Download and print: Elimination-Challenge Diet

The main idea of an elimination diet to eliminate virtually all of the foods you regularly eat and eat foods you don’t consume regularly for a period of two weeks and then begin reintroducing regularly-eaten foods to the diet to see if you actually react to any of them. The more severe the problem the more restrictive the elimination diet needs to be. The old Naturopathic elimination diet used to be nothing but lamb and pears for 2 weeks before beginning reintroduction of other foods (trust me, you get pretty sick of lamb or pears by the end of 2 weeks!). In some severe cases, the best approach is a 5-day water fast, followed by slow introduction of well-cooked fruits and vegetables followed by the introduction of proteins and some grains.