Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

sensitivities
     
    With symptoms ranging from a mild flu-like condition to headaches, difficulty sleeping, bloating, and fatigue, food sensitivities are becoming increasingly common in North America. Corn, wheat (and gluten, the protein found in wheat), dairy products, and soy have become so common in our food chain that many people have developed an intolerance to them through overconsumption. (Over time, however, the opposite might happen—we might build up a resistance to them.)
     
    A standard practice in naturopathic medicine is to eliminate all sources of common allergens from the diet. This is a logical way to determine if the patient has an allergy or sensitivity to commonly eaten foods. Sensitivity can be defined as an unpleasant reaction caused by eating food that the body does not have the specific enzymes or chemicals to digest properly. Unlike an allergic reaction, a sensitivity does not affect the immune system. Food allergies are not usually a major problem because they often become evident immediately upon consuming the food: There’s no mistaking them, the symptoms—tingling in the mouth, swelling of the tongue and throat, difficulty breathing, abdominal cramps, vomiting—come on quickly. Stop consuming the problem food and the problem is solved. The symptoms of a specific food sensitivity, however, might not become evident for a few days or a week after consumption, making its source difficult to trace. Food sensitivities, therefore, can be extremely difficult to immediately identify and eliminate, and in these cases, the strategy of eliminating common allergens from the diet is useful.
     
    For a few years, I had what I thought to be a bad case of hay fever each spring. I didn’t really think too much of it. Then came the year I learned about food sensitivities, and I eliminated all common allergens from my diet. That year, spring arrived, but my hay fever did not. As it turned out, the congestion I had experienced in previous years was from a sensitivity to corn and not because of rising pollen counts. In spring I typically cycle more—and, before my food-elimination experiment, I drank a lot of a so-called endurance-enhancing sport drink. The first ingredient of this drink was maltodextrin, a cheap sugar derivative made from corn and, as I found out, the precipitator of my hay fever-like symptoms.
     
    Many people have a food sensitivity but don’t know it. “Not feeling quite up to par” is often how they describe the way they feel. They rule out diet as being the culprit since it has remained constant—unchanged—for a number of years. Some people blame environmental factors such as dust or pollen. The dull symptoms, or sometimes simply a state of malaise, can persist for years; since they just make certain activities a bit more difficult without actually preventing them, no action is taken. But it is precisely the unchanging diet that is behind the symptoms.
     
    If you think you may have a food sensitivity, try eliminating common allergens—corn, wheat/gluten, dairy products, soy, active yeast, and peanuts—from your diet for 10 days or so. Have a look at the ingredients of the manufactured foods you are consuming; you are likely consuming one or more of these irritants at every meal. The Thrive Diet recipes are free of these allergens; the 12-Week Meal Plan on page 167 will point you in the right direction.
     
    Why are some foods likely to cause sensitivities? In short, because they are no longer in their natural state or are being eaten by someone other than the intended consumer.
     

corn
     
    Corn, or maize, in its current state is, believe it or not, a man-made food. Native Americans in central Mexico crossed grasses to produce a crop that was better able to feed them. Early cobs were only an inch or two long and so produced little food, but over the course of about 7000 years, maize was cultivated to produce a larger cob and therefore a greater yield. This relatively new addition to the human diet causes an allergic reaction in some people.
     
    High-fructose corn syrup, one of the most health-damaging derivatives of corn, is frequently used in sport drinks and other processed foods requiring a cheap sweetener. Corn derivatives are used in upward of 90 percent of processed food, and people who eat a standard diet often develop an intolerance and sensitivity to it. However, if your body accepts corn with no adverse reaction, there is no need to avoid healthful whole corn,