5 Foods Not to Consume for IBS

Having a list of good foods and bad foods does not necessarily spell success on the low Fodmap diet. Eliminating IBS symptoms requires a multi-pronged attack including finding other non-Fodmap related gut irritants. In this video, I tell you about 5 foods you should not consume if you want to stay symptom-free. Some of them may surprise you.

5 Foods Not to Consume for IBS

Welcome to this video. Today, I want to talk to you about five things that you shouldn’t consume if you’ve got IBS and are on the low Fodmap diet.

1. The first thing is chewing gum. Apart from the fact that this is just a habit if you do chew gum, there is no goodness that comes from it whatsoever. It’s mainly made of chemicals and often contains high Fodmap ingredients. But apart from that, the main problem is that when you chew gum, you actually gulp down air, maybe in small amounts, but that starts to accumulate in the gut. As you know, one of our problems is gas in the intestinal tract. So we don’t want to introduce any more than necessary.
2. And that leads me more onto the second thing, which is carbonated drinks. I’ve mentioned these before. How do they get the carbonation to drinks? They introduce gas – those bubbles are gas. When you drink it, you’re ingesting those gas bubbles. And again, that’s going to cause havoc with your digestive system. So apart from any sugars or chemicals that might be in those drinks, the carbonation itself is going to cause you problems.
3. The third thing that you shouldn’t be consuming is processed foods. As much as possible, stay away from those central aisles of the supermarket but you’re allowed to have a quick run down those aisles just to get things like salt, sugar, flour, in your case it would be, a gluten-free flour. But those items only contain food ingredients. In the case of things like sugar and salt, only one ingredient. So they’re all right but everything else, leave where it is. And that’s mainly because you’re ingesting many additives and chemicals in those processed foods. If you read the ingredient list and see anything at all that you don’t recognize as food, put it back. And in particular, gluten-free processed foods are the worst culprits because, in order to make the food palatable, look good, and stay together, they have to add a lot of different chemicals to it. And never forget that gluten-free does not mean low Fodmap. Many gluten-free processed foods contain high Fodmap ingredients. So don’t make that mistake.
4. The fourth thing that I want to talk about is soy products. On the whole, we should stay away from them, in particular, if they’re made from the whole soybean. But, there are a couple of exceptions to this. I have chosen three exceptions for you. One of them is soy sauce. That has only small amounts of high Fodmap ingredients and it has been fermented. And that reduces the impact of the soya and you’d never have too much of it anyway. The second soy product is actually two – tofu and tempeh. We can have a cup of those and that’s because, in the process of making the tofu, there is a lot of liquid that is pressed out of the product and a lot of the Fodmaps go out into those liquids and we’re left with a tofu that we can consume, though in limited amounts. And the third item that contains soy that we can have is anything made with the soya protein. You might see that as an ingredient in a processed food, which is best to stay from anyway. But soya protein is protein and Fodmaps are carbohydrates. And our problem is with carbohydrates, not protein. So if you are able to find a soya milk that is made purely from the soya protein, that would be acceptable. But the majority of soya milks are made from the whole bean so you would have to stay from them.
5. And number five on the list are fiber supplements. Unfortunately, doctors still seem to give those out with great glee and abundance. Fiber supplements will hurt us. We all have a fine line with fiber that we shouldn’t pass over. We need fiber but too much will cause bloating and gas. In other words, IBS symptoms. So when you use a fiber supplement, that’s really over doing it and it will hurt you. So make sure that you get your fiber needs through food, in particular, through vegetables and some good low Fodmap grains.

That’s my five things for you to avoid. I hope that was helpful. Thank you for watching and goodbye.

Fody Low Fodmap Products

I have just received a big package of low Fodmap foods from Fody Low Fodmap Food Co. by courier and I am so excited to try them all. I will report back to let you know how I get on and what I think of them. However, I have already tried a couple – I mean who could resist?! I have had a Dark Chocolate, Nuts and Sea Salt snack bar and a bag of Mockingbird Trail Mix with peanuts, roasted almonds, walnuts, banana chips, chocolate chips and dark chocolate coated puffed quinoa. I was blown away by how delicious they were and can’t wait to try the rest, but I do have to watch my waistline. I can confirm that they didn’t cause even a slight rumble in my tummy so they have passed my delicate IBS gut test.

If you want to check out their products, click HERE.  I do receive a small monetary reward for talking about these products but I would never recommend anything I didn’t love.