Why You Should Be Able to Tolerate Most Foods

Restoring your gut–immune balance and reducing food intolerances through cellular support

Do you feel like you react to nearly everything you eat? Bloating after seemingly "healthy" meals, headaches after a square of chocolate, skin flare-ups after a slice of sourdough, or a sudden need to cut out gluten, dairy, FODMAPs, and histamines—just to feel somewhat OK?

This isn’t just sensitive digestion. This is a sign that your gut–immune system is inflamed and overwhelmed because food intolerances are a symptom, rather than a root cause.

Your body was built to tolerate a wide variety of foods. A functioning digestive and immune system should be able to handle the proteins, carbohydrates, and compounds in most foods—even the complex ones—without overreacting.

So why is food intolerance so common now?

The answer lies at the intersection of gut health and immune regulation, especially at the gut–immune interface—where your intestinal lining, immune cells, and microbiome all interact.

The Gut–Immune Interface: Where Food Tolerance Begins

The lining of your gut is home to 70–80% of your immune system. It makes sense when you think about it as this is where we are most vulnerable. Every time we eat or drink, our body needs to be able to fight off possible infection. When the gut barrier becomes compromised (commonly referred to as "leaky gut" or increased intestinal permeability), it allows food particles, bacteria, and inflammatory compounds to cross into areas they shouldn't be. The immune system sees this as a threat and reacts with inflammation, histamine release, and antibody production.

Over time, this chronic low-grade inflammation leads to:

• Increased food sensitivities

• Histamine intolerance

• Fatigue, brain fog, and mood changes

• Skin issues like eczema or acne

• Autoimmune flare-ups (such as joint pain and psoriasis)

And removing more and more foods often doesn’t fix the problem. It may give you some temporary symptom relief but in actual fact it just narrows your diet and negatively impacts the microbiome (which needs a variety of different foods to thrive).

Enter Nrf2: The Master Switch of Cellular Defence

Nrf2 (nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2) is a powerful transcription factor in your cells that controls the expression of over 200 genes involved in:

• Antioxidant defence

• Detoxification

• Anti-inflammatory response

• Cellular repair

When Nrf2 is activated, your body produces more of its own protective enzymes like glutathione, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). These molecules reduce oxidative stress and help calm an overactive immune response at the gut–immune interface.

This is key for people with food intolerances, because:

• It protects gut lining cells from oxidative damage

• It reduces mast cell activation and histamine release

• It helps restore immune tolerance to foods

• It allows the gut barrier to heal and re-establish resilience

How to Activate Nrf2 Naturally

You can support Nrf2 through specific nutrients, herbs, and lifestyle practices. You may be aware that slight stressors such as cold exposure, exercise and sauna are good for the body. This is because they activate Nrf2- they encourage the body to switch on its own cellular defences. Certain herbs and nutrients have similar effects. Sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts is one of the most potent natural activators of Nrf2 and hence it forms the backbone of the GEMM protocol- a program designed to restore the gut-immune interface and hence dampen down food intolerance.

I realise this is a lot of information to take in, especially if this is a different approach to what you’ve tried in the past. If you feel like your body is reacting to everything, the answer isn’t to remove more foods, it’s to repair the gut–immune interface, reduce inflammation, and restore immune tolerance—so you can go back to enjoying food without fear.

Supporting cellular defence via the Nrf2 pathway is one of the most powerful ways to reduce food reactivity from the inside out and this is what I help my clients to do. If you’re sick of your food making you sick, please reach out and book a discovery call.

#guthealth #bloatingrelief #foodfreedom #naturopath #clinicalherbalist #digestivehealth #nourishtoheal #holistichealing #hormonebalance #womenswellness