Best At-Home Food Sensitivity Tests

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FAQs

What Is the Difference Between a Food Allergy, a Food Intolerance, and a Food Sensitivity?

There are important distinctions between a food allergy, intolerance, and sensitivity. The primary difference is that a food allergy is an immune response triggered by a particular protein in a specific food, whereas a food sensitivity or intolerance is a digestive response to a food that is not life-threatening. There are eight foods identified in the U.S. as being responsible for the majority of food allergies: cow’s milk, eggs, fish, peanuts, shellfish, soy, tree nuts, and wheat. And in 2020, the FDA started encouraging voluntary labeling of sesame on ingredient lists (for example, if the sesame paste tahini is used, the label should say “sesame” and not just “tahini”) due to rising reports of sesame allergies.

Severe food allergies are most accurately diagnosed from a skin prick test or blood test that will measure the body’s production of antibodies, known as Immunoglobulin E (IgE), which the body produces as a way of protecting itself. Some people with food allergies cannot even consume trace amounts of the food without experiencing serious or even potentially life-threatening reactions. Therefore, those with food allergies need to be hypervigilant about cross-contamination during meal preparation with utensils, cutting boards, serve-ware, and cooking equipment.

Food intolerances and sensitivities, on the other hand, will vary in severity based on the amount of the trigger food that is consumed. For example, those with lactose intolerance, which is classified as an intolerance and not an allergy, may be able to tolerate a small piece of hard cheese but would have severe discomfort after drinking a whole glass of milk. Similarly, those with intolerance to a group of fermentable carbohydrates called FODMAPS (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols) can also tolerate small amounts but will experience digestive discomfort with increased intake. A food sensitivity is not a clinically defined term but is used commonly to describe any type of discomfort or negative symptom that occurs after eating specific foods; food sensitivities may or may not include a food intolerance but should not be used interchangeably with a food allergy. Food intolerances can often be diagnosed with the hydrogen breath test but for other food sensitivities, an elimination diet is an effective tool to identifying trigger foods. Some of the tests highlighted here may help narrow down a selection of foods to use as a starting point prior to elimination.

What Are the Symptoms of a Food Sensitivity vs. a Food Allergy?

Symptoms of a food sensitivity are commonly linked to the digestive system and can include diarrhea, bloating, nausea, reflux, and/or abdominal pain, but they also may include skin rashes, headaches, and fatigue. Symptoms may present themselves within a few hours of eating the food or be delayed by up to 48 hours, making it difficult to diagnose the trigger food. Symptoms can also vary based on the amount of trigger food ingested.

Food allergies, on the other hand, can cause digestive problems but also hives, swollen airways, and even life-threatening anaphylaxis. Researchers estimate that 32 million Americans have food allergies, including 5.6 million children under age 18 (that’s 1 in 10 adults and 1 in 13 children). Some children outgrow their food allergy as they get older, particularly allergies to milk, eggs, wheat, and soy, but allergies to tree nuts, peanuts, fish, and shellfish are usually lifelong. It is also common for children with a food allergy to be allergic to more than one food.

Are Results of At-Home Tests Accurate?

The options in our list use the most scientifically backed tests available for home use, but there may still be some limitations. The best way to confirm a food sensitivity is to follow up with an elimination diet that removes a set of potential trigger foods and, if symptoms resolve, adds them back one by one to narrow down the foods causing the symptoms.

Using the hydrogen breath test is an approved method of diagnosing certain food intolerances, but it is still recommended to follow up with a physician after taking the home test to officially diagnose and manage your intolerance. Similarly, for any IgE tests that aim to identify allergens, individuals should speak with a doctor to discuss their results to rule out any potential false positives.

IgE vs. IgG Tests

Allergen-specific IgE tests measure your antibody response to specific foods. The IgE test also focuses on the specific types of antibodies that are directly associated with allergic reactions. On the other hand, the IgG tests commonly used in some food sensitivity testing platforms can be misleading because higher levels of IgG may also be a normal response to increased or repeated exposure to a certain food and actually indicate the body’s tolerance to that food rather than correlate with a sensitivity or intolerance. The risk of IgG tests is that they may prompt people to eliminate too many foods unnecessarily because of misleading positive results.

IgG tests are not endorsed by the medical community or organizations such as the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Methodology

Over a dozen at-home tests were considered when researching for this article. Factors taken into consideration for the final list were the method of testing, use of certified labs, the company’s support in the clinical and scientific community, customer reviews, and pricing. Cerascreen, for example, was chosen because of its ability to test for both IgE and IgG if the consumer wants both options. We selected FoodMarble because of its focus on food intolerances that affect the digestive system in real-time.