Do you often find yourself feeling sick after meals? Do you dread eating out because you never know which meal, which day, what time will trigger unpleasant symptoms? You're not alone. You could have a food intolerance - a condition similar to a food allergy, but not as severe.

Specific enzymes are required to break down the different foods you eat. Food intolerances can be caused by your bodies lack of these enzymes. The response to the food in question may not been seen immediately, as usually happens with food allergies. This delayed response can make it difficult to determine the "trigger food".

There are several common food intolerances, some that you may have heard about before include: gluten intolerance (experiencing the inability to process wheat or gluten products), also lactose intolerance (body's intolerance to dairy products). There are also several other types of food intolerances and they will all produce unpleasant effects.

The symptoms of food intolerances may include diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, irritable bowel syndrome, fatigue, and pain. The best real way to prevent these symptoms is simply not to eat the foods in question - and the way to discover just which foods these are is to take a food intolerance test.

One common type of food intolerance test is the elisa food test (it stands for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). Blood is collected, usually from the fingertip. This may be done at home or at a doctor's office. It is then analyzed at a lab for reactions with certain foods. Strong reactions will produce many IgG antibodies in the blood; the more are present, the worse the reaction.

Results from the food intolerance test will show the amount produced and by which types of food. All of the different types of scales measure about the same thing, which is the production of antibodies. It will be quite clear which of the foods, if any, caused intolerance reactions; research has shown this type of test to be quite reliable in hunting out the source of these reactions.

If you learn that you are intolerant of a particular food, you can take several steps. Most obviously, you can remove that food from your diet. Depending on the food, it may be simple or very difficult to avoid. Manufacturers have marketed "safe" products for the more common intolerances, such as dairy, but other intolerances will require you to read ingredient lists and ask questions. While watching ingredients closely may be inconvenient, it's better than experiencing symptoms of food intolerance. Relief from symptoms makes a food intolerance test well worth the cost and effort.