Only recently have I discovered that the root of some of my other intolerances can be traced back to my soy and wheat allergy. I was reading this post on secondary glutenization the other day and was immediately reminded of my problem with eggs.
I am not and have never tested positive for a food allergy for eggs. That said, eating eggs on a regular basis (every day or every other day) has always caused me to feel ill, more so when eating them in their original form, and not mixed in with other ingredients. Recently I realized that I can not tolerate raw eggs at all. Eating them gives me an instant headache and brain fog that won't go away for a day. This has been a big limitation when my restricted diet has me basing my meals by necessity on animal proteins; fish, chicken, meat, and eggs.
I had thought that perhaps everyone suffers from eating raw eggs but realized this could not be true considering how beloved raw cookie dough is in our culture. Reading this post about how Primal Parent Peggy Emch has eaten a mostly raw meat diet was the clincher in my realization that there was a deeper reason behind my egg problem and that I had to get to the bottom of it, if only to allow me a bit more variety in my lunchbox.
Dr. John B. Symes, on his website, coined the phrase "secondary food intolerance" to refer to situations where a person like me, with numerous food intolerances, can be negatively affected by eating the meat or eggs of an animal that was fed a diet of grains (including wheat) and soy. I had been skeptical of this in the past, partly because of this study which said most people with a soy allergy will not react negatively to the proteins in soy lecithin and soy oil. (Though, after a bit of experimenting, I am the exception to this rule as well.)
It was easy enough to test whether I was reacting to remnants of chicken feed in the eggs I eat because eggs are marketed based on what the chicken producing them are fed. This week there was a sale on Omega 3 eggs at my grocer. Omega 3 eggs come from chickens who have been fed an diet that contains less grains and soy and is enriched in omega 3 containing foods. If what Dr. Symes said was true, I could eat the egg from a chicken fed less wheat and soy and feel less negative symptoms afterwards.
I won't leave you in suspense. I ate a raw egg that was mixed into what would eventually become chocolate coconut pudding and had no negative reaction. I celebrated by jumping around the kitchen with my husband, who is now in mourning that our egg budget is going to substantially increase, and finished making my pudding.
In order to make sure this was not a one time fluke, I will continue to experiment with regular eggs and pasteurized eggs as well, which have even more nutritious benefits than the omega 3 ones, and should contain less traces of wheat and soy.
I'm also painfully coming to the conclusion that I am going to have to do this experiment on chicken as well. Since buying pasteurized chicken is going to get expensive, I'm not looking forward to it. But I have already concluded from my observation of my diet of the past few months that I feel best when eating mostly wild caught fish and grassfed beef, which at least seems to mean that I should try eating alternate sourced chicken before making any permanent diet changes.
