Tolerance Levels - A Tricky Business
It is very easy to fall into the trap of:
“I’m not allergic, I’m just intolerant. I can have a little bit without it affecting me too much...”
We all have different levels of tolerance with sucrose, and it can be very hard to draw the line in the sand. There are many varying factors which will determine whether or not you will react and to what intensity.
For example:
As a child I grew up on bananas and cordial. It is all I ever wanted to eat, and never seemed to have much of an issue. I have now come to the realisation that I may have been self medicating to a degree, as bananas have a binding effect that helps lessen the intensity of a reaction. This of course can lead to over indulgence if you don’t look at it realistically. I have been known to say:
“It’s ok; I’ll have a couple of bananas, that will counteract the effect of that delicious mud cake...”
Of course this isn’t true; if you go overboard on your tolerance levels then you WILL suffer the consequences, regardless of how many wonder fruits you eat.
It is very much a balancing act, bananas can act as a medicinal factor for me, but only if it’s minimal sugars i.e. incidental intake.
Sometimes I can eat a sweet and appear not to have a reaction. This is usually because I have only had one and the concentration of sucrose is minimal. This naturally leads to more next time, like the party I went to a few weekends ago. They had musk sticks and red frogs; everyone tried warning me that I would ‘die’ as a result. I naturally ignored them as my mind was set. They were right of course, 5am the next morning, I was in the bathroom in excruciating pain, vowing for the millionth time to never do that to myself again.
Learning your own tolerance levels is more important, however what’s more important is sticking to them. Is a few seconds of pleasure really worth the hours of agony later....
