The Everlywell food sensitivity test aims to deliver lab-tested immunoreactivity data to consumers from the comfort of home. If accurate, this can be a game-changer as an affordable way for anyone looking to take charge of their health. In this Everlywell review, let’s see if the Everlywell food sensitivity is test worth it.
Review of: Everlywell
Use: Food Sensitivity Test
Effectiveness
Valuable insights into sensitivities.
Ease of Use
The mail-in kit is very convenient.
Design
Website results clean and simple.
Value
Fair price for a mail-in lab kit.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Summary: Overall, the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test can be a great value for anyone hoping to learn a bit about how their body might respond to certain foods. These insights could help people optimize their diet for physical and mental health.
Keep reading to learn how I'm using my results to lower my stress and anxiety levels and to feel healthier overall.
From $149 (Minus 15% via the above link)
Everlywell Review: Is Their Food Sensitivity Test Worth it?
To see an unboxing of Everlywell, as well as a visual walkthrough of my own online results, be sure the watch my Everlywell review video above!
What is Everlywell? (As Seen on Shark Tank)
In recent years, we’ve seen booming demand for all kinds of at-home lab tests for health or genetic insights. While many of these tests are technically nothing new, the affordability, accessibility, and ease-of-use make them extremely popular.
One popular company offering such tests is Everlywell. In 2017, Everlywell made waves on Shark Tank when CEO and founder Julia Cheek landed a $1 million deal with Lori Greiner.
While Everlywell offers a number of products, this Everlywell review will focus on the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Comprehensive Test.
How Does Everlywell Work?
Using Everlywell is easy. You order your kit, provide a few drops of blood, and mail the kit back. In a few days, you should receive your results via email. The results will detail your approximate food sensitivity levels to a wide variety of different foods (Anywhere from 96 to 204 foods depending on which test you take).
The Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test works by measuring the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels in your blood. Increased levels of IgG can suggest that your antibodies are “attacking” or responding to something in the body; in this case, a certain food.
Interestingly, there is some controversy surrounding the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test, since an IgG test is not the screening method used to detect allergies. Let’s touch on that a bit.
Is Everlywell an Allergy Test?
Nope, the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test is not an allergy test. This is a food sensitivity test.
It is not intended to diagnose food allergies or food intolerances. This can be confusing to some people, and a point of controversy when people don’t fully understand this. But this doesn’t mean it can’t still be useful!
Let’s break down the difference between food sensitivities, food intolerances, and food allergies.
Food Sensitivities vs
Food Allergies vs Food Intolerances
What’s Happening? Food sensitivities often consist of the less obvious effects that our food can have on us. This is measured by IgG antibody reactions to certain foods. While there are still many questions about food sensitivity testing, research has shown that planning an elimination diet with IgG results can help to reduce the symptoms of food sensitivities.
Food Sensitivity Symptoms: Food sensitivities can be difficult to identify since symptoms can occur hours, or even days, after consuming certain foods. These symptoms may commonly include:
- Headaches
- Migraines
- Indigestion
- Stomach pain
- Bloating
Indirectly, one might also experience psychological effects from food sensitivities, such as anxiousness, irritability, etc.
What’s Happening? The immune system activates IgE antibodies in the blood, resulting in the production of histamines. These effects can be much more obvious and harmful than food sensitivities.
Food Allergy Symptoms: Food allergy symptoms often occur almost immediately after consuming certain foods. These symptoms can range from mild to potentially life-threatening. Some examples include:
- Rashes/Hives
- Drop in Blood Pressure
- Anaphylaxis (Throat closing up)
Why I Did This Everlywell Review
This is a website predominantly about mental health and anxiety. As such, you may be wondering why I decided to add my opinion to the list of existing Everlywell reviews. Here’s the thing…
The gut is often called “the second brain.” Food sensitivities cause inflammation, which can indirectly result in anxiousness and other mental health issues. I want to rule out any food sensitivities that could be causing hidden stress on my body.
Most of us don’t do a great job of varying our diet. This means that if we are eating the same foods every day, it’s almost impossible for us to recognize which foods we’re sensitive to. Any one of these foods could be impacting our baseline anxiety levels (or other issues) unbeknownst to us.
My Predictions
Before taking the Everlywell test, I decided to make a few unbiased predictions (since hindsight is 20/20 after all). I predicted two possible food sensitivities just based on my own subjective feelings after eating those types of foods.
While I grew up on dairy products and never identified as “lactose intolerant,” I do notice some gastrointestinal discomfort after drinking milk. Over the years, I’ve actually cut milk out of my diet because I suspect it causes some sensitivity for me; although I never verified this with any testing.
.
I know that gluten-free diets are all the rage right now, so I don’t mean to fall for the hype… However, I have noticed that I feel distinctly more anxious after eating certain foods. Eating a whole frozen pizza to myself (don’t judge me) tends to make me feel generally anxious without reason to be. I suspect this may be due to the main ingredient, enriched white flour. Whether this implies a gluten or wheat sensitivity, I have no idea.
Unboxing and Using Everlywell (photos)
Everlywell offers two different food sensitivity tests.
- The Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test (96 Different Foods)
- The Everlywell Food Sensitivity Comprehensive Test (204 Different Foods)
For most people, the basic test will probably suffice. If you want even more foods to be tested (uncommon foods like quail, duck, etc.) you may prefer the comprehensive test.
I went with the comprehensive test for this Everlywell review. Here's an unboxing screenshot from the full video review I shared earlier:
Everlywell Results (screenshots)
It seems like I was right about the cows’ milk and at least partially right about some grains like gluten and wheat products. This is interesting to me because when I was younger and experiencing crippling anxiety for the first time, I was drinking a glass of milk daily (instant breakfast/protein shakes), plus I probably went through a bag of Cheez-it’s every other day (more dairy, grains like wheat, etc.) Could this have been contributing to my anxiety?
Interestingly, some other things came up like chicken, almonds, etc. I’ve never noticed any kind of sensitivity to these things. Everlywell's website does say that food sensitivities don’t always necessarily come with side effects. This is why elimination diets are recommended to slowly reveal what should actually be cut from your diet based on negative health symptoms.
What Will I do Going Forward?
I will probably cut dairy as much as possible, pretty much immediately. I’ve already been avoiding milk in general just because it seems kind of gross and unhealthy to me after seeing one too many food documentaries. However, I’ll also now try to avoid cheese and yogurt when possible.
Additionally, I'll try to limit those foods in the mild reactivity section. While this was not an allergy test, I’ll probably just try to avoid wheat products as much as I reasonably can (without going too overboard), and opt for rice instead. Hopefully I can derive some benefits from these dietary choices.
Things like chicken and garlic (mild reactivities) I don’t plan to do anything about, since I can’t really imagine enjoying life without them. If they were higher up on my reactivity list and I was experiencing some obvious negative symptoms on a daily basis, I’d probably experiment with these as well with an elimination diet.
Everlywell Controversy from Other Everlywell Reviews
After scanning some of the other Everlywell reviews out there, I wanted to address some of the controversy I’ve seen. Basically, I just want to reiterate that this is a food sensitivity test and not a food allergy test. There is a big difference, and I’ll admit that even I didn’t know the difference before doing further research into the topic.
If you are trying to find out what kinds of foods will kill you, this is not the test for you. If you’re trying to figure out what kinds of foods could be contributing to your headaches, feelings of fatigue, or anxiousness, this could be a good start.
But don’t just take my word for it. A quick Google search shows a number of Everlywell reviews from happy customers.
With an average rating of 4.7 stars from nearly 8,000 Everlywell food sensitivity test reviews, most customers seem to be quite happy with their purchase.
Everlywell Review Conclusion: Is Everlywell Worth it?
My Rating:
Ultimately, I had a very positive experience with Everlywell. Their comprehensive food sensitivity test was easy to use, and the results were simple to understand.
Since my predictions matched up to my results, the test seemed pretty accurate to me. There were definitely some surprises among my mild reactivities, and I may explore these further in the future.
The negative Everlywell reviews I came across online tend to have one consistent theme to them, which is people confusing the difference between a food sensitivity and a food allergy. For these people, I hope that my earlier distinction can help to better set expectations of the product.
Overall, I recommend the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test for anyone interested in experimenting with an elimination diet to find and alleviate food sensitivities. I believe this could be an effective way to reduce a number of symptoms, including mental health symptoms such as anxiousness.
If you decide to try it yourself, click the button below for a discount on your order!
