The Benefits of Following an Elimination Diet to Determine Food Sensitivities

Food sensitivities and intolerances can contribute to a range of health issues, from digestive discomfort and skin rashes to chronic fatigue and headaches. Many people struggle with pinpointing the exact foods that may be causing these symptoms. An elimination diet is a helpful approach for identifying food sensitivities and can provide clarity on how certain foods are affecting your body. Here's how this method works, its benefits, and how you can successfully follow it to determine food sensitivities.

What is an Elimination Diet?

An elimination diet involves removing potential trigger foods from your diet for a specified period, typically between two to four weeks, to allow your body time to reset and reduce inflammation. After the elimination phase, you slowly reintroduce individual foods to see if any of them cause negative reactions. By the end of the process, you’ll have a clearer understanding of which foods may be causing sensitivities and how to manage them in your daily diet.

Benefits of Following an Elimination Diet

Identifying Hidden Food Sensitivities One of the most significant advantages of an elimination diet is that it helps uncover food sensitivities that may not be immediately obvious. Many foods, such as gluten, dairy, eggs, red meat, and nuts, are common culprits behind digestive or inflammatory symptoms. By eliminating these foods, you give your digestive system a break, allowing you to observe which foods may be contributing to your discomfort.


Improved Digestion and Gut Health For individuals with food sensitivities, the digestive system may struggle to process certain foods, leading to bloating, gas, increased intestinal permeability (aka “leaky gut”) or irregular bowel movements. The elimination diet gives your digestive system a chance to heal. By removing inflammatory foods, you reduce strain on the gut and encourage a healthier digestive environment.


Enhanced Mental Clarity and Energy Food sensitivities can contribute to feelings of fatigue, brain fog, and lack of focus. Many people report feeling more energetic and mentally clear after eliminating foods that cause negative reactions.


Reduction in Skin Issues Skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis and rashes can sometimes be linked to food sensitivities. When you eliminate potential trigger foods, the resulting reduction in inflammation can help clear up these conditions. As you reintroduce foods, you can observe if specific items cause flare-ups or worsening of skin issues.


Personalized Approach to Nutrition Unlike a generic diet or supplement regimen, an elimination diet provides a personalized approach. By identifying which foods work for your body and which don’t, you gain valuable insight into what supports your optimal health. This empowers you to make informed decisions about what to eat, leading to better long-term health management!

Final Thoughts

An elimination diet can be an invaluable tool for anyone struggling with unexplained symptoms or trying to determine which foods are hindering their health.

Always consider consulting with a licensed nutritionist before starting an elimination diet. There are many variations of elimination diets online, and a nutritionist can help you figure out the specific changes that are best for you. Unfortunately, if an elimination diet is done improperly the results can be inaccurate or unhelpful, resulting in wasted time and frustration.

By committing to a few weeks of disciplined eating and tracking your body’s reactions during reintroductions, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of your food sensitivities and develop a tailored approach to your nutrition. While the process can be challenging, it’s important to remember that is only for a short period of time, and the long-term benefits of improved digestion, clearer skin, more energy, and personalized dietary choices are well worth the effort.

There is no such thing as the "perfect" diet!

As a clinical and functional nutritionist, there’s one question that I get asked all the time: “What is the perfect diet?” If you go online, you can find hundreds of convincing articles telling you that keto is the best diet, paleo is the perfect way to go, or veganism is best for your health. There’s the carnivore diet, the Mediterranean diet, the Blue Zone diet, the Pegan (paleo vegan) diet, the Blood Type diet, GAPS, Autoimmune Paleo, low FODMAP, and much more… And then what about food quantity and timing? Should you try intermittent fasting, or should you eat three square meals with two snacks every day? The questions go on and on…

Netflix is loaded with wonderfully informative documentaries containing vast scientific evidence and convincing personal testimonies showing you the ways that going vegan can solve significant health problems. However, when that documentary ends, you can load up another one that will be equally convincing about the healing powers of Paleo-style eating. This leads to one big question; what IS the perfect diet to follow? Are these health experts and documentaries lying to us with their evidence and their user testimonies? The good news is, in most cases they’re not. The answer to this actually lies in our own biochemistry.

The truth is, there simply isn’t one perfect diet. What works amazingly well for one person can be a complete failure for another. Why is this? The answer lies in the concept of “bio-individuality”. Just as our personalities are unique, so are our bodies. Think about side effects of medications; two people can take the exact same medication, and one may feel great while the other experiences intense side effects. This is due to the bio-individuality concept. We are all genetically unique (with the exception of identical twins) and our genetic make-up is extremely varied and complex. Along with the basic concept of genetics that we are all familiar with, there are other complex concepts such as epigenetics, nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics, and SNPs (a greater discussion of these requires its own blog post!) that alter our genetic traits even further. Add in personal preferences, belief systems, and familial heritage, and it becomes much easier to see why there is no one “perfect” diet. I’ve had some clients go vegan and feel amazing, and others go vegan and feel exhausted and run down. I’ve had clients go paleo with wildly varying results as well. I’ve had clients lose large amounts of weight on keto, while others experienced elevated cholesterol and weight gains. You name a diet, I probably had a client who loved it and a client who hated it.

All of this information begs another question - what should I do if I want to overhaul my diet? For starters, don’t turn to Dr. Google for answers. If someone on social media is talking about their amazing results, realize that those results may or may not happen for you, no matter how hard to you try, because you are a biochemically unique individual. Work with a skilled nutritionist who can help you figure out which dietary protocol is most likely to suit your needs. There are many factors to consider when deciding how to eat. When I work with a client, I take into account their health history, medications, supplements, personal experiences, family history, and more. There may be specific reasons not to follow certain dietary protocols, and health-supportive reasons to try another one. For example, if you have an autoimmune disorder, we might want to consider an Autoimmune Paleo diet. If you have digestive problems, we may do a low FODMAP diet. If you have headaches and fatigue, we may try an elimination diet. Family history of hypercholesterolemia? We may try vegetarianism. The point is, don’t get overwhelmed and give up when you see all of these diet options and don’t know who to listen to. Work with a nutritionist who will look at your specific case and recommend the best protocol for you, not simply what the internet says will work or a packaged one-size-fits-all diet.

And finally, if you want to know what I do consider to be the closest thing to a one-size-fits-most diet for the majority of the people out there, I would declare a whole foods, low packaged and processed, plant-heavy diet as the one most likely to help the greatest number of people out there.