# Eating With IBS



## lulu684 (Aug 10, 2003)

I just discovered the book Eating With IBS and am so thankful for it! Everything I read has been making since, and most of the trigger foods were foods that I thought were good for me. I have been eating tons of insoluble fiber and wondered why I wasn't feeling better. My doctor told me to avoid sugar, and that didn't help either. Now I understand everything! That's the good news, but the bad news is the no dairy! That's all I eat! I mean how am I supposed to eat french bread without butter? My favorite food is ice cream, but it never seems to hurt me. Maybe it does the day after I eat it, but who knows because I have stomach aches everyday! Thats why it is hard to find out what is bad for me because it seems that everything I eat gives me constipation or abdominal pain! errr! Also, does anyone know if there is soy butter? Is cinnamon a trigger? What about honey? What about plain white bread with no crust? Is there any fat free chocolate out there? What is the most harmless chocolate? I thought bagels, sourdough, and pretzels were gasy?? Is alfredo sause absolutely terrible? What sauce can I substitute? Okay I am asking too many questions now! But if you have the answer to any please email me.Lulu684###aol.com


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## bobby5832708 (May 30, 2000)

Christie,Been there, done that, asked all the same questions. Been to many doctors and had numerous tests. Lived my life from toilet-to-toilet for many years. I've had IBS for about 30 years now and the absolute best thing I ever did was to get the LEAP test ( www.nowleap.com ) and find out exactly what food ingredients cause the problem. There is no way I could have ever found all the substances my system reacts to on my own -- God knows I tried -- because of the delayed reaction to some foods (30 to 40 hours) and the total number of different reactive foods. Also, some of the substances were in almost everything I ate: corn, onion, garlic, cane sugar, benzoic acid, etc. I'm kind of a bad case, I've got quite a few reactive foods. As an example, Corn is one of the highest-reacting substances for me. That also means corn syrup (a popular sweetener that is in almost everything) corn flour, corn meal, corn oil. Another one: Onion. This is a really bad one for me. Onion is used in many foods and sometimes isn't listed on the ingredient label. If there is only a small amount they can list it as 'spices'. Many restaurants use onion as a seasoning and many prepared foods are 'contaminated' with onion. Mix some onion and other spices with corn, fry it in corn oil, and you get corn chips (Fritos). That will really tear me up, but usually not immediately, it will happen many hours later. I then blame the most recent meal, only it probably wasn't the most recent meal that caused the problem. Keep bombarding your system with reactive substances day after day, meal after meal, and you'll never be able to find which foods are good and which foods you should avoid.In your post you ask about various foods (ice cream, alfredo sauce, pretzels, bagels, etc.). You have to break it down into individual ingredients. For example, some pretzels have corn syrup in them. I avoid them. Some bagels also have corn syrup. Ice cream might use sugar or corn syrup as the sweetener and, depending on the quality, may use all kinds of chemicals. You can't just say 'Ice Cream' or 'Pretzels', you have to break out each ingredient. I started the LEAP program a year and a half ago and my life has dramatically changed. I don't live from toilet-to-toilet anymore and a box of Imodium lasts well over a year. I don't always follow the menu to the letter and sometimes I eat a food I really shouldn't (I have a weakness for Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Fudge ice cream). I don't get unexplained D-attacks for hours (sometimes days) at a time any more and even the occasional serving of Haagen-Dazs causes just a minor upset. When you're not constantly bombarding your system with stuff it doesn't like then it is more forgiving when you do occasionally abuse it. You can try to find which foods affect you by trial-and-error and, if there are only a couple of offending foods, you might succeed. If your system is like mine, however, you could have quite a few offenders and it would probably be impossible to weed them out by yourself. I tried. I couldn't. As one who has suffered with IBS for 30 years my advice is do yourself a favor and get LEAP tested. How much more of your life do you want to waste feeling 'crappy'? Good luck!Bob


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## calid (Aug 4, 2003)

You'd be best to go to the Eating For IBS website and ask these questions. Even soy marjarine can cause problems if you eat too much of it as it has so much fat in it. Go to her site and ask all the questions you want, but read the post at the top of the bulletin boards first as they contains a lot of information. That way you won't ask duplicate questions. www.ibsboards.com


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## essex (Apr 8, 2003)

And don't forget D sufferers are different to C sufferers, ie. I am a C and found that reducing my fat intake did not help as I had no grease as it were to help things move through, but Heather reccommends a very low fat diet, so trial and error is the best way!!Good luck - and wish me some too!!


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