The Hidden Root of Random Food Sensitivities That Don't Make Sense
Episode 295
This episode is a short, spicy reframe on food allergies / sensitivities / intolerances—especially the ones that don’t “make a sense” (yes, we said it like that). We’re talking about those weird, random reactions that don’t match the whole “food family” (ex: you can’t drink milk but you can eat ice cream… what?). Nicole shares a real-life example from Italy: a friend with postpartum gallbladder symptoms and a long-standing “milk issue.” The punchline? Sometimes the body links a food to a high-emotion moment that happened while you were eating/drinking it—especially in childhood—so the reaction isn’t just about the food… it’s about the stored stress pattern attached to it. We’re not dismissing gut/immune issues (those are real), but we are inviting you to ask a better question: When did this start, and what was happening in my life at that exact time? #FoodAllergies #FoodSensitivity #GutHealth #MindBodyMedicine #PsychosomaticHealing #TraumaInTheBody #NervousSystemRegulation #FunctionalMedicine #IntegrativeMedicine #RootCauseHealing #EliminationDiet #HistamineIntolerance #AutoimmuneHealing #HolisticHealth #DemartiniMethod #EmotionalHealing #SubconsciousMind #FightOrFlight #HealingJourney #IntegrativeYouRadio 3 Key Takeaways: If the allergy is random and inconsistent, look at the mind—not just the molecule. If you react to one specific food but not the whole category, there may be a stored emotional association driving the response. Your body stores what your mind couldn’t process. Even if you don’t remember the event, it can still run in the background as anxiety, triggers, fight-or-flight, and “threat” responses—including around food. The goal isn’t an elimination diet forever—it’s resolving the root. Instead of endlessly testing, restricting, and managing, this is an invitation to trace the onset and neutralize the original charge (sometimes with support like guided work, meditation, or hypnosis). Quotes: “ If you have a couple of miscellaneous food allergies that d
Topics: food, unknown, emotional, integrative, sensitivities, stress, root, random
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## The Hidden Root of Random Food Sensitivities That Don't Make Sense
- Consider emotional associations when food sensitivities seem inconsistent or don't fit established patterns.
- A reaction to only one food, rather than a whole food group, may indicate a specific learned emotional response.
- Your body can hold onto unprocessed emotional experiences, leading to physical symptoms, including food reactions.
- Instead of solely focusing on elimination diets, investigate the timing of the sensitivity's onset and any concurrent life events.
Pull quotes
This is the place where you become limitless. **Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior.
We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare.
If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place. **Unknown:** But buckle up, because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive.
Transcript
**Unknown:** Welcome to Integrative U Radio, hosted by Dr. Nick Carruthers and yours truly, Dr. Nicole Rivera. This is the place where you become limitless.
**Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior. We are also covering how those topics affect the human and family dynamics. We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare. If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place.
**Unknown:** But buckle up, because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive. This is Integrative U Radio. What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U Radio.
**Unknown:** We're giving you a really interesting spin on food allergies. It's gonna be short and sweet, I promise. Um, but as, as always, the podcast inspiration always comes from conversations, uh, or experiences that we have in our real life. And, uh, we live in Italy, and, you know, the presence of integrative medicine is, is not really here.
**Unknown:** The, really the presence of, of anything. Like, you know, you go to California or New York, and there's a yoga studio, acupuncturists, chiropractors on every corner, and uh, there's none of that here. Um, but people are very, very open-minded. They do have a tendency to lean towards like homeopathy, and, um, and they tend to not over-intervene, you know.
**Unknown:** Uh, they let kids kinda ride out illnesses and things. So essentially, open-minded, and we've definitely been having some interesting conversations with people that we know here, especially once they hear about what we do and we pique their curiosity. Mm-hmm. Uh, but we, we've been working, um, with, with a friend, and she's definitely just been really, really fascinated about a lot of things that we do.
**Unknown:** Um, our families are almost mirror images with the kids that we have and the ages, and even our dogs, so it's kinda wild. And, um, we've been kind of helping them navigate different things. So anyway, um, we had a baby s- around the same time, and she was having a lot of pain in her right rib cage, and she kept saying, "It's my rib, it's my rib, it's my rib," and we're like, "It's your gallbladder." And sh- after like, I don't know how many times, how many days, weeks, she's like, "Oh my God, what i- what are you talking about? What is happening with my gallbladder?" And um, we started to kind of explain, you know, physically what happens post-pregnancy.
**Unknown:** Um, it's, it is actually very common that there's a stagnancy of bile that can build up in the gallbladder post-pregnancy. Um, it's called intrahepatic cholestasis. Uh, this is something that I saw, uh, many times working with women, uh, postpartum through the practice. So one, there is, uh, th- due to changes in hormones, this is something that can happen.
**Unknown:** Um, but your gallbladder also plays a role, uh, psychosomatically in, um, holding onto anger and bitterness. And so as we got more acquainted with this individual, we, there, we're, there were some family dynamics that were uncovered, um, that were a, a core root or root cause of, uh, of this bitterness, uh, anger that still existed to this day. And, uh, I was kind of advising on, okay, the way your... H- here's a couple things that we can do to help your gallbladder.
**Unknown:** And physically, one, uh, dietary-wise, let's try to cut down on some saturated fats. And she was like, you know, as an Italian, like, "What? What, what does that mean?" And I just said, you know, try not to overdo too much, uh, milk, uh, panna fresca, which is like cream, uh, burro, butter, et cetera. And she's like, "Oh, I haven't been able to drink milk since I was a kid." I was like, "Oh, interesting." I was like, "But you're okay with, uh, cream?
**Unknown:** You're okay with cheese? Uh, you're okay with ice cream?" She's like, "Yeah, I can eat all of those things." I was like, "Okay, that doesn't make sense." So that's kind of what I'm bringing you here in this podcast. There are sometimes you yourself, your kids, your friends, that have food allergies that don't... Food allergies, food sensitivities, food intolerances, let's put them all in the same bucket, that don't make sense.
**Unknown:** So you have an issue with, uh, with beef, but you're fine with all other proteins. You have an issue with shrimp, but you're fine with all other shellfish. You have an issue with milk, but you can eat ice cream. Like it, it doesn't make a ton of sense.
**Unknown:** It doesn't make a sense from the molecular makeup of the food. It doesn't make sense for how the di-... Why are you laughing? 'Cause you go, "It doesn't make a sense." It doesn't make a sense.
**Unknown:** It doesn't make a sense. I'm sorry. I, I try to hold it back. I'm like, "She didn't even know she said it." Immagino.
**Unknown:** It doesn't, it doesn't make a sense. So hey, mamma mia. Oh my Go- Mamma mia. I can't.
**Unknown:** Um, okay. So yes, it doesn't make a sense. When it doesn't a make a sense- ... look at the mind.
**Unknown:** Don't look at the body. Look at the mind to make a sense. Si. You look at the cervello, the brain.
**Unknown:** So we got to talking about this, and I said to her, "That doesn't make sense." And I go, "Okay, I'm gonna throw this out there and you can marinate on it. It might, it might, uh, turn on a light bulb. It might be completely irrelevant." So I'm prefacing with the same exact idea for all of you listeners that have food allergies, is number one, if you have a whole slew of food, food allergies, like a shit ton of things, y- there's probably something fucked up going on in your gut. Let's, let's just call a spade a spade.
**Unknown:** There's probably something going on with your immune system. There's probably something going on with both. If you have a couple of miscellaneous food allergies that do not make sense because it's not an allergy to the whole group of foods or foods that are of similar molecular makeup, like ice cream to milk, l- listen. So I said to her, I go, "This is n- something I've seen, but I started to see it after it was brought to my attention by Dr.
**Unknown:** Demartini." Dr. Demartini, uh, he's a human behavior specialist expert, and we've gone to many seminars with him. Nick is trained as a facilitator in the Breakthrough Experience, which is Demartini's method. But naturally, because Demartini is a doctor, a lot of people would always go to his seminars, and we'd be in like a wealth seminar.
**Unknown:** It'd be like master planning for life, like, you know, how to map out your finances for twenty twenty-six. And people would be like, "Um, Doctor, can you tell me about food allergies?" Like, people always would ask him health questions, and he's brilliant, so he would always answer. But he said something to me in the middle of my career that I was like, "Holy shit." And he essentially said that sometimes we develop food allergies because of a situation or an experience while consuming that food. And he gave a basic example.
**Unknown:** He's like, you know, you're feeding a, a young baby. You're feeding them a carrot, and there is a huge explosive fight that happens. Maybe you're giving your kid carrots consistently, and there's always a fight at dinner time, or there's always a fight around who's gonna feed the baby. And now, later in life, that baby has...
**Unknown:** that child has an, an issue with the digestion of carrots or has a minor food allergy or intolerance to carrots. And I was like, "Holy shit. Like, is that, is that a thing? Like, is that real?" So anyway, fast-forward, you know, two thousand and five, and I'm explaining this idea to my friend who has an allergy or an intolerance to milk.
**Unknown:** And I said, "You know, if there was a situation that you, when you were young and maybe you drank milk, you know, at a certain time with dinner or if for breakfast, et cetera, and during that consumption of milk, you had a experience that was intense for you. It was a high magnitude. It... You could call it a trauma, or you could just...
**Unknown:** It just affected you. It's something that, you know, either affected you in that moment, it's something that got buried in the subconscious, or it's a memory that you can actively remember." And I was like, "That could be part of the puzzle." And I just was like, "This could be completely irrelevant. I'm just throwing it out there." Two days later, she comes back. She goes, "I have been thinking about what you said, and I realized..." She goes, "One, I couldn't eat cereal as a kid.
**Unknown:** If I ate cereal, I had to put water in it, or I had to, uh, eat cereal with orange juice." Like, ew. And she's like, "So I know the timeframe of, like, when that was happening." She's like, "So I was thinking more and more about the days when I was still able to eat cereal with milk." She's like, "And it was right around five years old that I could no longer consume milk with my cereal." And she's like, "And I remembered that I walked in, I heard something, I walked into my parents' bedroom, and my dad was holding my mom up against the closet by her neck because they had a blowout fight." And she goes, "I am almost positive that's the exact timeframe that I was..." Oh, she goes, "And it was at night. I always had a glass of milk right before bed. I got out of bed because I heard the noise, and I went, and I f- that was what I saw." And she's like, "I think it was the exact same timeframe that I could no longer drink milk." I was like, "Holy shit." Like, it doesn't always work out that way when I, you know, say things like this.
**Unknown:** And she's like, "I, I literally..." Like, she's like, "Intuitively, I, I know there is a strong correlation to that experience and the onset of not being able to drink milk anymore." But it shows the brilliance of how the human body stores information that we're not even conscious about. Because the body stores the imbalances of the mind. Hence, if you hadn't listened to our previous podcast, we talk a lot about how the spirit guides the mind, and the mind dictates the body. So the body holds all of the imbalances from our perceptions, from our consciousness.
**Unknown:** If our consciousness perceives something as balanced, then that actually transcends up to our superconsciousness. But when it is imbalanced, then that stress response drops down to our subconsciousness, and that is the programming that our body stores, that our subconscious uses. So then, you know, it's like working with this individual, you couldYeah. It's kind of like a newer thing to you, but you don't always know what I do with people, but it's like, you know, this happens and, you know, in this instance, you know, could be a reaction to overly, overly masculine energy 'cause health is a balance of masculine and feminine, but an overly masculine energy, you know, then there could be, quote unquote, an allergy to that.
**Unknown:** Maybe the dad was wearing a blue shirt. Well, then there's a reaction to blue at the same time. You know, there's a reaction to milk at the same time. Our body stores everything in the environment because the environment that dictates the expression of the particle, as we learn through science, chemistry, epigenetics, et cetera.
**Unknown:** So you have-- What's great is like, you know, she did it all consciously, which is brilliant. Yeah. But if you weren't, and you weren't able to do because you put doors up that you didn't wanna open up, well, that's how meditation and that's how hypnosis and that's how some other tools can allow you to go in without actually experiencing the pain. Because most people go in through their programming, which is subjective and which is imbalanced.
**Unknown:** But if you're guided in a specific way more objectively, you don't have the scare, the fear, the worry, the, you know, speaking to the gallbladder, um, the bitterness that's connected to that. So you do it in a more, in a safe environment to allow connection and awareness to all this information. And then you can use that information and bring it back into a state of balance to heal, quote unquote, the perception of the mind. You transcend that up to super consciousness, and that's when we actually feel grateful for that moment, which is kinda crazy to think about is, you know, how could I be grateful for that moment?
**Unknown:** Because no moment's just bad, no moment's just good. You know? You're not naughty, you're not just nice. You know?
**Unknown:** We're every single trait. We can see where we've actually demonstrated and held-- done a very similar thing. Mm-hmm. Just a different format.
**Unknown:** "Oh, I've never done that." It's like- Yeah. It's like you probably hit a dog, probably disciplined a dog. You probably, you know... I've, I've taken an animal's life hunting.
**Unknown:** Like, we've all done different things, but we just have been taught that this, this form's bad, and this form's good, which isn't really true. It's the, that good and bad is based off of one's values, what's important to them. Or what they believe. Which everybody...
**Unknown:** Yeah. Been told are their values. True, which might not even be true. So it's just, it's just the body's, like in allergies, it's an, an allergy for the most part, on the mental aspect, is connected to an unresolved issue.
**Unknown:** Of course, there's allergies where the body's going to be affected to toxins and chemicals and these things. But you could also argue that that's not really true because the body wouldn't hold onto those toxins and chemicals, et cetera, if it didn't have a charge that it was actually resonating with. But I, I think that an important factor for people to understand with this is that... A couple of things.
**Unknown:** One, if you don't have a great memory of the past, it's usually because your body did that, your mind, your body did that as a protective mechanism. So you are trying to disassociate from painful past memories because it's too much to bear in the conscious mind. So, you know, that was something that she specifically said. She's like, "I don't remember a lot from my, like, childhood, my teenage years, et cetera," and those doors were closed, as, as you mentioned.
**Unknown:** Um, but the thing is, is that even though you don't consciously think about, you know, painful events or traumas or experiences, it doesn't mean that they're not running in, in the, the background of, of your brain. And so what that looks like on the surface is someone who is anxious, someone who is very easily triggered, someone who thinks that, you know, everyone's kind of out to get them, someone who can't get out of fight or flight. Th-this is-- These are things that you really, really have to understand is that, you know, there's all these reasonings for why people are in fight or flight, and it's because, you know, they're hustling, they're working too hard, because of too much blue light with screens. Yes, all of that is extremely relevant, but at the same time is how much shit is stored, how much polarized information is stored in your subconscious, the back of your brain, that is dictating your visceral response.
**Unknown:** So someone comes up to you and says something to you that in their brain was a very benign comment or question, and you're like, "What the fuck does that mean?" You know? It's like, where's that coming from? Is it because you're solely in fight or flight, or is it because that there's a subconscious program of this person, those words is a threat? Is this food a threat, et cetera.
**Unknown:** So this isn't just about regulate your nervous system, you know. It's not just about listen to binaural beats or, you know, go do a spa day every week. Th-that's not necessarily what this is about. This is a, this is an invitation and opportunity to work through the shit that has been holding you back.
**Unknown:** It's to help you have a wider lens on the shit that you presume to be bad, the people you presume to be bad, the rejections that you presume to be bad. Because everything was putting you on your path. Everything was a redirection. Everything played a very specific role for a very specific purpose.
**Unknown:** But if you can't see it, it paralyzes you. And some of the worst things that we judge, especially as a young person, creates our values, what, what we value most. Um, so it's, uh- So this is your new perspective on your food allergies. So I'm gonna recap quickly.
**Unknown:** If you have random isolated foods that you react to that don't make a ton of sense because you respond to one type of protein and not all proteins, you respond-- you react to one type of fat and not all fats, you res- react to one type of dairy and not all dairy, then this is your opportunity to really think about when did it start, and was there a specific event or experience that happened around that time that could have potentially created a reaction to that food. And so instead of you doing all these fancy food allergy tests and, you know, being on elimination diet for the rest of your life or taking dietary enzymes, maybe this is a, your, your invitation to work through whatever that specific event was, experience, challenge, to resolve it at its root. All right, guys. We thank you so much for being an avid listener of Integrative U Radio, formerly known as Integrative Wellness Radio.
**Unknown:** We appreciate all of your support. We love your comments. Please visit us on social media as well as our website to see all of the fun things happening behind the scenes and the new amazing content and courses that is being rolled out on a monthly basis. We hope to see you there.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
Further reading
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