Understanding Food Intolerance and Chronic Inflammation
By Serena Poon
In general, you’re a healthy eater. You avoid soda. You’ve swapped dairy for nut milks and ditched super salty tortilla chips altogether. And still, you’re tired. Your digestion is unpredictable. Your mood dips for no reason. You wonder if it’s stress, not working out enough, hormones, or maybe just how life feels now.
But what if the issue isn’t what you’re eating, but how often you’re eating it—and how your body is quietly reacting in ways you’re not aware of?
Healthy, Not Healthy
One of the most overlooked drivers of chronic inflammation is the repeated consumption of certain “healthy” foods that your body no longer recognizes as safe. These aren’t actual food allergies, which tend to show up immediately and are unmistakable to healthcare professionals. These are delayed immune responses, also known as food sensitivities and intolerances. And they are hard to identify.
Sensitivities often develop over time and are more likely to affect the foods you love (and eat) the most. Think of your morning routine. Are you having, say, almond butter, every day? Or, protein shakes with whey protein on repeat? The most common food sensitivities are gluten-containing foods, soy, fish, shellfish, eggs, dairy, peanuts, and tree nuts (1). Healthy staples can become triggers when eaten too often, especially if your gut lining is already compromised.
This kind of sensitivity can show up slowly. First, a little fatigue after lunch. Then, brain fog. Eventually, a cascade of symptoms you can’t quite link to anything specific: dark under-eye circles, hormonal imbalance, joint stiffness, interrupted sleep, or unexplained irritability.
And when these sensitivities go unaddressed, they fuel systemic inflammation—an underlying factor in nearly every chronic condition I see.
Allergy vs. Sensitivity vs. Intolerance
How do food reactions contribute to chronic inflammation? First, let’s clarify the difference between these three responses.
- Food Allergies are adverse reactions that occur quickly and can be life-threatening. Peanuts, shellfish, or eggs can all trigger hives, anaphylaxis, or wheezing. These involve IgE antibodies and usually happen within minutes to hours.
- Food Sensitivities involve a delayed immune response, also through IgG antibodies. You might eat something containing gluten, like pizza, and feel fine—but a day or two later, you have joint pain, bloating, or mood changes. The delayed reaction makes the connection hard to catch. Food sensitivities are often overlooked in traditional medicine.
- Food Intolerances are usually non-immune related. They involve a lack of specific enzymes needed to break down a food (like lactase for lactose), resulting in digestive symptoms such as gas, cramping, and diarrhea.
What’s important is how these less obvious reactions can over time wear down the adrenal system, playing havoc with your energy levels and setting off a cascading inflammatory response that affects your whole body. This can lead to hormonal imbalances, immune dysfunction, leaky gut, and even mental health issues like anxiety and depression (2).
The Elimination Diet
The elimination diet is a powerful way to determine if the food you eat is contributing to chronic inflammation. It’s a step-by-step journey to truly understanding what is at the root of your symptoms. Backed by functional medicine and clinical nutrition, an elimination diet helps you isolate trigger foods without expensive testing. Once you stop eating them, you’ll reduce your systemic inflammation and restore immune tolerance.
Studies show that elimination diets can also reduce symptoms in autoimmune conditions, IBS, eczema, migraines, and chronic fatigue syndrome by identifying and removing these inflammatory triggers (3).
What makes the diet powerful is not just what you remove, but what you learn about your body in the process. Of course, you should always consult with a healthcare professional before embarking on this plan.
Weeks 1 and 2: Preparation
Begin by keeping a detailed food journal. Track what you eat and how you feel physically, emotionally, and mentally for two weeks. Every few days, review your entries to look for patterns, especially symptoms like fatigue, bloating, brain fog, headaches, and mood swings.
Weeks 3-6: Elimination
It’s time to take action. Remove common allergenic foods such as dairy, gluten, soy, corn, eggs, and nuts from your diet for a period of 28 days. It’s important to eliminate all sources of these foods, including hidden ingredients and cross-contamination. Monitor your symptoms closely during this time. Continue to track your symptoms in a food journal. If your symptoms improve, it’s a good sign that one of the eliminated foods may be a trigger. Hopefully, your immune system is getting a much-needed break and inflammation has begun to decrease.
Week 7: Reintroduction (1 food every 3 to 4 days)
Slowly reintroduce eliminated foods one at a time every 3 to 4 days, while carefully tracking symptoms. If you have eliminated six food groups, then this phase should last 18 to 24 days. Any reappearance of fatigue, bloating, cravings, or mood shifts can indicate a sensitivity or intolerance to that food, indicating a specific trigger.Pay attention to how your body responds during this phase and take note in your journal. Many people notice improvements in energy, digestion, skin, sleep, and mood. This is often the first real clue that food is playing a role in your symptoms.
Long-Term
Once you’ve identified trigger foods, work with a healthcare provider or nutritionist to create a customized diet that avoids these sensitivities while ensuring balanced nutrition. This long-term plan may include gut-repair supplements, digestive support, lifestyle changes, and energetic healing techniques.
Your body has all the tools it needs to heal. We just have to give it what it needs. I offer several supplements carefully crafted to fuel the body with highly bioavailable nutrients and nutrients that can help the body heal. A few that might be helpful for someone overcoming food intolerances would be Love My Gut, Digest Ease, Detox Me Daily, Ultimate D, and Love My Mag.
My method, Culinary Alchemy®, involves the energy and mindset behind the food you eat. The food you are putting into your body is energy and affects your energetic body. Your spiritual and energetic state can make it more difficult for your body to respond correctly to the food you are taking in.
Repair at The Cellular Level
If you have become more and more restrictive with your diet—cutting gluten, dairy, sugar, nightshades—but still are not feeling better it’s because restriction without energetic healing only addresses half the picture.
When you’re chronically inflamed for a long time, your body isn’t just reacting to molecules. It’s reacting to energetic patterns: stress imprints, emotional memories tied to food, guilt, perfectionism, fear. These subtle stressors can keep your gut in a reactive state, even if you’re eating all the “right” foods.
This is where Reiki, breathwork, and plant-based energetics become essential tools—not just for symptom relief but for creating the space your body needs to repair at the cellular level.
Long-term Healing
Here’s how I have guided clients through a more complete healing path:
- Energetic Reset: Reiki and breath meditation calms the fight-or-flight response, softens the digestive imbalance, and creates emotional safety.
- Food Rotation with Awareness: Even in a plant-based lifestyle, diversity matters. Mindfully rotate ingredients to reduce immune burden.
- Somatic Journaling: Tracking what you eat, and how your body and emotions respond over time so that you can pinpoint patterns.
- Digestive & Detox Support: Herbal tools and food-based supplements assist the gut, liver, and lymphatic systems in releasing built-up inflammation. I have specially formulated supplements to support the gut microbiome, including Love My Gut, Digest Ease, Detox Me Daily, Love My Mag and Optimize Me NAC, so take a moment to check them out.
- Spiritual Grounding: Explore how food connects to identity, nourishment, boundaries, and self-worth, key layers in long-term healing.
The Body’s Wisdom
It’s not natural or part of getting older to feel tired all the time, bloated, or moody. This is your body’s way of asking you to pause, tune in, and listen more deeply.
Food intolerance is a message to you to take a moment to listen to your body. Pause. Take a moment to reset. When we hear the messages our bodies send us, then we begin to heal.
You deserve to feel clear, light, and whole again. Not just because your food is “clean,” but because your body feels safe enough to receive it. That’s the sweet spot, where nourishment meets energy. So, take the time to examine just how you are nourishing yourself, and be open to what you learn.
xo – Serena
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. Can emotional trauma contribute to food sensitivities?
Yes. Emotional trauma can stress the nervous system and throw digestive function out of balance, making the gut more permeable (leaky gut). This result is that food particles cross into the bloodstream and trigger immune responses. Trauma-informed care, somatic therapies, and Reiki can be powerful tools to create internal safety and restore balance to the gut-brain axis.
Q. Is it possible to have a sensitivity to healthy, organic foods?
Yes. You can react to “healthy” foods like avocado, quinoa, or kale if you’re consuming them frequently or if your gut lining is compromised. Food sensitivity does not mean the food you are eating is of poor quality. Sensitivity can be a sign that your system is overtaxed and your immune tolerance is low. Rotating foods and diversifying your diet is one way we help the gut rebalance.
Q. Can seasonal changes or hormone shifts influence food reactions?
Yes. Hormonal fluctuations, like the menstrual cycle, menopause, and thyroid changes, and changing seasons can impact your immune system, microbiome diversity, and histamine load. This may temporarily increase your sensitivity to certain foods. Supporting liver detoxification and hydration during transitions is key.
Q. How do food sensitivities relate to histamine intolerance?
Histamine intolerance is often confused with food allergies. It occurs when your body can’t properly break down histamine—a compound found in aged, fermented, and processed foods. This can lead to headaches, rashes, heart palpitations, or anxiety after eating. Supporting DAO enzyme activity and gut integrity can help reduce these symptoms.
Q. Are food sensitivity blood tests reliable?
Many commercially available IgG tests can provide helpful data but aren’t definitive. Elevated IgG levels can sometimes reflect recent food exposure rather than true intolerance. That’s why pairing test results with symptom tracking, an elimination diet, and functional lab testing (like stool or zonulin markers) is more effective for identifying true triggers.
Q. Can fasting help with food sensitivity symptoms?
Short-term, mindful fasting (like intermittent fasting) can give the digestive system a break, reduce inflammation, and promote gut healing. However, it’s not a long-term solution. If fasting is overused or done during high stress, it may worsen adrenal or hormonal issues. Always approach fasting with professional support.
Q. How do energy centers (chakras) relate to food reactions?
The solar plexus chakra governs digestion, identity, and boundaries—if this center is blocked or overactive, you may feel chronically inflamed, bloated, or hypersensitive. Food issues can also reflect sacral (emotional digestion) or root chakra (safety and survival) imbalances. Reiki, breathwork, and vibrational tools like sound healing can help realign your energetic body.
Citations:
- https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/food-allergies
- Mehta I, Juneja K, Nimmakayala T, Bansal L, Pulekar S, Duggineni D, Ghori HK, Modi N, Younas S. Gut Microbiota and Mental Health: A Comprehensive Review of Gut-Brain Interactions in Mood Disorders. Cureus. 2025 Mar 30;17(3):e81447. doi: 10.7759/cureus.81447. PMID: 40303511; PMCID: PMC12038870.
- Konijeti GG, Kim N, Lewis JD, Groven S, Chandrasekaran A, Grandhe S, Diamant C, Singh E, Oliveira G, Wang X, Molparia B, Torkamani A. Efficacy of the Autoimmune Protocol Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2017 Nov;23(11):2054-2060. doi: 10.1097/MIB.0000000000001221. PMID: 28858071; PMCID: PMC5647120.
