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20
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Potato Intolerance
Potato the least offensive food when tested
Lots of people, including me, avoid potato in their diet. Hard to understand why when according to YORKTEST a potato intolerance, is the least likely to come back on their intolerance test results. Out of eight thousand food intolerance test resuts less than 1% tested had a potato intolerance.
I have recently been reintroducing some amounts of potatoes back into my diet and so far I am having a bit of a foodie revelation. Can’t tell you how good even just a small jacket potato tasted last night with a huge plate of veggies, it was a revelation.
One of my food intolerance’s is gluten, which means lots of foods are out that often accompany dishes and provide the carbohydrates of a meal. So having potato back in my life does make things a little easier, especially when a few chips are thrown in the mix. I was never really a big chip fan before, but a small chips side dish, in what I call a posh pub, now and again really are going down a treat so its a relief to know that I don’t have a potato intolerance.
Lots of people avoid potato, due to the high numbers of people now on low carb diets, meaning the potato is consigned to the sin bin for lots of people. So what is the low down on the humble potato and why does it get such a bad wrap. With this news on the potato intolerance low down I am on a mission to investigate. So people let us know your potato thoughts and stories.
- Published by Miranda in: Being a Fussy Foodie
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21 Responses to “Potato Intolerance”
We hear so much about ’superfood’ grains like quinoa and couscous that we seem to have neglected the poor potato so it’s great to be reminded . Potatoes are a great, cheap staple and so long as we keep the portion size sensible and don’t add saturated fats (as may be the case with roast potatoes, potato salad, etc), they are a very healthy part of a balanced diet, especially for those for whom wheat or gluten is off the menu.
I have a potato intolerance- if I eat potatoes, I get outbreaks of folliculitis all over my back and my thighs. If I don’t eat potatoes, my skin is clear (aside from the occasional small pimple due to hormonal changes.)
I’ve battled folliculitis for years with no results from modern medicine, and turned to a Naturopath for dietary help. In a matter of a month following a strict diet, my constant outbreak of boils has disappeared. I was on antibiotics for years and never had such amazing results as I did when I simply cut out certain foods (Potatoes being the main one- I was already lactose intolerant so cutting that out wasn’t even a problem!)
Hi Nicole, thank you for posting your comment, it definitely opens our eyes to hear about our readers experiences.
You must be so relieved to have identified whats causing your folliculitis – I wonder if they can identify what it is within potato that causes your condition to flare up?
It’s frustrating that modern medicine can often discount food intolerances when trying to find the cause of medical conditions, particularly when you’ve been on anti biotics for years! This just goes to show that looking at your diet and the effect foods are having on your body should definitely be considered as part of the investigation when people are suffering from medical conditions.
I’m glad you’ve eventually had positive results. Keep us posted with how you get on with your new eating regime!
I also have a potato intolerance – I have now avoided potatoes for 13 years, and if I ever break down and have a few french fries or potato chips I get symptoms within a few hours. Symptoms for me are: depression, sluggish thinking, lethargy, irritability, anxiety, and my voice very quiet and comes out in a monotone. For years I struggled with these symptoms, thinking that it was just me and that I could somehow work through it with personal growth and better management of my emotions. I also had a difficult time making and keeping friends, and was painfully shy. It affected every area of my life.
I discovered my potato intolerance by accident, after having tried all sorts of things to find the source of my “mood” problem, when my mother was telling me about some muscle testing she had done (which I am skeptical about) that included potato. Something she said made me consciously link my problem moods with eating a lot of potatoes, and I completely eliminated them from my diet. My symptoms completely stopped, and three months later when I deliberately ate a potato-leek cup-o-soup for lunch, they recurred within the hour.
I would be surprised if more people didn’t have the same issue, but I know that it can be very difficult to be taken seriously with less common intolerances. Trust your instincts!!
An addition to my previous post: the symptoms that went away completely were UNEXPLAINABLE bouts of depression, sluggish thinking, lethargy, irritability, anxiety, etc. Of course all of these can occur within context of events in my life even without eating potato, but they are rare and have a more obvious source (like lack of sleep, dehydration, work stress, etc.). And I still had bad social habits stemming from my shyness and lack of practice with people, so I had to learn how to “be” in the world at the age of 27. Long story less long: I think eliminating potatoes made it possible for me do this.
Hello Jenny thanks for sharing your story, amazing how extreme the reactions can be and how little support there is out there for true food intolerances. Fantastic that you managed to work it out and now living a much happier full life because of no potatoes.
Hi there, i suffer from soya, gluten, nut, fruit and potato intollerance/allergy, my life is an actual living nightmare, at the moment i live off meat, certain veg & dairy foods mainly. i cant do anything with my friends because of unbearable embarrassing symptoms, i am so lethargic that just moving makes me tired and dizzy. my nose is always runny/blocked, my body aches/ my skin is bad, so many problems, at the moment im having really bad digestion problems. the worst part is the stress of having not much help and trying to convince people that this is genuine. i have loads of time off work and i am depressed, i actually dont know how im coping but i just am, the doctors are trying to help me but even avoiding my allergens doesnt seem to be helping me much so i feel helpless, what else could it be?!!!!! sorry, just needed to express my story
Morning Mark
Thanks for getting in touch – and I know where u are coming from! I am no doctor or nutritionist but I can def share my experience and point you in the direction of where to get some help and also how you can help yourself too.
It would help me if I had a bit more information…
1) Might seem random question do you like cooking?
2) Are you eating sugar?
3) What’s a typically day to what you might eat?
4) What is your tongue like – any cracks, bite marks, whiteness, soreness? (really good indication of health)?
5) Do you take any tablets?
6) How long have you had the symptoms and any ideas of the trigger to it all starting?
I might have more questions from that, would love to help you out.
I found getting any support medical or otherwise really tricky. One day I had a realisation tho that I had to sort this out and get myself back and healthy again, was tough at the time but really worth it now. Still have symptoms that I started with but much milder and feel like I have my life back which is a great feeling. So if you can try to keep positive – there are lots of tasty feel good foods that I think you can have, which we can move on to.
I look forward to hearing from you again
Miranda
hay good info, just nice to know I wasent being a hypo about how my body reacted to the tater. I thought maybe I was kinda nutz.its a good thing to listen to our body.
I am 27 and found out I had leaky gut and candida in January of 08. I have since been on the candida diet and supplements to try and restore my system. Along with that, the Alcat test resulted in my being intolerant to beef, white potato, can sugar, wheat, yeast… to name a few. It is very hard to live without all these and maintain a healthy balanced diet. I found it quite odd to have a severe intolerance to white potato. I dont know exactly what it does to me, because I have so many constant symtpoms that its hard to distinguish what is causing what.
My 2-1/2 year old daughter has a severe vomiting reaction to potatoes and eggs. It started about a year ago when she was 18 months and took us 6 months and 10 episodes to figure it out by process of elimination and food logs. She had some blood allergy tests done and all came back negative, even egg. They didn’t test for potatoes since it wasn’t suspected at the time. But it has been reconfirmed for us a couple of times when we accidentally gave her food containing either potato or egg. Within a couple of hours of eating it she will have sudden rapid-fire vomiting until she is completely empty. Then after resting a few hours she is absolutely back to normal. Has anyone else had a similar experience? I can’t find anything with these symptoms anywhere.
I am 34 and after many years of suffering with IBS, chronic urticaria (every day for most of the year), sleep problems, arthiritus (caused again by the potatoes affecting my bones), major water retension, etc, etc, I had a MORA test and was told that I was allergic to potatoes and it was practically poisoning my body that I would need to completely cut them out of my diet. My problem is that other than potatoes cooked in various ways and crisps, how would I know what other foods contain potatoes? They have gluten free products out there now, but no potatoe or potatoe starch free products that I know of. After completely removing potatoes from my diet I no longer suffer from urticaria and other syptoms are improving, but I had a pot noodle yesterday and rushed to the toilet. I looked at the packaging and noticed it had potato starch in. Can anyway tell me where I can get a list of foods containing potato or anything associated with it as I really struggling at the moment. I am going back to the doctors in two weeks, but wanted to see if there is anywhere I can get this information from first.
Many thanks in advance
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
I am a bit concerned that you were told potatoes were poisoning your body. Allergies can be diagnosed by antibody (IgE) tests and I don’t think the MORA test does this so am somewhat sceptical about the allergy diagnosis. Also, I really can’t see why your bones would be affected by potatoes – potatoes won’t deplete your bones unless you ate nothing else and therefore became calcium or vitamin D deficient.
Anyway, it’s great that your symptoms are improving but the only way to completely avoid potato will be to check the labels of pretty much everything. Potato starch is used in alot of foods (particularly processed and packet foods) but you will soon learn which types of foods are most likely to contain it. There are alot of ingredients in a pot noodle – can you be sure it was the potato starch that caused your diarrhoea? To properly test the theory you need to reintroduce a small quantity without any other potential problems foods – but this should only be done with intolerances, not allergies as allergic reactions can be serious.
Hope this helps
I am so glad I found this thread! I think I have potato intolerance but it sounded so silly I didn’t trust my insticts and have done nothing about it. Last week I was so fed up with my symptoms (exactly the same as yours Jenny! To the letter!) that I gave up wheat thinking that might be the cause. After a week of not feeling much different I had a piece of toast and although I felt dizzy and got a headache immediately I’m not sure if that was a reaction or not. You know when you are expecting something you can almost make it happen?
After tea tonight (a roast veg medley type thing) I felt my body almost shouting at me. It’s the potato! I’ve always felt a crushing sensation in my chest after potato, especially jacket potato and felt heavy and low afterwards. I just always think I’ve eaten too much, but now I’m certain it’s an intolerance.
So, starting tomorrow I’m going to go potato-free. For a couple weeks at least and see if I feel better. Thank you for sharing and especially Jenny who sounds so similar for a moment I thought it was me!
btw. I also had a muscle allergy test thing, was coaxed into it by my mother when I was a teen and I had such a reaction to…wait for it…potato, that I almost fell to the floor. And I’m sceptical about that alternative medical practice too, lol!
Hi again, I’ve been scouring the net for more info and came across this:
http://www.allergiesexplained.com/20-Potato-and-other-foods-can-cause-eczema.htm
Makes very interesting reading if you’ve got five minutes to spare. The testing I mentioned in my previous comment is mentioned at the end.
Thanks for this post Claire!
I’ve been sick for 3 years with reflux, gas, bloating, loose stools back pain, pain under my rightside ribcage. I’ve had an endoscopy, normal, ultrasounds on all organs, normal. Have just gone off gluten to try amd find out if this is what is making me sick, Felt really good for a few days when my husband was on nightshift and I was having salad for dinner. I have had pototoes for the last few nights and symtoms are back and it accured to me it might be potato so I’ll go off them for a while and see if this helps. Thanks for your help.
I think I’ve got a potato intolerance or should I say a ‘Nightshade’ intolerance as I get crippling stomach cramps within the hour of eating pototoes, peppers (yellow especially), tomatoes and aubergines.
Eating too much of any of these have made me suffer from Colitis where my colon just seizes up – not nice, I tell you. I’m just glad that it’s not just me having ‘banned food’ lists to give friends when going for dinner!
Hello,
I started looking for answers on the internet today after once again feeling the side affects of eating boiled new potatoes. I had never heard of a potato allergy/intolerance before and could never be sure that the potatoes were what was causing my problem. I can eat chips, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes but it seems that as soon as you include the skin i.e. baked potatoes or new potatoes I have a problem. Literally a few minutes after eating a potato with skin on I get severe stomach cramps followed by Diarrehea. As soon as I have been to the loo and it’s all out of my system I am fine again. I have no other food intolerances/allergies and am otherwise healthy. I guess no more new potato or jackets for me!!
Hello! I just ran across this blog and wanted to post my experiences with potatoes/tomatoes.
For several years I have been suffering with acne on my jawline and neck. My doctor has been telling me it is hormones and I’ve been taking oral antibiotics, topical antibiotics, retin-A cream, and birth control for years to control it. However, my problem continues. It all started 8 years ago when I was pregnant with my son. I began having acid reflux, digestive issues and acne at the same time. I took prescriptions for years for the acid reflux, too (after the pregnancy).
However, I’ve noticed that the stomach issues seem to flare up after I have eaten tomatoes or potatoes, or anything containing these products. So for years I have avoided eating certain things containing large amounts of these foods. After a long period of time, I started adding these back into my diet in small amounts.
I have discovered that even small amounts of tomato such as in pizza can cause my face to break out badly. My symptoms are far worse (acne and stomach issues) if I eat a more concentrated amount of tomato or potato.
I am, starting today, going to totally restrict all forms of potato and tomato from my diet. I plan on checking every label of everything I eat because I know that many things contain potato flour, etc. I know it is not going to be easy, but hopefully I can get off of all these prescriptions and straighten this out once and for all! Thanks for reading!
I cannot believe I have found all you guy’s – I thought I was going mad!!! Helen Chalk – my experience is the same as your’s – to the letter!!! But I find it strange that this has just developed in the last year??
I ate a piece of macaroon – traditionally made with potatoe – and the same occurance about 10 mins after eating!!
You can have your food intolerances tested by a naturopath. It changed my life. Everyone has one primary and one combined secondary. My primary is potato, and my combined is dairy and grain. Potato has to be avoided altogether, and dairy and grain eaten 4 hours apart. After losing my appendix and having years of abdominal and gut issues, I am happy and healthy.
Potato is not just avoiding potatoes and fries. It is anything with enriched flour, (niacin, riboflavin, etc…) and dextrose. Avoid all. Yeast has it too except for Red star.
I breastfeed and if I slip up and eat my intolerances, it contaminates my milk and my baby has eczema and diarrea and is miserable.
If you want happy healthy children, get them tested before they start solids.
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