[.ca] The Food Allergy Cure: A New Solution to Food Cravings, ... (ISBN 0609809008)

From Amazon.com:
Since she was a young child, Ellen Cutler suffered from constipation, bloating, irritability, cravings, and fatigue from food allergies. She later studied chiropractic with an emphasis on nutrition. Through studying a number of alternative therapies, she developed BioSET--a protocol to treat food allergies and conditions that may be caused by food allergies, such as asthma, headaches, ADHD, and many other disorders. Cutler's theories, conclusions, and treatments may elicit raised eyebrows from M.D. allergy specialists, although they are commonly used by naturopaths. She diagnoses allergies by means of muscle testing: the patient holds a glass vial of the allergen in one hand while the health professional presses down on the other arm, with weakness indicating allergy. Part of her process uses acupressure to stimulate points on the spine to activate energy blocks and reprogram the brain to stop identifying the substance as an allergen. Her treatment includes enzyme therapy. Much of The Food Allergy Cure is a discussion of allergies, their symptoms (which can be just about any ailment, complaint, or condition), causes, and food triggers, with plentiful case studies of Cutler's success with patients. There is very little actual self-help information here. Usually Cutler discusses a condition and its roots in food allergies, and then describes how successful she is in treating patients with this condition using her BioSET system. The only at-home treatments described in the book are muscle testing, acupressure technique, an introduction to detoxifying activities, and a number of dietary suggestions and recipes. Other than that, she advises you to consult a BioSET practitioner (you're directed to the author's Web site for a referral list) and/or order the products she promotes. --Joan Price

This treatment works! It is a God-Send!!!!:
This treatment changed my life. It set me free of every allergy I treated, and I am still self treating more. It is very simple and uses stimulation of the spinal cord to stop allergic reations and reprogram the nervous system to no longer react to certain substances. Seems to good to be true, but it is!!! It is very real and very permanent. A moron could use this procedure. Peace, Levi

Skeptical:
Hold something in a glass jar in your hand and then be diagnosed with what you are allergic to? It is a far reach and this type of quackery should warn you as a reader not to waste your money for this type of nonsense. Don't waste your money.

Ready, set,...huh?:
The Food Allergy Cure convinced me that allergies may indeed be behind my ailments, but it did not provide me with enough information on how to treat myself without buying more expensive products. After reading the entire book and attempting to start my own treatment, I concluded that The Food Allergy Cure is effectively an extended advertisement for Dr. Cutler's BioSET techniques, where you are expected to buy her home testing products or visit a clinic, and for the enzyme vendor she recommends. Below I will describe how I came to this conclusion. I slogged through the first half of the book, which is devoted to selling Dr. Cutler's BioSET treatment techniques without discussing in depth what they are and how they work. I was happy when finally on page 153, Cutler gets to actual diagnosis and treatment techniques. I tried the muscle testing on myself with milk, a known allergen, but my muscles did not weaken when I held a vial of milk. Determined to heal myself, I continued to Chapter 8, where you are told that before you actually test for foods, it's best to first test Level 1, where you "balance the body," testing for "blood, organs, glands, immune system, and enzymes" and then Level 2, where you "clear foods," listing "amino acids, phenolics and biochemicals, minerals, Vitamin C, \oetc.\c" (p. 170). On p. 171, Cutler instructs the reader to begin by testing the blood vial. Fair enough, anyone can prepare a blood vial at home. But how on earth do you get a vial for the rest of Level 1, your "organs, glands, immune system, and enzymes"? I suppose a resourceful person could figure out how to find Level 2 substances "amino acids, phenolics and biochemicals, minerals, Vitamin C, \oetc.\c" at home. I strongly suspect that Cutler expects the reader to order the Food Allergy Kit of vials, described in Appendix 1. Appendix 1 states that the kit contains Level 1 and 2 allergy vials (p. 287). How can a universal kit contain a substance representing the organs, glands, etc. for all human beings, when so many marrow or organ transplants fail due to patients' immune responses? People are all the same under the skin, but in terms of medicine there are limits. If you forgo buying Dr. Cutler's vials and test for foods only, Cutler's anecdotes on patients who went through the full treatment leave you with question of whether or not your treatment would be more successful if you bought the vials, or better yet, actually visited a certified BioSET clinic. Chapter 9 suggests credible detoxification techniques that do not necessarily require further purchases, but Chapter 10 describes enzyme therapy, which involves--guess what--another purchase. Cutler's recommendations dovetail conveniently with the offerings of Wellzyme, which interestingly also sells this book prominently on the website. And a visit to the website shows that a modest regimen of enzymes would quickly add up to the same amount as a modest regimen of prescription drugs on an HMO plan. In this sense, the book's back-cover promises that you can treat yourself with the information in this book without drugs or expensive procedures, are not entirely true. I imagine visits to BioSET clinics are not cheap (I tried to inquire, but no person answers the 800 number on the BioSET website, nor do they return calls), and while enzymes are not technically drugs, they do cost as much as drugs. Chapter 11 outlines diet plans that look remarkably similar to one another (three of four prescribe liberal quantities of vegetables, for example). They also look difficult to follow. It's very well to restrict yourself to two of some fruits per day, but there are other fruits and vegetables that you can eat only 3-4 times per week. If you're a dieter, you can take weekly meal planning in stride, but most of us can't be bothered figuring out which fruits to have daily and which to have only a few times a week. I do believe that these theories have some validity, but the procedures described require a certain suspension of belief. I recommend you borrow this book from the library, read it carefully, and proceed sensibly.

Don't let the skeptics turn you away:
I also was cured of life threatening allergies by using this method. Did I think it was too good to be true? Yes. But after being told by 3 specialists that there was nothing they could do for me I was willing to grasp at straws. It worked for me and I have not taken a pill or made a trip to the emergency room for anaphylactic shock for several years. Please don't let the skeptics keep you from trying such a wonderful chance to change your life. It is pain free and risk free so I would definitely recommend it to anyone. It can't hurt to try!

An Effective Method to Get Rid of Allergies and Autoimmunity:
I had fifteen allergies to things like eggs, wheat, soy, rice, strawberries, etc. and my diet had shrunk to very few foods. But this method got rid of all of them! Also, I have had an autoimmune disease since I was 21 (long time ago) and this method got rid of that permanently. I have not taken a single pain pill or anti-inflammatory drug for that condition since. Because there are over 80 auto-immune diseases, including things like endometriosis, Chron's disease, fibromyalgia, ankylozing spondalitis, etc., the ability to get rid of the "short circuit" in your system that causes part of your system to regard and attack another as the "enemy" is fantastic! I first learned the basic technique in a workshop. We were all given vials of "mosquito" to work with. I know of few people who do not react to a mosquito bite. Shortly after that we went to our son's cabin in the deep woods on a lake in Northern Wisconsin, where mosquitoes are the "state bird." I never put on any mosquito repellant and I did not get bitten one single time even though all the others did. I heard some and I even saw a mosquito come down, fly back and forth about a half inch above my hand and fly away! Two words of caution: the food allergy method works right away, but there are some foods like wheat which are so inherantly allergenic, that even after the treatment, it is wise to stay away from that food; also, taking away autoimmunity simply gets rid of the principal cause, but it takes quite a while for all the symptoms to subside. But they do!