FOREWARD

FOREWARD.

Our forebears mostly ate foods that were in season, using simple preservatives to store the excess to help them through the winter. In the last fifty years modern food technology has increasingly allowed and encouraged us to eat the same food constituents every day, brought to us from all over the world; possible because of the availability of chemical food preservatives. Much of the modern diet is now composed of pre-prepared labour saving meals containing too much sugar and fat, disguised by artificial colour and flavouring. Chemicals used in manufacturing processes may well be present as well as other contaminants from intensive agriculture. Hidden food allergy was recognised as a cause of chronic illness in the USA in the 1920's, and it has been increasing throughout the developed world in the last fifty years, becoming very common. It may give rise to a wide range of symptoms, which often vary in severity from day to day although the links with the provoking foods are rarely obvious and usually missed.

Are these facts connected? Probably. The same chronic ills are spreading to developing countries as their use of synthetic chemicals increases and they adopt our food habits. Moreover in practice, when hidden food allergy is investigated, the main culprits are usually those foods which the patient has beem eating very frequently. Rotation diets help to re-establish tolerance.

In a strict four-day rotation diet, the same food is only eaten once in every four days. This is an important tool in helping patients with severe problems to shake off their intolerances and can be more generally useful in trying to reduce chronic ills. Although the diets individually designed for each patient by an experienced allergy clinic are usually healthier and better balanced than the diets which the patients were eating previously, in most cooks hands a four-day rotation diet results in a rather dull menu with a very limited range of options for each day. Joyce Weaver has shown that this need not be the case. She bases her approach to this challenge on her family's experience and her training in food technology and has produced a wide range of recipes based on a slightly relaxed four-day rotation. It will, of course, have to be interpreted with discretion by some patients according to which foods they are having to avoid, if necessary moving foods from one day to another in order to make sure that each day has adequate sources of the important groups of foods - filling foods, protiens, and vegetables or fruits. If in doubt they should consult a dietician. Keeping the food families to a single day is important only for a minority of patients; adequate nutrition is essential for all. Since being ill often increases the need for vitamins and minerals, taking a wide-range hypoallergenic supplement in addition is a wise move for many: most people who are rotating should at least take a calcium and magnesium supplement on their non-milk days.

The book should also improve the lot of the families of patients with food intolerances, especially those members who do the meal planning and cooking. Presented with the exciting recipies she describes, the families may not even be aware that their foods are being rotated.

Dr Honor Anthony
Specialist in Allergy and Environmental Medicine
Adel, Leeds.

Dr Anthony was associated with the Airedale Allergy Centre for many years - this was the first purpose-built environmentally-controlled inpatient unit in the world. She is the co-author of the text Environmental Medicine in Clinical Practice by Anthony, Birtwistle, Eaton and Maberly, ISBN 0 95233972 2 available from BSAENM Publications Tel +44(0)2380 812124