DISCLAIMER: This blog is NOT just for people with known food sensitivities. Read this article titled “How to Know if You Have Allergies” if you are one of the many people who think you don’t have any food sensitivities (you’re most likely wrong).


Food sensitivities can be a bummer. I know; I have lots of them. But don’t fear- all is not lost. I learned a nifty trick from my nutritionist at the Environmental Health Center in Dallas that has made overcoming food sensitivities seem possible. The trick is implementing a 4-Day Rotation Diet.

It takes an average of four days for something you eat to fully process through your body. This can vary depending on the speed of your metabolism, of course, but four days is a good place to start. The four-day rotation diet was first developed in 1934 by Dr. Rinkel, and is mostly used for people with food sensitivities. The diet arose out of the observation that the foods most frequently eaten are the most common food allergens (Rotational Bon Appetit Cookbook, EHC-D).

So here’s the trick: You rotate your food every four days so that your body never has the same substance in it in one cycle! This greatly reduces the likelihood of you developing a sensitivity (any sort of reaction) to it, especially if you’re already allergy-prone). Here’s an example of how this works: You have garlic and rosemary chicken for dinner on Monday. That means you cannot have anything with garlic, rosemary, or chicken in it until Friday. Water, lemon juice, and salt are usually considered “free items,” but remember that salt is not recommended at all on The Paleo Diet.

If you want to figure out what your cycle length is, eat some sunflower seeds (not too many, as they are high in Omega 6 fatty acids and sodium ), and watch your stool (hehe!) for the next 4 days. You should notice when they “pass”…. I’ve always hated that term. Anyways, that will give you a more accurate idea of how long you need to wait before repeating the same foods in your diet.

This should go without saying, but implementing The Paleo Diet is also a pretty sure-fire way to rid you of your food-allergy woes. The offending foods in our modern diet that are not allowed on The Paleo Diet are common allergens and are behind much of the gut damage that leaves us susceptible to developing food allergies. Learn more on the #1 Recommended Diet page, where we discuss The Paleo Diet in detail and give you step by step instructions on how to implement it.