Some people suffer from food allergies very often because they don’t know how to identify their trigger foods. Here’s where an elimination meal plan can help. A food elimination meal plan enables individuals to assess if they’re sensitive to one or more ingredients in their everyday meals. It usually requires the patient to stop eating suspicious foods and then reintroduce them gradually. Here are five food elimination plans that might help identify food allergies.

Basic elimination
This meal plan requires individuals to eliminate gluten-based foods and dairy products from their nutrition regimen. The healthcare expert may tell the patient to reintroduce one or both of these if there’s no change during the exclusion phase. However, people with celiac disease may need to avoid these food items permanently to manage their allergies.

Full elimination
A complete elimination plan excludes shellfish, eggs, corn, soy, soy products, and tree nuts from meals. The foods are systematically reintroduced to the body to narrow down potential allergies. Besides allergies, the method may help diagnose food intolerance.

Nightshade elimination
Nightshade elimination requires patients to exclude foods from the nightshade family, including white potatoes, tomatoes, goji berries, paprika, eggplant, chili peppers, and bell peppers. While most of these foods offer multiple health benefits, someone intolerant to nightshade fruits and vegetables may suffer from food allergies.

Paleo meal plan
This food elimination strategy excludes beans, dairy, sugar, seed oils, grains, and processed foods. Sometimes, a healthcare expert may suggest variations of the paleo meal plan where the individual can include specific dairy products like yogurt and occasional traditional grains.

Specific carbohydrate meal plan
An extremely restrictive process, the specific carbohydrate meal plan excludes all grains, most dairy products, certain legumes, starches, root vegetables, and canned or processed meats and vegetables. The purpose is to help individuals with digestive troubles by removing carbohydrates that may take longer to digest. However, as the plan eliminates many nutritional foods from daily meals, it must be supervised by a healthcare professional.