Being unable to tolerate a food can be very aggravating. A food allergy, by contrast, is easy to spot, as you will react very quickly after ingestion. But an intolerance takes longer to become evident, and the person who has it might not even realize the cause. Or you can go out of your way to eliminate certain foods, and still not discover what the culprit is. So, a food intolerance test can determine the culprit a lot better than food elimination.

Many people think that being intolerant to a certain food is the same as being allergic to it. This is a myth. Having a food intolerance is very different from having a food allergy. Food allergies cause problems that are very severe and occur very quickly, while food intolerance results in symptoms that are less serious, and may not appear for as long as 72 hours. You can quickly learn which foods are giving you problems by taking a food intolerance test.

With a food allergy, your body is in fact allergic to the food in question and the reaction is that of your immune system itself fighting back, very comparable to if you were allergic to pollen. With food intolerance, the immune system does not come into the picture.

Your body does not think that it is being invaded by a foreign body. Nevertheless, your organs, usually your stomach and intestine which is where food is digested and eliminated, will react to certain ingredients in the food in question merely because it is intolerant to that particular food.

Food intolerance generally occurs because your body stops producing certain chemicals or enzymes that help in the digestion of that particular food. This happens to quite a number of us as we grow up. This is why so many people are lactose intolerant, as the enzyme produced to properly digest lactose actually decreases in production from the age of 2. It isn't until we are much older that we begin to develop symptoms, which are sometimes quite unpleasant.

There are a couple of ways of discovering which foods you are intolerant to. You can reduce your diet to just a few foods that are known to cause the least amount of problems, brown rice, lamb and water are the common starting foods. After about 3 weeks of eating only these foods you can then reintroduce one food at time, every 3 or 4 days. It is a good idea to keep a very thorough diary to see if you get any reactions. After about 6 to 9 months you should have a clear picture of which foods you have an intolerance to.

Another means of finding out which ingredients your system cannot cope with is the ELISA lgG test, specifically designed to determine food intolerances. More than 200 foods can be examined that way, with only a small amount of blood needed to do so. When you begin cutting out the problem foods, you generally discover that you are more energetic, you digest the remainder of your foods more easily, and sleeping is facilitated as well. Lots of people also enjoy the extra advantage of a quick weight loss!