Do you have food sensitivities? The one simple test you can do anytime, anywhere to find out.

“Is there any food you couldn’t give up?”

This is one of the key questions I ask every new client. The answer tells me a lot.

In some cruel twist of fate, our bodies tend to crave the very foods we are most sensitive to. It’s a big bummer, but when you understand what’s happening in the body, it makes a lot of sense.

When we eat a food our body is sensitive to, our pulse increases. Here’s what happens:

We ingest a food that we’re sensitive to. That food triggers our body’s histamine response, which you can think of like a fire – it’s responsible for the inflammation involved in healing. To counter the effects of the histamine, our adrenals secrete cortisol, an anti-inflammatory hormone which acts like the fire truck to put out the fire. (Think of the cortisone treatments so often used to counter inflammation – this is just synthetic cortisol.) In addition to bringing down inflammation, cortisol, as one of our body’s stress hormones, also speeds up our pulse.

Credit: eatnakednow.com

In short: trigger food → increase in pulse.

Here’s the catch: that speed in our pulse? It’s can actually feel like a nice buzz, and is part of the reason we crave those foods that trigger it. We’re unconsciously looking for the mild high.

In my clinical experience, it’s rare for a food we crave (in that slightly maniacal I Must Have Thiskind of craving) to NOT be a food sensitivity.

This is not all bad news. Actually, it gives us a very powerful tool in determining which foods we’re sensitive to. It’s called the Coca’s pulse test, named after Dr. Arthur Coca, an allergist from the mid-1950s who discovered this profound but simple test to identify food sensitivities.

The pulse-dietary system has become a special medical diagnostic art. It is based on a simple, easily-proven premise; that your pulse-rate is often accelerated by foods and other substances; that the reason the pulse is accelerated is because your system is allergic to that which is making your pulse race; and that life-spoiling and life-shortening conditions such as migraine, eczema, epilepsy, diabetes, and hypertension, may be caused by your continuing to expose yourself to those foods or substances to which you are allergic. – Dr. A. Coca Continue Reading  >> Page 2