Food allergies or food poisoning

Many of the symptoms are caused by allergies is also similar to food poisoning. This concerns in particular the stomach upset, diarrhea and unpleasant side effects along those lines (see gluten-allergy symptoms for some specific examples).

With the ability to have the same symptoms, how do you know if you have allergies, or if you have to do with food poisoning?

First and foremost is the allergy symptoms not identical with food poisoning symptoms in most cases. There are often other effects that are not the same as food poisoning.

The most important thing to watch out for is the pattern of when you experience the symptoms.

In most cases food poisoning a one-off. Someone left the meat in the refrigerator for too long. The food was contaminated during processing. One of the ingredients went bad and was added to the dish by unnoticed. There are many causes for food spoilage, but is usually not consistent. In other words, not counting which then you got food poisoning from the left-overs ' last week, you will get sick every time you eat leftovers.

There can be exceptions. If a particular food processor have poor hygiene standards or if there is a flaw in the way food is handled, there may be a series of consistent food poisoning cases.

But even this is unlikely to be confused with food allergies. First of all, many people become sick from the same food, but only if on that particular source.

In addition, most countries in the first world food regulators that would detect and stop these problems fairly quickly. In the third world tends to get food from a large number of small vendors, so you can expect to experience food poisoning at random (and more likely from bad water than bad foods).

Allergies, on the other hand, tend to cause consistent symptom in an individual, but not their environment. The symptoms vary from person to person, even for the same food allergy.

This applies to allergies and intolerances for food.

If you are sick for years, suspect food allergies. If you are sick sometimes, suspect food poisoning, or any other cause.