LONG TERM RESILIENCE in your gut and your immune system. In the short term, however, I see people make much faster progress when we take out anything that could be further irritating and already damaged and sensitive gut.

High lectin foods usually thought of as “healthy”: whole grains, legumes, most nuts and seeds such as peanuts and chia, squash, cucumbers, and more.

High oxalate foods usually thought of as “healthy”: spinach, kale, many nuts and seeds such almonds and chia, many “hearty” grains such as buckwheat and quinoa, and more.

Next, check out our Reaction Free mini course: it provides detailed nutritional plans for sensitive people with multiple food intolerances who need a powerful, comprehensive intervention to take their gut health to the next level. Click the link below to learn more: