Yeast are wondrous little one celled plants that turn dough into bread and cider into vinegar. Like molds, yeast are a fungus – and just as apt to cause allergies in people sensitive to fungus. To avoid yeast (and mold) in your diet, you’ll need to steer clear of not only the obvious foods – mushrooms, bread and vinegar – but also certain cheeses, condiments, drugs and nutritional supplements.

Table spells our exactly how to go about eliminating yeast and yeast related foods. As you’ve discovered from our guidelines for other elimination diets, it’s a lot easier to eliminate a food ingredient of only kind if you avoid commercial packaged foods and stick to whole, unprocessed food.

Food Category	Foods You Can Eat, unless Allergic	Foods to Avoid
Meat, poultry, fish and vegetable protein	Beef, veal, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, fish*, shellfish, liver, dried beans and peas, nuts, nut butters	Cold cuts, croquettes, luncheon ham, sausage, swiss steak, commercial fish and meat patties or loaves, hamburger unless 100% beef, meats breaded in batter
Dairy products	Milk, butter, margarine, cottage cheese, cream cheese, farmer cheese, homemade cheese	Milk fortified with vitamins (see Vitamin and mineral supplements, below) buttermilk, malt flavored milk drinks, yogurt, sour cream, most cheese
Eggs	Hard or soft cooked, fried, poached, scrambled
Grain products	Corn and rice products	Cereals containing malt, cereals fortified with vitamins, farina
		Breads made with wheat, rye or graham flour; crackers; dumplings; matzos
		Noodles, pasta
Soups	Bouillon; homemade stock or broth, soups made with permitted foods, creamed soups thickened with milk	Soups thickened with wheat flour, chili
Vegetables	Fresh or frozen vegetables are recommended, although canned are allowed*	Chili peppers, mushrooms, truffles, sauerkraut, tomato sauce
Fruit	Fresh, frozen or dried fruit is preferred, but canned is allowed*	Dried fruit, mince pie, frozen or canned citrus juice (only fresh squeezed citrus juice is yeast free)
Fats and oils	Vegetable oil
Sweets/sweeteners	Honey, homemade jams and jellies (be sure they are free of any trace of mold)	Candy made with malt
Beverages	Carbonate water, herbal tea	Root bear, ginger ale alcoholic beverages, black tea (leaves are fermented)
Condiments and seasonings	Mayonnaise and salad dressing not thickened with wheat flour or containing , garlic, herbs, spices	Catsup, horseradish, meat sauce, soy sauce, pickles
Miscellaneous		Vinegar, brewer’s yeast, baker’s yeast, torula yeast
Vitamin and mineral supplements	Most	B vitamins made from yeast; multiple vitamin supplements containing B vitamins made from yeast; selenium and chromium (trace minerals) derived from yeast
Drugs+		Antibiotic made from mold cultures; tetracyclines; penicillin; mycin drugs; Chloromycetin; Lincocin

Source: Adapted from Basics of Food Allergy, by James C. Breneman (Springfield, III.: Charles C Thomas, 1978).
* See also sections on sulfur additives and sugar.
+ Be sure to check with your doctor before discontinuing any medication.

Testing Additional Foods

If you’ve tried the basic elimination diets outlined so far and still aren’t satisfied that all of your food allergies have been identified, continue to test individual food in the approximate order (most often to seldom) the fall in Common and Uncommon Causes of Food Allergy.

For instance, to test beef, eliminate beef in all form for three weeks. Then eat generous portions of beef for three consecutive meals. If allergic symptoms develop, stop eating beef. If allergic symptoms do not develop, you can probably assume that beef in the same manner.

If all goes according to plan, elimination diets will leave you with list of foods responsible for your allergies. Those foods, of course, should be avoided for several months. Notice we didn’t say ”avoided forever.” Allergies change. After a year or more, you may lose your sensitivity to a food to which you now allergic.

After not eating the food for several months, test it once more. If symptoms reappear, you will have to continue to avoid it indefinitely. If nothing happens, however, you can add that food to your diet intervals of four days longer. If you’ve tested every food in your diet and still have symptoms, the next step is to eliminate food additives or pesticides – or both.