The story of why I felt I needed to write this cookbook on the low nickel diet for nickel allergy.

Here I am in my third year of medical school and I have finally published the book that I wish I had when I found out that my dyshidrotic eczema (and now I realize, my IBS too) was caused by a nickel allergy. I learned from my dermatologist that in order to get better, I needed to eat low nickel, but I was totally confused by how the heck one does that! All the lists and resources I found were conflicting and confusing to use. There was an app, but it was still a lot of work to use to figure out how much nickel I was eating. The one cookbook I found was full of recipes that included ingredients (sugar and gluten) I knew were not only terrible for my metabolic health but also terrible for my gut health, and therefore would be terrible for keeping nickel out of my bloodstream!

Being a nutritional therapy practitioner, I was able to create recipes that fit into the diet and allowed me to eat below the 150 micrograms per day that is recommended, but I knew that there were so many people out there that deserved better resources. And so, for an end-of-semester assignment for my biology class, I began the cookbook. It turned into a four year project where I had to learn several new skills like food photography, research, using InDesign, building a website, etc. I was also able to get to know and work with several generous specialists around the world to fine-tune and further inform the guide, including Dr. Matthew Zirwas, to reach my ultimate goal:

A resource that makes it as easy as possible to:

Understand what this allergy is and how it occurs.
Learn what foods are low and high in nickel.
Find nickel amounts in ingredients given in normal measurements like teaspoon, tablespoon, and cup so you can easily keep your nickel intake below 150 micrograms.
Pick from 140 gluten, grain, and sugar-free recipes with the nickel amounts already calculated for you per serving.
Tweak things in addition to food that can help to alleviate your symptoms.
Do all of this in as healthful a way as possible!

In the quest to help others alleviate their symptoms as much as possible, I sought not only to make low nickel recipes, but also to offer ideas of ways to modify other aspects of lifestyle that could positively impact success. Instead of adhering to the standard low nickel food lists, laden with sugars, starches, and grains detrimental to gut health, I strived for a more comprehensive approach. By integrating principles from the low FODMAP diet, Mediterranean diet, low carbohydrate diet, and the GAPS diet (a protocol for gut healing), I created a plan that promotes overall wellbeing rather than just addressing specific issues — an approach often overlooked in conventional medicine. These diets, with the exception of the GAPS diet, are acknowledged as the "standard of care" in medical practice and are employed to manage common conditions associated with nickel allergy such as IBS, obesity, inflammation, and metabolic syndrome.

This book may not be the ultimate guide for everyone, but it is a significant step forward that I am immensely proud of. As we continue to raise awareness of nickel allergy and its links to systemic inflammatory conditions including but not limited to IBS, migraines, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, alopecia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, this resource emerges as a valuable tool.

As Dr. Zirwas says, with this book, doctors and nutritionists can finally give people a solution that speaks in their language and is easy to implement.

purchase it here

You can purchase the book here, or on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other retailers.

For more tips on how to approach the low nickel diet, check out the cookbook, The 3 tenets of Low Nickel Diet Success, and the Low Nickel Food Lists

The Book I Needed When I Was Diagnosed With Systemic Nickel Allergy