Do you suffer from allergies?

Well I don’t anymore…in your face juniper pollen! One of the biggest benefits I have had since eating a Primal diet is I no longer suffer from allergies. Trust me I can sympathize with all of you allergy suffers. Every spring, once the wind started blowing, I was miserable.  I was literally like a crack head when it came to taking Claritin, Benadryl, or whatever  else I could get my hands on to take away my itchy eyes, constant running nose and sinus pressure. That was what I went through every spring on a daily basis and the allergy symptoms would last for 2 – 3 months.

I have been on a strict primal diet for just about a year now and this is the first spring with absolutely no allergy symptoms! I didn’t need to take any allergy medication this spring even thought this has been the worst pollen count (in Albuquerque) in the last ten years.  I have never felt better!

It’s funny, when I was a kid I used to think that allergies where so unnatural (now I know they are). I know we all live in cites now but we (humans) once ruled the animal kingdom and wilderness. Even though our lives are mostly removed from nature we evolved from many generations that lived as one with nature. I know this is sounding like hippie speak but you get the point. You can’t tell me that every spring “early man” was sneezing and blowing snot all over the place. Do you see any wild animals with itchy red eyes, constantly blowing their nose or sneezing?

The allergies most people get in the spring are a direct result of their diet, the pollen is just the “straw that broke the camels back”. Foods like wheat, grains (yes, even your precious whole grains), vegetable oils, and legumes all cause our body to have an inflammatory response. Our body has this response because those foods are slightly poisonous or at the very least irritants. An inflammatory response is much like the swelling of your ankle after you sprain it really bad.  If you eat the Standard American Diet (SAD) you eat lots of grains and vegetable oils and your body is in a constant state of inflammation.

Spring time is notorious for wind, especially here in New Mexico, and with wind comes many more irritants such as dust and pollen. Our body is stressed to the max fighting off all the food irritation associated with the SAD diet that the irritants in the wind become the bodies breaking point (straw that broke the camels back). This is why most “seasonal allergies” are in the spring.

I have said it before;  most people are probably allergic to wheat they have just “learned” to live with the symptoms so they don’t notice anything until a few more irritants get into their system and then they going running towards the medicine cabinet. Our bodies immune system works very well removing “irritants” however there is nothing our body can do once you overwhelm the system. The sneezing and runny nose is one of your body’s last attempts to get the irritants out of your system.

So if you don’t want to be dependent on allergy medication just to function try removing wheat, grains, vegetable oils, and legumes out of your diet.