This appendix summarizes the main groups of synthetic chemicals to be found in our food and drinking water. The general comments on safety and toxicity refer to the ‘average’ healthy person, rather than someone who is unduly sensitive to one or more synthetic chemicals.

FOOD ADDITIVES

About 3,500 additives are in use, but not all of these are synthetic compounds. Some are natural products, or synthetic versions of natural chemicals, although this may not mean that they are things we would normally eat. On average, each person in Britain eats 4.5 kg (10-11 lb.) dry weight of additives each year. This is ten times the amount used 30 years ago, but only half the amount eaten by the average American. Those who eat a lot of packaged, processed or take-away foods may eat twice the average amount or more. Children, in particular, have a very high intake because many of the manufactured foods that appeal to them are rich in additives.

Most foods and drinks have to be labelled, with all additives (apart from flavourings) listed. Certain items are exempt: wine, beer and other alcoholic drinks, and any food or drink served in cafes and restaurants. Food that is sold unwrapped does not have to be labelled either, including bread, cheese, pate and similar foods, sausages.bacon, cakes and confectionery. All these are likely to contain additives. Dried fruit is usually treated with sulphur dioxide, but this may not appear on the label – fruit that has not been treated is usually labelled ‘unsulphured’.

Even with labelled food, manufacturers only have to list those additives which they themselves have put in – for example a packet, of crisps may be labelled ‘potatoes, vegetable oil and salt’ but the oil may have contained an antioxidant, such as BHT. Because the crisp manufacturer bought the oil with BHT already added, he does not have to include it on the label.

Another source of ‘hidden additives’ is medicinal drugs. They may contain colours, preservatives and anti-oxidants. These do not have to be declared on the label, and some people have reacted adversely to the additives in drugs, particularly the colourings. Azo-dyes are among the most troublesome additives, in terms of the numbers of cases of sensitivity reported, yet these are widely used in medicines, particularly in syrups given to children.

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Feeling a little worse

This may be a mild version of the withdrawal symptoms, but if it persists after seven days, then it is something else. One possibility is that you were somewhat undernourished to start with and the diet has made things worse. If you think this is likely, go back to the healthy eating’ diet and take a nutritional supplement – see p330. Stay on this regime for a couple of months to try to recover your general health. Then try the Stage 2 diet again – or move straight on to Stage 3.

Feeling worse, then much better

Once you have felt consistently better for three or four days then you should start the reintroduction phase – see below. Don’t delay doing this. Write down exactly how you feel at this point – it may be useful and encouraging to refer back to this later, if you suffer a lot of reactions during food testing.

Feeling much better quite quickly

This can happen, especially in children and young people – they seem to miss out on the withdrawal symptoms. Go on to the reintroduction phase.

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There are various ways in which the Pill might lead to food intolerance. It appears to have an effect on certain detoxification enzymes in the liver, and this could make women more susceptible to toxins in food, as well as to environmental chemicals. The Pill also seems to affect vitamin and mineral status (see p260) and some nutritional deficiencies may make food intolerance more likely. In the case of migraine, the hormones in the Pill have a direct action on the blood vessels, and are well known as a cause of migraine.

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It has taken a long time – 40 years or more – for these new ideas about allergy to be accepted by orthodox allergists. This is largely because the discoveries were first made by the clinical ecologists in America and their counterparts elsewhere – they tended to attract those patients who had been declared incurable by more conventional doctors. Because of the long-running controversy over clinical ecology, the traditional allergists at first regarded their findings with great suspicion.

Even today, there are vestiges of the old ideas about allergy in the way conventional allergists think about food. The traditional concept of a food allergy is a severe reaction to food which is almost always immediate. The types of symptoms produced are fairly well defined and limited in number – the sort of symptoms seen in Jane’s case. Although most conventional allergists now accept that foods may produce slower and less violent reactions, with more varied symptoms, such as asthma and eczema, these are not what spring to mind when the words ‘food allergy’ are used. The same tends to be true of family doctors, and this is sometimes a contributing factor in the disagreements and misunderstandings over food allergy.

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