128 Diet Wise
After eating the food, take a repeat pulse count at intervals of twenty, forty
and sixty minutes. Keep a note of the results. (It isn’t necessary for you to sit
still for the whole hour, merely for a couple of minutes before the reading.)
A rise or fall of ten or more beats per minute at any of these intervals is very
strong evidence that you are allergic to the food being tested, even if you
get no symptoms. If the pulse does not rise, that doesn’t mean you have no
allergy. And, of course, if you do experience symptoms, even if the pulse rate
does not change, that means you are allergic to the test item.
- Test with organic foods if you can get them. By organic foods I
mean those grown in a natural way, without chemical additives or
contaminants, such as crop sprays, and sold without packing or
preservatives. Apples from a neighbor’s garden, if the season is right,
are better than the commercial variety. A chicken that has been reared
free range, without chemical additives to its feed, such as antibiotic
(which is used to keep battery birds ‘healthy’ in unsanitary, overcrowded
conditions) is better than the supermarket equivalent. Unrefined
food should be used instead of pre-cooked or packaged versions.
If you can’t get the ideal food, go ahead and carry out your tests
anyway; use whatever you can obtain without unreasonable demand
on your resources. But it is vitally important that you be alert to the
implications of the contamination of commercial food sources,
otherwise you will draw the wrong conclusions. For example, you
may think you had a bad allergy to cabbage when in reality it was
the heavy chemical residue on the leaves caused by the crop’s being
treated with fungicide and insecticide that made you ill. This is still
perfectly valid information: it means that if you can’t get cabbage
free of this pollution, you must avoid it. But it might be nice to
know that you could eat cabbage now and again, providing it comes
from a safe supply! (See appendix B.) Cabbage has just been added
to the Environmental Working Group’s list of “clean” foods.)- Reject all dubious foods, at least for the moment If you think
you reacted to a food, it is no use saying to yourself, ‘I’ll try again
tomorrow’; by eating the food as a test you have probably masked
any reaction for several days. In this interval you may eat the food
and learn nothing because this does not mean it is safe for you. Better
to delay for at least five clear days – longer if you are constipated.