Though you might think that only indoor and outdoor allergens can effect your mold allergies, there are many foods that trigger an allergic response.
Trigger foods include fungus foods, like mushrooms, and yeast foods like soured breads, as well as foods made with vinegar, like mayonnaise, salad dressing, ketchup, mustard, green olive and most chili sauces.
The odd thing about food related allergies is that some of these foods might cause problems one day but not much of a problem on another day. This is due to your body's response to environmental allergies. Picture your allergies like a bucket. When the bucket is full with environmental allergies, adding a food related allergen overflows the bucket and causes an allergic response. When outdoor allergens are low, adding an food related allergen might not have the same effect because there is still room in the bucket.
General foods that you should avoid including the ones listed above:
- all types of cheeses including cottage cheese, though you might not have as much of a response with hard cheeses as you do with soft cheeses.
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- sour cream, yogurt and buttermilk
- alcoholic beverages like beer and wine
- sauerkraut
- ciders
- pickled and smokes meat and fish like bacon, sausage and hot dogs
- all dried fruit and dried meats like jerky
- any type of store bought canned tomatoes
- sugar
- yeast foods like baked goods and desserts
The best way to identify which of the above foods effect your mold allergies is to keep a food diary. Read all food labels, then identify the foods that trigger allergy symptoms and write down your reaction after eating, including no reaction. Keep a written journal for at least four weeks. You will find that some of these foods may not effect your allergies, others may cause problems immediately after ingestion no matter how good or bad your environmental allergies are on any given day.