How Can You Tell If You Are Intolerant To Yeast?

Recent statistics published by leading charity Allergy UK found that 45% of the UK population suffers from food intolerance. Food intolerance also known as non-allergic food hypersensitivity is a delayed reaction to a food or food additives. These reactions can cause problems for people bringing on certain illnesses such as irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, migraines, and fatigue amongst other things.

One of the many issues people face is that with so many different food groups it is difficult to determine which foods are causing you problems. There is some common food groups' people are intolerant to one of which is yeast. But what is yeast?

In its simplest terms yeast is an ingredient that bakers use in order for the dough to rise when making bread. Failure to add this will result in flat and hard bread which is not very appetising. However it is not just bread that contains yeast and this makes it difficult to avoid. Some of the common foods you will find yeast in are vinegar, alcohol, stock cubes, Marmite, and vitamin B supplements. Yeast can also be hidden on food labels under the name of hydrolysed protein, hydrolysed vegetable protein and leavening.

Further to this it has been found that those diagnosed with yeast intolerance many also be intolerant to fungi-containing foods such as mushrooms, cheese, malt, and peanuts. All in all yeast really is a difficult food to avoid.

So how do you determine if your body is having negative reactions to yeast? A method which has been used for tens of years now is an elimination diet. Elimination diets work by removing certain food groups from your diet for a concentrated period of time and then monitoring whether there is a reduction in any problematic symptoms. When certain foods are reintroduced and symptoms start up again conclusions can be drawn about which food groups is causing the problem.

The issue with elimination diets however is that there are so many food groups to test that it can take a long amount of time to draw any conclusions. When it comes to your well-being a lot of us simply don't have this time. However the past 30 years have seen the introduction of food intolerance tests. Most of these are simple finger prick blood tests that can be conducted at home and measure food-specific IgG antibodies which help to identify food groups that your body may be reacting to.

Once these tests are taken they are then sent to a laboratory for testing. Results are then returned within a week which is a much quicker turn around than any other method. Once you understanding the food groups causing you problems you can then begin to make modifications to your diet in a bid to reduce the problematic symptoms.

However before you make any drastic changes to your diet it is vital that you seek the help from practicing nutritionist or a doctor. By removing foods entirely from your diet you could be starving your body of essential vitamins and so could be doing more harm than good. For this reason it is worth taking a food intolerance test as part of a food intolerance programme that can offer on-going support long after you have taken the test.

Overall having a reaction to certain foods can be very damaging to your quality of life however luckily there is a way to relive these problems and to do so quickly and hassle free.