# Flatulogenic foods - from worst to best (a personal list)



## tummyrumbles (Aug 14, 2005)

This is my list of flatulence-causing foods, from worst to best. This is just my personal list and I'm constantly working on this, changing things around. Everyone's list will be different, but I'm guessing the typical problem foods like alcohol, legumes, milk, bread etc will be at the top for most people and that mashed or pureed vegetables and meat / fish will be down the bottom. My list generally agrees with the FODMAP theory but also lists alcohol, starches and fibre that the FODMAP diet lacks. My definition of flatulogenic means that a food will resist complete digestion, causing flatulence and a difficult evacuation possibly a day or two later. It doesn't necessarily mean that it causes digestion gas straight away, or within a few hours. Fried rice is a good example. Rice is renowned for not causing much digestion gas and for being non-flatulogenic, but some of my worst days followed a dinner of fried rice. For me, rice is highly constipating so is high on the list.

Alcohol

Milk (drunk straight)

Legumes: baked beans etc

Potato scallops (fried)

Sauerkraut

Non-gluten bread & grains - buckwheat etc

Bread, wheat / pastries / pizza dough / pasta / biscuits

rice crackers

asparagus

Potato crisps / Twisties etc

Rice (fried)

Nuts / peanuts

apples

Toast (wheat)

Brussels Sprouts

Onions, fried

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Broccoli

Raw carrot

Corn

Mushrooms

cheese

rice cakes

Banana

Yoghurt

Green beans (string beans)

Peas

Fish, fried

Porridge oats (with small amount of milk)

Potatoes, baked

Sweet potato

Cooked carrots

Bok choi

zucchini

Pumpkin, mashed

Potatoes, mashed

Meats - chicken / pork / ham

Fish, oven baked / tinned salmon

Dinner has a lot to do with evacuation the next morning. This probably isn't so much to do with total transit time, which is typically over 24 hours, but more to do with the level of gas that that dinner generates. Bacterial gas can affect gut motility. Some people are hydrogen producers, making them more prone to diarrhea, and some are methane producers, leading to constipation. Other gasses, like carbon dioxide - commonly from sipping hot drinks - can also build up in the colon.

Eating late at night can cause indigestion and generally the earlier you can eat dinner the better. During fasting, a digestive process called migrating motor complex sweeps bacteria from the small bowel to the colon. This is beneficial for all of us, whether we have SIBO or not and because of this it is suggested that we don't graze during the day but try to keep to 3 main meals. The migrating motor complex has a cycle that runs every 90 minutes but is interrupted by eating.

Cooking reduces the fibre level of vegetables, so cooked carrots are lower in the list than raw. I've found the non-gluten breads worse than wheat breads because of the high level and condensed nature of the starches. Other people might have a better tolerance to starch in general.

Some things, like yoghurt and cheese, I wasn't really sure about but most of this list seems to fit in with my food diary. Some fast food fried foods have a varying level of rancidity in their fats.

**** NB: It should be said that I've no qualifications at all in this area and if you do decide to restrict your foods it's advised to get professional dietary advice. ****


----------

