Joan Breakey’s Blog

Food with too much smell ’stinks’!! Variation in the food industry.

The child who thought all smells ’stink’ is very sensitive, but most food sensitive people are wise to be wary of food that has strong smells.

Food suppliers are giving mixed messages. They want to invite buyers to try more flavours but at some level they must know that these greater amounts are too much for some!

This is shown by one advertisement that described Ketchup as ‘old school’, mustard - something ‘you can do better than’. The advertisement suggested you ‘go to the next level by using “Stinkin” good green chili’ as a condiment! If the food industry wants their ‘hotter’ suggestions to be ’stinkin’ then it does seem there is a trend to overflavouring our food!

It is to be hoped that those in the food industry who are aiming for mild good quality food flavour will also keep supplying food that normal and gourmet food sensitive people can enjoy!

In fact this is happening. There does seem to be new interest in plain foods with good quality flavouring. In an article entitled “What’s Posh Now?” discussing desirable foods for restaurants, a reviewer noted that a meal may be based on a plain food such as organic carrots, admittedly served with comte-infused curd, mild spices, and quinoa. But this does show that there is a move back to mild, good quality foods, and this is a good thing from the food sensitivity point of view. Of course food sensitive people would still want only a touch of additional flavours.

Parents judged when 7-year olds have eating problems. Is this eating delay?

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A recent study reported that infants who had began lumpy solid foods after nine months were more likely to have more feeding problems at age seven than those who started them before nine months. These children also ate less variety of foods. The authors recommend that professionals advise parents to encourage the progression from purees to lumpy foods from as early as six months, and to increase the variety of foods.
But being told that you should have done something does not mean it could have been done if you decided that at the time. Many parents know it is not as easy as it sounds. Here we can stop and think about what these results may mean. What if it was reported that parents who did not encourage a variety of words in infancy were more likely to have children with speech problems at age seven. We would immediately say that we know that all children learn to speak at a different rate and some still have speech problems at age seven. We know that problems occur even if parents encourage talking by talking to their baby all along the way.

If we use the important idea that eating is also a developmental process then we would begin to think about eating in a different light. We could then recognize that all children learn to eat a variety of foods at different rates.

The problem is that eating development is not one progression but many developmental pathways. Parents need to know all about eating development and how know about how to manage all aspects to encouraging each of them separately.

There is taste development, texture development, temperatures development, and many others including smell, thickness, thirst, chewing, amount of food, time between meals, and managing gagging developments. And it can get more complicated when blending all of these progressions with all the other developmental processes occurring at the same time! These are explained in detail in the new book Fussy Babies
We might agree with the researchers that the more parents encourage a shift from puree to lumpy foods early, and encourage a variety of tastes, the more it helps eating progression. But we feel frustration when we know that even when parents do their best difficulties of one sort or another about accepting foods still occur. And we know that those who were fussy or picky eaters in infancy are more likely to still have problems at age seven. We might ask these researchers to appreciate that eating is just as complex a developmental process as any other developmental achievement such as speech. We can think that parents whose children have eating problems should not be judged, just as we do not judge parents whose children have speech or any other developmental disorder.

Joan Breakey

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It is interesting just how supersensitive some children are! One little girl was reported by her mother to notice smells in particular. She disliked smells to the extent that she noticed all smells as negative because of their strength in her awareness. So instead of saying “I smell something” she said “I stink something”. We can listen to what children are saying and say how cute it sounds. and we can learn to be aware that they may be telling s something important about how the world affects them.

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Question

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Good evening. First of all I wanted to thank you, I found your book on food sensitivity very helpful. It is very well written and helped me understand many things about food and digestion.

Second of all, I thought you might know something about Tyramine. I have seen several doctors and none of them had even heard of such thing as Hypersensitivity to Tyramine, so I did my own research after experiencing strange symptoms. I am a 40 y. o. musician and I enjoy a healthy lifestyle ( balanced diet + daily exercise). I do not take any medication, not even birth control pills, and the only only thing the doctors found was that my serotonin was a little low.
So overall my health is good except for a recently diagnosed intolerance to Tyramine. For instance if I eat a few slices of salami on an empty stomach it will trigger an attack, which is always the same : I get a really fast heartbeat + increased blood pressure + nausea 15 mn after ingestion. Sometimes the heart palpitations last for 1/2 h ( 120-130 bpm), and the nausea + lightheadedness will last for a day, depending on the type of food, the amount I ingested, if I am tired etc…
I am 99% sure the culprit is Tyramine, which is a natural amine found in all foods but much higher in foods that are aged, fermented, pickled  ( salami, cheese, sauerkraut, smoked salmon, anchovy paste, etc… ), in foods that have been stored for a long time ( nuts, dried fruits…) and also in overripe fruits like bananas, oranges and avocados.
The list of foods I was reacting to was so eclectic, I couldn’t find the link between them for a long time, it was very perplexing and scary and i lost a lot of weight.
I did some research, started an elimination diet and read about the cheese migraine symptoms in a online medical forum. Later I found a list of Tyramine loaded foods in which I recognized every single food that had triggered an attack after I ingested it. There is no test to confirm my theory but since I eliminated these Tyramine loaded foods from my diet I haven’t had an attack, I feel much better and less terrified of eating, and I am even putting some weight back on ( 112 lbs for 5′4″).
Soon hopefully I will feel strong enough to start reintroducing these foods into my diet in very small quantities, and I hope to get myself desensitized a little bit, unless of course one day I wake up free of this strange condition that appeared for no reason and might disappear the same way.
I guess what is very puzzling to me is the fact that this sensitivity appeared out of the blue, that the symptoms are so violent and that I DO NOT get migraines. People who have problems with foods high in Tyramine usually are either migraine sufferers and/or on antidepressant ( MAOs).
I do not take any medication and my symptoms are always exactly the same 5 to 10 mn after ingesting the culprit food : tachycardia + hypertension + tremors + nausea and sometimes light headache when the attack is really bad. After having had about 14 attacks within the last 12 months it is such a relief to be able to eat again !
And as I read your book I also realized how lucky I am to be able to avoid the culprit food so easily, and to be able to enjoy my favorite foods, which is fresh produce, without limitation.
Now my goal is to put the word out and hopefully glean more information about this still poorly known food allergy.
So my question to you is, have you ever heard of someone who shares the same symptoms ?
Do you know anyone who is familiar with the effects of Tyramine on the digestive and the nervous system ?
Anything will help, a link, a name, anything; your feedback is important to me.
Thank you much
Sophie ( San Francisco, CA)

Answer

Dear Sophie,

Thanks for your interesting letter. I am answering it on the blog so that others understand reactions like yours and why I call the diet investigation Diet Detective Work!

You have raised lots of interesting issues which I will comment on.

Food sensitivity is a complex condition.

Each food sensitive person has their own cluster of symptoms. You mention migraine. People sensitive to amines [of which tyramine is one] often report migraine or Irritable Bowel Syndrome  [IBS] and they occasionally report some of the symptoms you have with their migraine or IBS.

Yours are unusual in that you do not have the usual ‘main symptom’. But that does not make them any the less important for you or for others who have less often reported symptoms.  Many patients comment on symptoms such as fuzzy thinking, mood changes, bad dreams, mood changes, in addition to their ‘main symptom’.

It is hard enough to have people and professionals accept that the ‘main symtoms’ may have a food component. Having them accept symptoms such as yours is going to take time!

You have also raised another reason why food sensitivity is complex.

You note that the effects last longer if you are ‘tired etc’. That is because of the Total Body Load idea described in Are You Food sensitive? Readers can go to Chap 2 Understanding Food Sensitivity to see all there is to learn. We still do not know why people like you have their symptoms come on at a particular time in their lives. Sometimes we can see that it may have been with change in diet to more flavoured or take-away food, hormone changes, a different environment, increase in smells, or stress.

Sensitivity can also decrease at other times, perhaps with attention to all aspects of diet, decrease in any of the above factors, or for no apparent reason we can see. Another trick is not to expand the diet when you feel ‘fragile’, but do so when you feel ‘robust’.

Another reason why food sensitivity is complex is that there is no test that shows you what you are sensitive to. With allergy there is, so it is very frustrating for people who know they have reactions to be told they are not allergic to any food, or to find that if they exclude the one or two foods they have been shown to be allergic to the reactions still occur, as they are sensitive to food chemicals, not allergic to some food protein.

Doing what you did is the best way to show you are sensitive. That is going on an elimination diet excluding all the suspect chemicals outlined in Are You Food sensitive? preferably with the help of a dietitian. That shows diet has a role, and you get a baseline with symptoms improved.

The important next step that verifies food sensitivity is to carefully reintroduce low risk foods and see where symptoms return. Look at ‘Conducting Single food trials’, and the ‘Food glossary’, especially ‘Tolerance is affected by’ in Are You Food sensitive?

The most important Diet Detective Trick re amines is to use your nose. See ‘Supertasters and Supersmellers’ in Are You Food sensitive? and the article ‘What’s smell go to do with it!’ on the home page www.ozemail.com.au/~breakey

Sophie, you have provided a good example of just how complex diet investigation is and of how you believed in yourself, had the medical investigations, and pursued your intuition that diet had a role. I hope other readers take heart from your example and my comments.

Joan

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Fussy babies - practical advice on Introduction of Solids, Eating Development and Food Sensitivity for mothers and health professionals

By Joan Breakey

Provides a great insight for mother and a fantastic resource for dietians and other health professionals, particularly dietitians.  Available on line at www.dietinvestigation.com Easter 2010

Why it is useful for professionals:

Chapter 1 - When introduction of solids gets complicated

This chapter gives a useful overview of introduction of solids that emphasises all parts equally not presuming introduction of solids is just related to one orientation such as prevention of allergies or watching for some signs of readiness. It covers all the parts of introduction of solids, particularly covering how and why it can get complicated. Successful breastfeeding can be followed by successful introduction of solids.

Chapter 2 - Eating development

Breast feeding is the ideal way to prepare the baby for the next process the brain has to manage: obtaining nutrients from solid food. Managing a good diet is learned via new pathways in the brain, separate from muscular or mechanical development, or those problems which could be seen as psychological or phobic. It provides detailed information on how to use knowledge of eating development in each of the areas such as taste, texture, temperature, smell, so that baby can progress to eating family food. Importantly, professionals can use this information to help when parents think their infant has stopped in his or her eating progression, for example, by refusing lumpy or scratchy food. The exact issue can be clarified and progress can begin again.

Chapter 3 -  Is Your Baby Food Sensitive?

After medical investigations have excluded various reasons for the many symptoms that occur, food sensitivity should be considered. Managing introduction of solids alongside preventing allergies, managing known allergic symptoms, and investigating diet for possible food sensitivity can be tricky. This chapter provides guidelines on how to fit these in while still ensuring other important parts such as breast feeding or nutrition are still incorporated. Much diet investigation and management of both allergy and food chemical intolerance can still be done while breastfeeding. This chapter provides guidelines on how to fit in preventing allergies, providing treatment of known allergic symptoms, and investigating diet for possible food sensitivity while still ensuring other important parts, such as breast feeding, or nutrition, are still incorporated.

Chapter 4

Supersensitivity in Food Sensitive Babies
Supersensitivity to the many sensory inputs does occur, especially in food sensitive families. An awareness of its presence helps professionals to appreciate what the family can deal with. Fortunately it is reduced where diet investigation decreases symptoms.

Appendix  - Reading around the topic

This book developed after writing the overview of what is involved in introduction of solids, particularly coming to the general topic from the directions of eating development, food sensitivity and supersensitivity. Other books are oriented from the breast feeding , nutrition, Baby-led Weaning or managing very fussy eaters points of view. But all aspects of introduction of solids need to include the concept of eating development. Without this orientation a central concept is missed.

Available on line at www.dietinvestigation.com. If you want to be one of the first to get Fussy Babies email us now and we’ll notify you as soon as it’s available enquiries@dietinvestigation.com .