You Can Now Test Which Foods You're Sensitive to Without a Trip to the Doctor
Let’s Just Get to the Point:
Getting to the bottom of which foods your body isn’t agreeing with is finally as easy as one-two-three. One: Purchase the EverlyWell Food Sensitivity Test ($199) online. Two: Collect your sample. Three: Ship it back while leading labs do the hard part.
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When I heard that a quick, at-home test would finally tell me what foods I probably shouldn’t be eating anymore (my sister cut certain foods out of her diet after doing a similar test and has felt like a whole new woman) my ears perked up—there’s something about setting up a voluntary doctor’s appointment that just doesn’t jive with me. In mere minutes after finding it online, the Sensitivity Test, which the brand tells me is one of their best-selling kits, along with Metabolism, Sleep & Stress, and vitamin D, was on its way to my door. Unlike a food allergy test which can measure life-threatening allergies found in food, this test measures IgG antibodies in your blood against 96 common foods, which can leave us feeling tired, bloated, with migraines, joint pain or taking one too many trips to the bathroom.
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Once I received the kit in the mail (it didn't take long at all), I was instructed to register my kit with the unique ID on the slip inside, collect a blood sample (it’s just a finger prick with an included lancelet!), then stow it away and ship it back (the pre-paid packing slip makes it easy). As I waited for my results for a little less than two weeks, I did my homework on what I was to expect: an outline of which of the 96 foods I was highly reactive, moderately reactive, mildly reactive and barely reactive to.
When I was notified that my results were ready for review, I couldn't be more interested to see what I'd find. To my surprise (and relief), there weren’t any foods I was highly reactive to, but I learned I am moderately reactive to cottage and cheddar cheeses (I'm still trying to get over this news), and mildly reactive to 24 foods ranging from peanuts and yeast to basil and mustard (you can see a peek of my results below). Each “card” you see is linked, meaning I could click any of them to understand what exactly was tested, why it was tested, my clear reactivity to it, and how I can best eliminate it from my diet.
Image/EverlyWell
Because I didn't have any big red flags or high-reactivity markers, I haven't seen a night-and-day difference since cutting out the two cheeses from my diet. A change I have noticed, though, is how aware I am of the other 24 foods I'm moderately reactive to, and when there's an easy swap, I try to stay away from them as best I can—because in my book, the only thing worse than voluntary doctor's appointments is voluntary bloating.
