It is very unlikely that it is a true food allergy, which are almost always immediate reaction. Blood test for food allergies are very clear cut, there is no doubt in the result.

However food intolerance/ sensitivities reactions are often delayed, and extremely difficult to pinpoint and often manifest in behavious changes. I started to suspect my son is gluten intolerant around age 2.5 solely based on behaviour.
He slows down, constantly tired, and generally looks/ act like a zombie when he is eating wheat. When I took him off from wheat , he became so much more active, alert etc. My husband was totally sceptic and we went back and forth from gluten like 4-5 times and every time things improved within a month.

Beside wheat , there is still something else, but we still couldn't figure out. And i could write a book about how freaking difficult to figure it out in a child. This something else makes my son act like crazy , not angry, but totally unreasonable, and unable to focus.. Like tantrums that 2 yrs old have ,and he is 5 and never been that kind of kid.

We have been consulting a naturopath for a while, but so far no help. There are a couple of blood test for food intolerances like ALCAT and ELISA, they are super expensive $300-$1000 , and the result is highly debatable. Most western medicine doctors totally reject the test,however all naturopaths use them learn about them etc. The problem is they are not super accurate( can have false positives) but they can be a good starting point. We bit the bullet and did the ELISA, which confirmed both gluten and gliadin ( other type of grain protein), but also showed a bunch of other things like whey, and eggs. The naturopath said, the suggestion is to cut them out for 3-6 months and , slowly reintroduce to see. Cutting of dairy was not easy, but cutting of eggs was hell. We didn't make to 6 months, but stick to it 6 weeks. Didn't help , and actually things worsened, these crazy episodes got more frequents. We reintroduced some dairy and the eggs, but very limited processed food. Of course no gluten and things are improved a lot lately. Sometime he comes home from school and he acts out and almost always turns out that somebody had a birthday and they ate cake or similar junk. Interestingly there was a birthday recently that didn't resulted in this( probably homemade cake) I suspect some dye or additives or other nasty chemicals.

Our nautoropath suggested to keep a food journal and record everything he ate and his sleep and mood patterns to help. i am trying , but it is a lost cause with a small child. He won't remember by the evening if his buddy at school gave him a bite of a gummy worm or something.
For your husband , a food journal might work though. Good luck!

I don't understand why going Primal/Paleo is not an option since I've come to realize that no food is worth being sick over. I too love pizza but it's not the crust that I want, so I still have the toppings (on vacation) or make a meatza. All of my depression and most of my severe anger issues have been resolved by diet. The same can be said for my daughter as well who has a natural "spirited" nature and also has a mom who freaks out and doesn't always deal with situations appropriately- so some of her tendencies may be genetic and definitely environmental, but the food has still made a HUGE difference. For me and her.

Food journaling is a must. That's how I discovered that nightshades were responsible for the joint pain that wasn't immediately resolved by a ketogenic Primal diet. I can still eat nightshades in moderate amounts and only had to eliminate them totally for a couple of weeks. When I feel a tad achy I just cut them out again for a few days. So there is hope; if they can isolate the cause, the problematic food could be eliminated to resolve the issue and then carefully reintroduced later on.

One more thing that my naturopath suggested: probiotics !
Many food sensitivities/ intolerances are result of a leaky gut syndrome, and if the gut lined heals the problem solves itself. You need to improve the good bacterial flora there.
Fermented products, probiotic yogurts, or just simply get probiotics in health stores. My naturopath said thing that do not need refrigeration are not really good . There are many brands for your hubby, but there are a few brand especially for children. My naturopath gave HMF brand for my son and it seem to be helping.

I've little doubt a lot of people have read about it, or know someone that has had this issue, but I'm particularly curious to see if anyone has personally experienced it or dealt with a close family member (spouse, child, etc) that has had to deal with this. Did you manage to pinpoint the trigger(s)?

My husband (and potentially my son) have experienced unexplained anger the past couple of days. My husband is convinced that it was the pizza he ate from a pizza place he only rarely eats at. Of course, since it's a restaurant, getting a hold of all of the ingredients is going to be difficult.

I'm trying to get him to agree to allergy testing, but he doesn't think it will work, because it's a delayed reaction (the rage won't build until a few hours after eating a food - so shortly before bedtime if the trigger was at dinner, or around dinner if it was at lunch).

I also know the consensus here is obviously going to be "get rid of the SAD food," and I'd love to do that, but he's an admitted pizza addict, and my son's in daycare and at the age where I'm happy to see him eat anything. Additionally, in trying to find answers, I've found that this type of allergic response can happen with "real" foods, too (ie - not just Red Dye #40, but any kind of food), and since the trigger is likely an additive of some sort, such as an herb or spice (they're both fine with pizza from other places), and not something obviously unique to this pizza shop, it makes it next to impossible to try to even start to pinpoint the cause.

Does anyone have an familiarity with this, particularly from some kind of unexpected food or ingredient and not the usual wheat/dairy/nightshade culprits? How did you manage to find the cause?

Thanks in advance to anyone that can offer some insight and help.

Yes! Gluten does that to my dh (even in small amounts), and if he gets too much casein. It makes him easily annoyed and downright nasty, and if it's a bad reaction he gets paranoid and irrational, too.

We found this out when he was taken off gluten as a treatment for brain fog and adrenal exhaustion, and he mellowed out, and then (because he decided that diet really didn't make that much of a difference) when he ate gluten, and the nasty guy re-emerged, the rest of us made the connection. He doesn't understand it, though. He says he doesn't feel any different. He doesn't believe us when we tell him what a difference it makes.

I came to be paleo/primal because of wheat making me angry. Among other things - inflammatory stuff mostly - my main issue was unexplained depression, rage and overall irritability that had "no explanation." Once I remove wheat/grains the problem is resolved within 4 weeks. I was infuriated over nothing most of the time, sometimes to the point of sobbing for days without explanation. I thought I was crazy!!!!! No bread - no problem.

As for PIZZA TIME I recommend Against The Grain pizzas, which you can usually find in Whole Foods or preferably (cheaper) at Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers, and some supermarkets have them. These are completely gluten free but with none of the usual GF gross stuff - just eggs, cheese and tapioca flour, spices. I don't eat them often because they are very heavy but when I want pizza they are SUPER DELISH without me having to eat bread at all. Against the Grain also makes some decent rolls and bagels also for those times when you just really want some bread.

My younger sister had a lot of food allergies/intolerances when she was growing up (she's...27 now) - she wouldn't keep foods down, was the main symptom (not even breast milk as an infant). As she grew older, some stuff she could keep down - but wheat my mom would only let her have once a week (pizza with mushrooms only - she was still intolerant of dairy and tomatoes at that point), due to it making her cranky. I don't remember exact details now, as it's been 20+ years, but I do remember that much.

I've never paid too much attention if my mood is altered after eating something with wheat - I usually get tummy troubles, joint aches, brain fogginess. I'm usually cranky from all that, lol.

Edit: I have found my symptoms to wheat can vary - I think it's based on source and amount. Could be something with this particular restaurant's ingredient sources?

I've little doubt a lot of people have read about it, or know someone that has had this issue, but I'm particularly curious to see if anyone has personally experienced it or dealt with a close family member (spouse, child, etc) that has had to deal with this. Did you manage to pinpoint the trigger(s)?

My husband (and potentially my son) have experienced unexplained anger the past couple of days. My husband is convinced that it was the pizza he ate from a pizza place he only rarely eats at. Of course, since it's a restaurant, getting a hold of all of the ingredients is going to be difficult.

I'm trying to get him to agree to allergy testing, but he doesn't think it will work, because it's a delayed reaction (the rage won't build until a few hours after eating a food - so shortly before bedtime if the trigger was at dinner, or around dinner if it was at lunch).

I also know the consensus here is obviously going to be "get rid of the SAD food," and I'd love to do that, but he's an admitted pizza addict, and my son's in daycare and at the age where I'm happy to see him eat anything. Additionally, in trying to find answers, I've found that this type of allergic response can happen with "real" foods, too (ie - not just Red Dye #40, but any kind of food), and since the trigger is likely an additive of some sort, such as an herb or spice (they're both fine with pizza from other places), and not something obviously unique to this pizza shop, it makes it next to impossible to try to even start to pinpoint the cause.

Does anyone have an familiarity with this, particularly from some kind of unexpected food or ingredient and not the usual wheat/dairy/nightshade culprits? How did you manage to find the cause?

Thanks in advance to anyone that can offer some insight and help.

This seems a little out there.

At the end of the day, your food is not responsible for your emotional state. You are. It comes across to me as making excuses for ****ty behavior.

Sorry if that's a bit too harsh....but that's what I thought as soon as I read it.

I've little doubt a lot of people have read about it, or know someone that has had this issue, but I'm particularly curious to see if anyone has personally experienced it or dealt with a close family member (spouse, child, etc) that has had to deal with this. Did you manage to pinpoint the trigger(s)?

My husband (and potentially my son) have experienced unexplained anger the past couple of days. My husband is convinced that it was the pizza he ate from a pizza place he only rarely eats at. Of course, since it's a restaurant, getting a hold of all of the ingredients is going to be difficult.

I'm trying to get him to agree to allergy testing, but he doesn't think it will work, because it's a delayed reaction (the rage won't build until a few hours after eating a food - so shortly before bedtime if the trigger was at dinner, or around dinner if it was at lunch).

I also know the consensus here is obviously going to be "get rid of the SAD food," and I'd love to do that, but he's an admitted pizza addict, and my son's in daycare and at the age where I'm happy to see him eat anything. Additionally, in trying to find answers, I've found that this type of allergic response can happen with "real" foods, too (ie - not just Red Dye #40, but any kind of food), and since the trigger is likely an additive of some sort, such as an herb or spice (they're both fine with pizza from other places), and not something obviously unique to this pizza shop, it makes it next to impossible to try to even start to pinpoint the cause.

Does anyone have an familiarity with this, particularly from some kind of unexpected food or ingredient and not the usual wheat/dairy/nightshade culprits? How did you manage to find the cause?

Thanks in advance to anyone that can offer some insight and help.

This seems a little out there.

At the end of the day, your food is not responsible for your emotional state. You are. It comes across to me as making excuses for ****ty behavior.

Sorry if that's a bit too harsh....but that's what I thought as soon as I read it.

I completely disagree. Serotonin production almost completely occurs in the gut. There are certain foods that if I eat when put me in a terrible mood (donuts for example). Secondly, if you insulin production and bloodsugar is out of whack (which is primary caused from refined carbs) it can cause mood changes.