I’m Eric Bakker, the naturopath from New Zealand. Thanks for tuning back. Anyone can get food sensitivity. Children are especially prone to allergies, especially younger children. I’ve seen many children over the years with food allergies. So a very observant parent will pick this up and correct it, before it needs antibiotics. My son had that when he was quite young. He was coughing a lot. And I said to Tracy, it’s cow’s milk, let’s get him off that crap. And once we did that and we started looking at other forms of milk, like nut milks, the coughing and mucus all went away. Because the doctor was very keen to look at antibiotics. So again, many doctors don’t understand allergic symptoms with children and they’ll routinely prescribed antibiotics. Which is something that I cringe of when it comes to a child.

But sensitivities can happen also to busy moms. So ladies that are nursing, or running around all over the place. Taking children in the car to soccer games, or to football games and then to all sorts of lessons. Really busy people are stressed people. And you can get sensitivities to food, especially if you’re rushing around food, rushing around meals and not eating properly. Businessmen with lots of worries and concerns, I’ve seen these. PhD students, retired people on medication, to poor dentures. You name it, I’ve seen that kind of person.

Any person can get a reaction to food. The reaction is not the issue. It’s the cause of the reaction that needs addressing. And that cause, we’ll talk about a bit later on and how to deal with that. But if you go to a physician, or a naturopathic doctor, or someone for help, be sure to tell that person about your lifestyle, your background, your diet and the things that could have contributed or led to the point where you’ve got this reaction to food. Because it’s pretty silly taking pharmaceutical medications for reactions. There’s something that you could switch off by stopping their food, or stopping that action that caused that problem. That’s the intelligent approach and it’s definitely achievable.

So who gets food sensitivities? Well anyone can get it, from babies up to elderly. I’ve not really seen one group have it more than the other.

Generally, people who don’t get food sensitivities are the people who tend to eat… I don’t want to blow my trumpet, but people who tend to eat like I eat. People who eat lots of fresh produce all the time. Lots of berries, lots of vegetables, lots of nuts and seeds, lots of legumes. Those people don’t usually get food sensitivities. It’s the people who have weird diets, or strange diets, or stress diets. Or relying on medication too much. They’re more prone to it.