130 Diet Wise
Recovery can usually be speeded up by taking a mild laxative.
Epsom salts, one or two teaspoons in half a glass of warm water,
are recommended. Do not take syrups or compounds at this juncture;
you have no idea what ingredients they contain. In addition, it has been
demonstrated that an alkaline salts mixture helps. It is probable that the
body fluids swing towards acidity during an adverse reaction, and this helps
to correct the balance.
I’m sure you will recognize in the above two tried and true old-
fashioned ‘cures,’ yet they do work well. I’m convinced that many cases of
passing gripes and collywobbles in years gone by were due to incompatible
food reactions, though no one would have recognized them as such. But
our ancestors did hit on the right remedy without realizing how or why it
worked.
Delayed reactions to foods
Most allergy reactions to foods come on within one to twelve hours, in other
words quite rapidly. Some are even quicker and, not infrequently, patients
report an almost instantaneous effect when eating a food. Up to twenty-four
hours is not uncommon, where for example, something eaten one morning
appears to be responsible for a symptom that is present on waking the next
day.
Much more rarely, however, it appears that a food can cause delayed
reaction: that is, the symptoms do not appear for over twenty-four hours,
even for up to forty-eight in exceptional cases. This is especially true if
the individual continues to eat that food, and I have often heard patients
describe this situation as a ‘build-up.’ It is important to be aware of this
effect when you are carrying out tests, or you may come confused.
You can easily make up the formula for yourself. Mix one part
potassium bicarbonate to two parts of sodium bicarbonate. Take
a dessertspoonful of the resulting mixture in half a glass of water.
Few pharmacists nowadays stock potassium bicarbonate – most of
them are given over to prepared drugs and cosmetics – but if you
persist you will find one. Incidentally, don’t overdo this last remedy,
even though it seems to work like magic: excess alkalinity is as bad
as acidity and has its own dangers and problems.