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“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Einstein
Einstein
Reintroducing Food
After a few months of practicing the Vegan-AIP approach, you might be looking forward to reintroducing some foods to your menu. However, it is not recommend to start too early reintroducing foods. In the best case, you should wait until your disease is in full remission. You should be “strictly compliant for at least one month (three to four months would be better) before reintroducing foods” (Ballantyne, 2013, pp. 305).
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How To Reintroduce Foods
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The introduction stages, are phases of trial and error, where you will discover if any of the foods you added back are causing you any symptoms. Basically you have a “challenge day” on which you consume a certain food several times throughout the day; then you avoid said food for three to seven days, during this time you may observe symptoms, so check how your body is reacting to that particular food (Press, 2014; Ballantyne, 2013).
First it is important to be aware of the negative reactions you may face when you introduce foods, this can happen immediately, delayed (two to eight hours) or within a window of eight to twenty four hours (extended). Reactions can vary, some of them include: symptoms of your disease returning or worsening, gastrointestinal symptoms, such as stomachache, constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating, among others. Further, reduced energy, food cravings, dizziness or lightheadedness, increased mucus production, coughing, sneezing and mood swings (Ballantyne, 2013). |
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Press (2014) and Ballantyne (2013) suggest the following order for reintroducing foods. Starting with the foods that are less likely to cause problems, and then moving forward to those prone to cause issues. Since we are following a vegan diet, the reintroduction of animal products is not considered in the next stages. Note: Small (stage 2) and larger quantities (stage 4) of alcohol are allowed, however most vegans don’t usually drink alcohol. |
You don’t have to reintroduce all these foods, don’t challenge yourself. Just choose what you like and what you think you can tolerate. Food reintroduction takes time, and so moving too fast may worsen your symptoms, therefore reintroduce foods carefully and methodically.
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