We have seen a huge difference, you have changed our lives forever and we are very grateful. My son used to live on fruit, especially sultanas.
You can cut down on salicylates by drinking water instead of fruit juice or cordial; avoiding some of the highest foods - citrus, tomatoes, broccoli and grapes, and reducing fruit intake to 2 pieces of fresh fruit per day best fruits are pears, rhubarb and 'just ripe' bananas. For more ideas, see one of my books. Or for best results with a severe problem, do the full RPAH elimination diet. Fragrances such as fruit or eucalyptus are another source of salicylates. Since the s, increasingly large doses have been added to products.
People rarely realise that they are affected by salicylates, amines or glutamates unless they eat a very large dose in a short time e. This is because these food chemicals are eaten so frequently that the effects fluctuate and can build up very slowly.
Within days we saw dramatic changes. Her behaviour evened out An experienced and supportive dietitian can supervise a three week trial of the RPAH Royal Prince Alfred Hospital elimination diet which is free of additives and low in salicylates and amines to find out exactly which food chemicals are contributing to problems.
In our experience, this is the most effective elimination diet in the world. See our list of suitable dietitians. People rarely react to only one food chemical. Most react to between food chemicals. Elimination diet vegetable soup sweet splendor. Most of these come only slightly modified from the brown rice cookbook, published by ccnm press.
The diet alone or with the supplements in the step 4 starter kit. Rpah elimination diet handbook : Our dietitians have put together a list of great meal and snack options that are delicious, nutritious and perfect for children on the six food elimination diet. Cranberries, ground cardamom, lemon juice, ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and 8 more. For example, if you give up dairy, you must supplement your calcium from other sources like green leafy vegetables. Elimination diet recipes here you'll find a collection of recipes that can be enjoyed while on the elimination diet.
Our dietitians have put together a list of great meal and snack options that are delicious, nutritious and perfect for children on the six food elimination diet. As the combined diet is very limited, nutritional supplementation is often a good idea.
Guidance by a Dietitian well versed in both diets is required to ensure nutritional replacements for lost nutrients, provide options to increase protein and calorie intake to sustain weight and muscle. This is not the sort of diet to do on your own, you should be on it only for a limited time before food is reintroduced, and always under the guidance of a specialised dietitian in food intolerances. RPAH elimination diet handbook: with food and shopping guide.
Version 2. Recent Posts See All. Why stress makes your food intolerance worse but pregnancy can improve it. Why foods only sometimes trigger symptoms. Potatoes, carob, cashews, chocolate not failsafe as contains amines , buckwheat and some beans that are failsafe might cause problems for those sensitive to oxalates.
As with any elimination, do it with a sympathetic and supportive dietitian. Foods contain a lot of natural chemicals, but RPAH has identified salicylates, biogenic amines and glutamates as the most likely to cause problems.
These are therefore the focus of failsafe. If you decide to pursue alternatives we would prefer not to hear from you through the failsafe groups where our focus is on encouraging failsafers.
However, we would be interested to receive an email about your experiences after six months and 12 months so that we can add to our bank of knowledge. Q: I have been told I have 'leaky gut syndrome' and that this supplement containing seeds, green tea and dried fruit will benefit me?
A: The supplement offered would NOT be failsafe due to the high salicylate ingredients you have identified. The diagnosis of 'leaky gut' is conceptually appealing and there are now references in PubMed. There are, in my view, a lot of people enthused with this concept without evidence.
Here is my test: if the person who diagnosed it wants to sell you something, a supplement or more tests, be suspicious and ask for scientific evidence. From the beginning of January right through to March can be a good time because the Christmas and pre Christmas party season is over. Challenges can be more difficult than most people expect.
It is important to get them right or you can end up with an inconclusive result. You need to stick to the RPAH recommendations e. Your dietitian can give you a list of challenges; also see the Challenges hints factsheet and the amine and salicylate challenge recipes in the Failsafe Cookbook.
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. A: While some people have reported success and even cures with the GAPS diet or various biomed approaches, there is often limited scientific evidence, unlike Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit, whose work we recommend.
Many alternative approaches appear to work because they exclude so many foods. The trouble is that you may also be excluding some foods that you can in fact tolerate false negatives , and still taking some foods that you can't tolerate false positives. People who try this approach often say they can tolerate more than they expect initially, but it is very difficult for an individual to measure symptoms that change by small amounts on a daily basis - this can be because symptoms are changing - eg going from restlessness to loud and annoying - or because the changes build up slowly.
We often see that when people say "failsafe isn't working" and send details of what they are doing, we can generally find at least five mistakes - enough to alter to outcome of the diet. In our experience, people are typically enthusiastic about any new regime at first, then after six months they may be less certain or realise that they are back where they started, perhaps with a different set of symptoms but certainly not performing as well as they are able.
They then either abandon diet completely, accepting the limitations but claiming that the treatment worked, or revert to lower levels of the chemicals that affect them and resume a science-based diet. The second course is more difficult because it means admitting that all the cost and effort of testing was wasted.
The scientific way to determine food intolerances is to use an elimination diet. In our experience, the RPAH elimination diet is the most effective. It is best when the diet, challenges and reintroduction are done under the supervision of an experienced dietitian and this is what we recommend. Q: What is the mechanism behind food intolerance? These can be inherited or acquired, either temporarily through taking drugs, or possibly long term through in utero exposure to environmental chemicals.
In people who are taking drugs known as MAOIs monoamine oxidase inhibitors , this enzyme is inhibited and a build up of tyramine can occur, leading to life-threatening high blood pressure as well as the usual range of food intolerance symptoms including headaches, itchy skin rashes, heart palpitations and diarrhoea.
There is a rare condition in which people who are born without the MAOA gene lack the MAO enzyme altogether and researchers have long known that this condition is associated with aggression in men. Much more common is a low activity variant that seems to occur in about one third of the population. Similarly, there is an inherited life-threating condition called propionic acidemia in which babies lack or have a low activity of the enzyme propionyl-CoA carboxylase.
These people are unable to metabolise propionic acid the same as the bread preservative which builds up in the bloodstream and can cause damage the brain, heart, and liver, cause seizures, and delays to normal development like walking and talking. It seems that children and adults who react badly to a build up of the bread preservative calcium propionate E may have a lower activity of this enzyme.
The effects of salicylates in food from plants or in salicylate-based painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen called COX inhibitors are essentially the same. They can both cause intolerance symptoms such as gastrointestinal, respiratory or behavioural symptoms by blocking the enzyme function.
Experts now think these may be contributing the Western epidemic of behavioural and learning disorders, because children are particularly vulnerable while in utero or very young. A: Most naturopaths automatically take people off wheat and dairy, even though the science says that these are the food items least likely to be causing the problems although if they really are a problem they need to be taken seriously.
This change does remove many additives, so people may see an effect even though it was neither the wheat nor the dairy that was the problem. Be careful because megadoses of zinc to treat acne have been associated with anaemia and neutropenia low white blood cells. The RPAH approved omega supplement is flax oil in limited quantities due to small amounts of salicylates and amines. We have not received any reports about fish oil increasing tolerance for salicylates.
It is also true that some parents report fish oil-related improvements in children with behaviour or learning problems — but in our experience, when they do the diet which means dropping the supplements , they do even better. People who pass their amine challenge can try fish oils as long as they don't contain non-failsafe ingredients such as lemon flavouring. Regarding any label claims about no salicylates or amines, you may want to read more about fish oils in Dr Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" especially about marketing techniques and law suits by fish oil manufacturers.
What is your opinion on them? Our website and groups are dedicated to supporting the RPAH elimination diet because we have found it to be the most effective elimination diet in the world. We do prefer committed failsafers or newbies not to be distracted by frequent discussion of other diets.
We have not yet heard from readers about anything that actually 'heals' or 'fixes' intolerances in the long term other than treatment of longstanding infections — in one case a hysterectomy and in another case removal of wisdom teeth. If people want to try GAPS or other diets and treatments, please do it and discuss it elsewhere and get back to us with some feedback after 12 months.
In our experience, people are enthusiastic about something new but a year later it is often a different story, e. Unbelievable that it is funded by health funds. Wish I could get my money back. If your only symptoms are IBS bloating, reflux, abdominal discomfort, wind and diarrhea your dietitian may recommend a trial of the FODMAPS diet but if there are any other food intolerance symptoms — e.
If clues indicate possible problems with both, some people do a combined low chemical and low FODMAP diet, however a dietitian who specializes in IBS tells us that she has most frequently found food chemicals to be the main issue, and the RPAH diet is the one she uses most frequently. See story [] and Fructose malabsorption factsheet. The list of sugars includes fructose, lactose, fructo- and galacto-oligosaccharides fructans, and galactans , and polyols such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol and maltitol.
Q: I have been suffering from various IBS-like symptoms for several years and have finally decided to do something about it. Although there was improvement in some areas there was a decline in others. I became VERY forgetful and suffered stomach cramps when eating what turned out to be foods high in salicylates. Should I do the full salicylates elimination diet and get myself better? A: Yes. Your dietitian can give you a list of challenges; also see the Challenges hints factsheet on our website and the amine and salicylate challenge recipes in the cookbook.
However, there have been some recent updates to the salicylates challenge. You can ask for our challenge update information This email address is being protected from spambots. Mistakes, introducing foods. I went through the RPAH elimination diet about 3 years ago.
The dietician confirmed I was intolerant to dairy, wheat, salicylates, amines and glutamates. Despite following a strict regime I have not been able to reintroduce any of the foods that caused an intolerance reaction.
After receiving our salicylate and amine mistake information sheets, she cleaned up her diet, suffered from withdrawal symptoms — which indicates that there had been a problem — and is now feeling much better, see story [] You can request information sheets from This email address is being protected from spambots.
Suitable foods. What can I eat for a quick supermarket snack? Make sure you buy a bottle of water too coz they are a bit dry. I have a month-old who appears to be intolerant to dairy, soy and legumes for certain, and I am questioning eggs and fish.
I am also not sure if my drinking wine or coffee affects him. His symptoms were prolific vomiting which has resolved now and inconsolable night times where he can cry for over an hour at a time several times a night. He has been known to sleep through the night with one wake for a feed, but then he and I can eat the identical food the next day and have a shocking night This email shows just how confusing food intolerance symptoms can be and why the RPAH elimination diet is the easiest approach.
This mother was reluctant but when she finally tried the elimination diet, her son was sleeping through the night 4 nights in a row by the end of the third week. Dietitians and doctors. I tried phoning a dietitian but she told me she didn't really like to do elimination diets. I was wondering what to do next?
Email for our list of experienced, supportive dietitians who have been recommended by other failsafers email This email address is being protected from spambots. Yesterday I went to a new dietitian I became frustrated yet again as these professionals just don't seem to be passionate about what they do.
Why is it that even the professionals come across as not being fully aware of how food affects behaviour? There are some extremely supportive dietitians who have many experience supervising the RPAH elimination diet, and then there are the others. You can ask for our list of dietitians who have been recommended by other failsafers email This email address is being protected from spambots. We welcome feedback about dietitians, both supportive and non-supportive, as this can help others.
My 5yr-old daughter has been diagnosed with severe food intolerances and a moderate allergy to soy. I do not have the finances to use a private dietician. This is hard work on your own. I need some support. I recommended the Failsafe booklet and our email support groups to this mother. She had also joined an email support group. My nearly two-year-old is the most boisterous boy I have met, and to be honest I am feeling beaten down.
I cannot remember the last time he slept all night. He is a handful from the moment he wakes up, and that never stops. I feel I need to start cutting out certain things from his diet but after talking to my doctor I came away deflated. She told me that it is very rare that people have allergies to salicylates and that it would be an expensive, long and hard path to go down when it probably wasn't the answer. Some doctors may not understand dietary salicylates because the information is quite new.
The elimination diet is:. I have read all your books, belong to your discussion groups and have done the PPP program. Thanks to you and only you, when failsafe he is a loving and compliant angel with a dry nose and no physical problems.
When he is not failsafe he is aggressive, defiant, never satisfied, loses his temper, discipline is ineffective and he has difficulty falling asleep, along with continual runny nose, recurrent ear infections, bright red ears, sore tummy etc. Our doctor said that so long as I kept my son failsafe, I would keep his behaviour at bay but suggested I would not be able to do this forever tiring, time consuming, school canteen etc , and because of that, he would probably be diagnosed with ADHD in the long run, where other strategies would be looked at - I'm presuming medication.
I would love to hear your opinion. I am now receiving emails from a whole new generation — failsafe students in their late teens or twenties who choose to stick to their diets because they are healthier, happier or can concentrate on their studies see stories [] and [] , so it can be done. Only a few years ago most doctors said diet didn't work, so it is a big step forward to find a doctor admitting that diet is effective.
The next step is for doctors and schools to actually support mothers by minimising the use of nasty food additives and supporting failsafe food for those who need it. The more we spread the word, the sooner it will happen. My son now 22 ate very limited salicylates for much of his younger childhood. It made a dramatic difference to his personality and behaviour.
He now wants to eliminate them again to see if it helps him to focus, become more organised, and gain a bit of self-control to assist him in his uni studies.
We have heard from many failsafe parents that their grown up children have good motivation and do well on the diet at university. I can now think better, clearer, and I can reason logically where before an idea would just revolve around in my head … Thanks to the diet, I am going to try again to pass Year 12 next year, so I can go to university.
It's quite interesting to trace the time in my life when I started doing badly in school. It was the exact time that I moved to the city, started eating more junk food like meat pies, ham etc.
I continued to do worse and worse in school until I dropped out of Year 13 last semester. My 2 yo son is highly sensitive to salicylates. We find that he is having a very strong salicylate type reaction whenever he eats bread.
He can only have 2 slices a day or he goes ballistic. Would this be due to yeast or vinegar?? The bread is free. He has also reacted to pitta bread. Vinegar is definitely NOT OK for salicylate responders - all white vinegars are very high in salicylates and that is what they use in bread I've checked.
I am surprised he can manage 2 slices per day. It is true that failsafers sometimes notice a big reaction when they break the diet but you have to remember that previously there was less of a contrast between good and bad.
You can choose to go back to the old diet but you will have to put up with the old symptoms again. The best time to break the diet is on holidays when there is less stress. If concerned about reintroduction of foods, see an experienced dietitian ask for our list of supportive dietitians: This email address is being protected from spambots. Immune system — benefits of diet. I've noticed this pattern in my kids and myself, but when I ask Paediatricians and GPs they dismiss it, saying it could have been coincidental and that there's no evidence to prove this.
It is common for failsafers to report that they no longer suffer frequent colds, flu and other recurrent infections once they are established on failsafe eating e. Studies have shown that certain artificial colours and preservatives act as immunosuppressants, that is, they can actually suppress the immune system, making us more likely to suffer from recurrent infections. This has been shown in the laboratory by Greek researchers with artificial colours tartrazine and amaranth using small doses normally considered to be nontoxic, and by Brazilian researchers with propionic acid which is part of the group that includes bread preservative As well, a US study with beagle dogs showed they were more susceptible to fatal viruses when fed indigotine Failsafers who are salicylate-sensitive know that although we are constantly told to eat fruit to build up our immunity, for us, it works the opposite way.
Withdrawal symptoms and how long does it take to notice improvements? I have a 9-year-old son with autism who has been on a gluten- and casein-free diet for 7 years, which has helped his behaviour and digestive problems immensely.
We have not done a systematic removal of any other category of foods from his diet besides gluten and casein, mostly because he was doing fairly well and we couldn't bear to limit his diet any further--he enjoys foods and is not a picky eater. Lately, however, he has had problems with wetting his pants and more difficulty keeping up in school.
I would like to try reducing his intake of salicylates to see if this helps him. If we reduce but not completely eliminate these foods, should we see an improvement, or is a complete elimination necessary? Regarding reduced salicylates, one mother wrote: 'I cut back my five year old daughter's intake of fruit to about a quarter of what she normally had.
Within days we saw dramatic changes. Her behaviour evened out - she was more sensible and obliging, less aggressive and defiant - and altogether much more pleasant to live with.
It is a difficult decision: while socially the diet is awkward, children are then able to be themselves and reach their full potential rather than be held back by something they are eating. For more information, ask for our Salicylate Mistakes information sheet This email address is being protected from spambots. We're on day seven of our elimination diet for my six-year-old daughter, and every day since we've been on this new diet she's gotten a little worse - more insolent, less able to keep still than normal, much MORE day-dreamy and going off on tangent-ish, slightly 'violent' - absolutely driving me crazy!
These turned out to be withdrawal symptoms, and the answer was, it took 8 days to see positive effects. I have just started my son on the elimination diet, he is in the 3rd week and we have slowly seen some improvement. Although some people see improvements by the end of the second week, most families go through the second week blahs, think they may be seeing a few small improvements at the beginning of the third week and by the end of the 3rd week have often seen spectacular improvement if they have the diet right.