Test Your Tolerance to FODMAPs
It's time to test your tolerance to foods high in FODMAPs.
As you know, you've been eating some foods high in FODMAPs in the Supersafe and Safe diets (such as leeks, brussel sprouts, flaxseeds, chickpeas, carob) but you kept the amounts under the recommended 'safe' quantities.
For a refresher on FODMAPs, go here.
IMPORTANT NOTE IF YOU HAVE SIBO
It is generally recommended that people with SIBO stay on a low FODMAP diet for 3 months after finishing their treatment (which we do as part of 'The Big Clean Up'). This is to prevent a SIBO relapse.
A BIT MORE ABOUT FODMAPS
Traditionally, FODMAPs are reintroduced by testing the various categories of fermentable sugars, such as lactose, fructose and sorbitol.
The idea is that some people might only have issues with 1 or 2 of these and might be OK when consuming the others. We share this traditional method below (#3 in how to reintroduce FODMAPs).
However, we have found, with our own experience and from working with many people, that it's not always this black and white. Some people seem to be OK with 1 or 2 foods in a specific category, but can't tolerate some of the others, even though they contain the same sugar. For instance, many people tolerate leeks and onions, but can't even smell garlic, even though they all contain fructans!
We have also found that quantity really matters!
It's the quantity that seems to make the biggest difference for most people. 1/4 of an avocado might be totally fine, but 1/2 and you're in trouble.
It's also very important to understand that the amount of FODMAPs in each meal, or even each day, will accumulate.
A SPECIAL NOTE ON GRAINS AND STARCHES
In the Safe diet, we explained that many people experience bloating/gas or other digestive symptoms (similar to FODMAPs type reactions) when they eat ANY starches and/or grains. If you have found that you have this reaction with starches and grain while doing the Safe diet, you could experiment now by adding very small amounts of these foods during your FODMAPs test.
The best ones to experiment with would be tapioca flour, green banana flour, jasmine or basmati rice and red skin potatoes as these are low in food chemicals and also low in FODMAPs.
We recommend starting with very small quantities and slowly building up. For instance, start with 1 tbsp and build up to 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on your tolerance.
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN TESTING FODMAPS
- No reaction even with high quantity: It sounds like you're OK with this food and can enjoy it freely. Hooray!
- No reaction with small quantity (for instance, 1/8 avocado), but bloating or other symptoms with higher quantity. You will most likely need to keep your portions small with this food, but can eat as much as you tolerate without symptoms. Also, be mindful that reactions to FODMAPs accumulate over the course of a day, so you might only be able to enjoy this food once per meal/day. You'll figure this out as you go. We do recommend that you don't avoid this food completely. Having small amounts is better than nothing at all. You might find that you'll gradually tolerate more with time.
- Reaction with even small quantity, even if it's supposed to 'safe'. We recommend avoiding this type food completely for the time being. You can always retest it later, once more healing has occured. We find that this happens a lot with garlic ;-(
HOW TO TEST FODMAPS
Now that you understand a bit more about FODMAPs, you'll be able to appreciate why you'll need to figure out your own tolerance for individual FODMAP foods, as well as how much you can eat in one sitting/one day.
1- Test higher quantities of the FODMAPs that you've already been eating as part of the Supersafe and Safe diet.
- Brussel Sprouts: high in fructans at more than 2 sprouts
- Leek bulb: high in fructans at any amounts
- Butternut squash: high in GOS & mannitol at more than 1/3 cup
- Sugarsnap peas: high in fructose at more than 4 pods
- Snow peas: high in fructans & mannitol at more than 5 pods
- Chickpeas: high in GOS at more than 1/4 cup
- Carob: high in fructans at more than 1 heaped tsp
- Flax seeds: high in GOS at more than 1 tbsp
- Green beans: high in sorbitol at more than 15 beans
We recommend to increase the quantities SLOWLY. For instance, try having 3 brussels sprouts instead of 2. And then, try 4, and so on.
We also encourage you to keep a food journal and note the foods that seem OK, as well as the quantity tolerated. Don't think you'll remember... you'll be tested a lot of foods, so it's best not to rely on memory.
It's important to know that although theoretically, these foods should be OK to consume below the 'safe' quantity, many people find that some of these foods don't sit well with them and are best avoided all together. You might have already discovered this when eating these foods as part of the Supersafe and Safe diets.
But.... don't give up on these foods...you can always try them again later.
2- Test new high FODMAP foods
We highly recommend downloading the Monash University FODMAP Diet App to guide your testing.
If you know that you don't have histamine or salicylate sensitivities, then feel free to test your personal tolerance to any of the high FODMAP foods. Refer to the App to understand which foods are high in FODMAPs, and which quantities to experiment with.
However, if you know that you have food chemical sensitivities, or if you're still unsure, then we recommend only testing the FODMAPs that are low in food chemicals:
- Garlic
- Onions
- Savoy cabbage (drumhead)
- Celery (high oxalate)
- Asparagus
- Beetroots (high oxalate)
- Frozen/canned green peas
When testing, start with the 'green' quantity on the App and slowly progress to testing higher quantities, orange and than red.
3- Test FODMAP categories (traditional method).
As mentioned above, you might want to follow the reintroduction guide (see PDF below) which explains how to test the different FODMAP categories separately, so you can figure out if one of these categories is more problematic for you than some of the others. For instance, you may find that you don't have issues with most foods high in fructose, but that mannitol is a big problem for you.
However, remember that we have found that this is not always 100% black and white. One of the reasons for this is that many foods are high in more than one sugar, which can become confusing when focusing on a specific sugar rather than listening to your own body.
IMPORTANT NOTE: We recommend only following this guide if you don't have food chemical sensitivities, as some of the foods used in this guide are very high in food chemicals, which might contribute to symptoms and therefore make the results confusing.