For My Tummy

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: 7 Diet Principles

Introduction
I would like to clarify the underlying principles to the IBS food recommendations that I make on ForMyTummy (FMT). When I first started ForMyTummy.com, over a year ago, I thought the principles were the same as, or similar to, those of Heather Van Vorous, of the HelpforIBS.com web site. Upon reflection, after a year of writing tips and recipes and articles, there are some specific features to my approach which can be stated as, ta-da!, the following Principles.

Principle 1

NEVER EAT ON AN EMPTY STOMACH
This means that when you wake up, the first thing you put into your mouth is a soluble fiber, such as Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™ or FiberSure ™. Later in the day, the first thing into your mouth will be either a small amount of gentle starch like rice or soy crackers, or another part of your daily dose of a Soluble Fiber Supplement (SFS).

Principle 2

GET ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN FOOD SHOPPING
This is because you are in a learning process yourself. To try to tell someone else who is buying or preparing your food what it is that you want/need, and what has to be or not be on the food label is to create more interpersonal stress than you really need. Negotiate to be part of shopping trips, or change your food service (lunch place, wherever) to “vegan,” or ask for gift certificates to Amazon and lay in your own stock of oatmeal or soy noodle soup or something else that you like.

Principle 3

READ ALL FOOD LABELS IN THE STORE!
This means take your reading glasses with you to the grocery store, or read the food labels online–Amazon is pretty good at publishing the labels, and many product web pages have them available. You want to know two things:
1. The list of ingredients, and
2. The nutrition information, particularly carbohydrate and fiber content

Principles 4 and 5 are to be applied in sequence.

Principle 4

START WITH AN ELIMINATION DIET
This means that you begin by eliminating all foods that occur on the List of IBS Triggers. In addition, at the beginning you will avoid most fruits and vegetables, unless they are pureed (as in baby foods), or starchy, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes without skins and butter. In cutting out caffeine, cut your daily intake in half, in half again, and in half again if you are a heavy user. Then cut out all caffeine.
This also means that you will have to switch to available foods that are based on soy beans or rice. Rice is both binding and calming to the tummy; that means that if you have IBS-C, base your NEW diet on soy, and add small amounts of rice.
This also means no food diary! See “Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the Food Diary.”

Principle 5

EMPHASIZE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOR ADDED FOODS
This means that you build your NEW diet up from the “rescue” diet that eliminated fruits and vegetables, by cautiously adding new fruits and vegetables, preferably one at a time. Fruit should be skinned and cut up; vegetables should be steamed. Maybe you will try out steaming fruit as well–that’s my next experiment. See the New Food Pyramid for more information about a pyramid built on fruits and vegetables.

Principle 6

MOVE AND GROW
This means several things:
1. Get off your duff and do something about your IBS, or
2. Include physical exercise, or
3. Grow thinner or fatter, whichever you need to do, or
4. Move through the process of self-help for IBS and grow as a person.

Principle 7

ADD THESE TO YOUR NEW DIET
1. Enough soluble fiber supplement (SFS)- See the Fiber 101 posts, starting with Fiber 101a, and the articles in the category “Prebiotics.”
2. A good probiotic, Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ caplets or Align ™ caplets are ones that supply the probiotic in effective amounts; they are reviewed in the category “Probiotics.”

Principle 8

VARIATIONS
This means that you can pick from these principles according to the extent of your IBS “damage” in the slang sense. Principle 1, 2, and 3 apply to everyone, with 2 and 3 being ones you can take on gradually. The Principles 4 and 5 involve radical dietary change for most of us. You need to be really committed to change, really miserable with aspects of IBS, to take this on. Principles 6 and 7 should be added to Principles 1, 2, and 3 as well as used with the full dietary changes of 4 and 5.

COMMENTS?

How would you use these principles? Are there any others that you would want to express? Please comment using the Link below, that says “No Comments” if you are the first to write in–otherwise the linke says “1 Comment” or “2 Comments,” and so forth.

October 11th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | fiber, Probiotics, Soy Products, Prebiotics, IBS Diet | 2 comments