All about the Low FODMAP Diet

The Elimination phase is by far the hardest to conquer but at least it’s out of the way first. The elimination phase should last for 2-6 weeks and this is where you remove ALL moderate and high FODMAP foods from your diet. Most people start to see a significant improvement in their symptoms after a week or two of being FODMAP Free! You should be in the Elimination stage for a maximum of 6 weeks (Time depends on how quickly your symptoms improve).

One of the hardest parts of this stage for our Founder Bay, wasn’t the will power to resist high FODMAP foods (the need to get rid of these symptoms far outweighed the desire for any high FODMAP foods!), it was learning and remembering which foods were safe! For this, she found the Monash app really helpful and years later still uses it regularly.

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Remember to check serving sizes – whilst some foods can be moderate or high in FODMAP’s, you might find there is a smaller serving size which is safe, meaning you don’t have to eliminate that food altogether. An example of this is Beetroot – on the Monash App, Beetroot is High in FODMAPs (Oligos in this case) at 40g, but Low in FODMAPs at 20g.

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Don’t start the elimination phase at a time when it will clash with something that will make the diet super hard to follow – like Christmas or your summer holiday. Once you are through the first few weeks of the diet, it will become easier and eventually become second nature to you. However, if you start the diet two weeks before Christmas, you won’t have had time to build up your routine and your will power to resist high FODMAP foods.

This stage is all about testing your body, to see which FODMAPs it can tolerate and at what quantities. Most people are able to reintroduce a selection of foods back into their diet and will single out the particular triggers which they will continue to avoid.

It is vitally important you go through this stage, to ensure you can reintroduce as many foods as your body will allow – which will give you a much more balanced diet, as well as make the diet easier to follow (particularly when eating out as you will eventually have a much smaller list of foods to avoid) and so it will give you more variety too!

It's a scary thought to try eating foods which you by now will think were causing the horrible IBS symptoms you had been suffering, however being on a super restrictive diet long term will alter and damage your gut microbiome, and therefore you will be worse off in the long run by sticking to an ultra restirctive diet passed the recommended time frames. This is why we strongly urge you to do the reintroduction stage and ideally get the help of a trained dietitian along the way. 

SO, HOW TO GO ABOUT THE REINTRODUCTION PHASE?
There is lots of advice and many ways to go about doing this, but I will explain my version and you can discuss this with your dietitian to see if they agree and can help you with this.

• Continue with the elimination diet as you have been doing for the past 2-6weeks.
• Then every Monday introduce one new food and have a high FODMAP serve of that food for three consecutive days (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday).
• For the following four days exclude the high FODMAP food from your diet again and monitor your symptoms. Depending on how you felt and the severity of any symptoms, you can determine if it was a successful reintroduction or not.
• You are then at another Monday at the start of a new week, by which time any symptoms from the previous test should have cleared allowing you to start the next reintroduction test.

Some foods, I would be fine with and have no flare up at all, whilst others I might react very quickly to or within the three days of testing it. If so I would stop consuming the food and carry on with my diet as it had been. Then by the following Monday my symptoms would have cleared and I would start the next reintroduction test.

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If you react badly to a food, make sure you try to reintroduce it again at a later date and try with a smaller serving size to start. Just because it didn’t go well the first time, doesn’t mean that’s it – remember other factors play a part in our symptoms too like stress or lack of sleep. So it might not have been all down to that one food.

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For the first four reintroduction tests, I would choose a food which is high in just one of the four categories, so for example:

• Honey – high in Fructose
• Cow’s milk – high in Lactose
• Garlic – high in Oligos
• Sweet potato – high in Polyols

Whilst it’s not quite as clear cut as this, if my Lactose and Oligos tests were successful, I would continue the reintroduction with a selection of foods high in Lactose and Polyols to see if they would be as successful. After I had managed to reintroduce some foods, I would then turn to the groups which weren’t so successful – Fructose and Oligos in my case. I haven’t managed to reintroduce garlic or onion to my diet, however there are other foods moderate in Oligos which I have found to be ok, for example beetroot.

The same goes for Fructose – I still can’t tolerate apples, but I can tolerate some mango. Everybody is different, so you need to go through the reintroduction process to find your tolerance levels to foods.

Some people call this the Maintenance phase – but I think Maintenance sounds negative and hard work, so I like Continuation as you are continuing the success of the Low FODMAP Diet!

So, the continuation phase is just that – continue with the diet and include the foods you have successfully reintroduced. Now you know the foods you will be continuing to eat, your dietitian will be able to help you with meal plans and advise on any supplements to ensure you are getting a good balance of protein, fibre, fats, vitamins and minerals every day, to lead a healthy lifestyle.

FODMAP is an acronym (abbreviation) for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols. These are scientific names for a group of sugars which are not easily absorbed in the gut, but can be easily broken down by bacteria in the large intestine.

FODMAPs are a group of short chain sugars (carbohydrates) found in various foods. Most carbohydrates are broken down and absorbed in the small intestine, but FODMAPs aren’t well absorbed. This means they move through the gut undigested, attracting water as they go. Once they arrive in the large intestine, FODMAP sugars are consumed by the microbes that live there, which results in gas formation. The gas and water in the large intestine stretch the walls of the gut, and this can trigger pain and bloating in people with IBS.

A low FODMAP diet is a type of diet which limits foods high in certain carbohydrates (sugars) known as FODMAPs, which can trigger symptoms like pain and bloating in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

You can find out more about FODMAPs and the Low FODMAP Diet on these pages:

What are FODMAPs?
FODMAP Help & Resources

The low FODMAP diet isn’t the first thing to try when it comes to managing IBS. Simple lifestyle changes such as cutting down on caffeine and alcohol and reducing stress levels can be really effective first steps. Read more about these first steps here.

From start to finish (when you enter the personalisation phase) the diet lasts about three months. This is a big commitment, so it’s important to be aware of what’s involved, and to get dietitian support to ensure you have the best chance of achieving good symptom control.

Yes! Bay’s Kitchen products can be enjoyed by all the family. Even though they don’t contain hard-to-digest ingredients such as garlic and onion, they are suitable for everyone. However, it is not advisable to only eat Low FODMAP products unless you have been advised to do so by a medical professional, as the diet is very restrictive.

Fermentable describes the process by which bacteria breakdown sugars for energy.

Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols are names for groups of short chain sugars which are found in a variety of foods.

High FODMAP foods are foods which contain high levels of FODMAPs- a group of carbohydrates (sugars) which aren’t easily absorbed by the gut. FODMAPs are found in a wide range of foods, including wheat, garlic, onion, milk and some fruits and vegetables. There’s no way to ‘guess’ how many FODMAPs are in a food – instead foods are laboratory tested for FODMAP content by Monash University, and this information is made publically available. Some foods are ‘Low FODMAP’ at certain portion sizes and ‘High FODMAP’ in bigger serving sizes.

There are three stages to the low FODMAP diet, and it’s important to follow each in turn.

Stage 1 is Elimination – in this stage all high FODMAP foods are reduced in the diet, and replaced with low FODMAP alternatives. This stage lasts for 2-6 weeks.  If there has been an improvement in your symptoms, you then move to stage two. 

Stage 2 is Reintroduction – in this stage you’ll reintroduce high FODMAP foods one at a time in increasing portion sizes to see which ones trigger symptoms. This stage can last for 8-12 weeks as you work out which high FODMAP foods you can tolerate. 

Stage 3 is Personalisation – in this stage you’ll go back to a normal diet, including the high FODMAP foods you can tolerate, and avoiding those you can’t, or eating them in smaller portions.

If you want to try a low FODMAP diet, you first need to get a medical diagnosis of IBS. This is important, as IBS shares the same symptoms as other gut conditions.   

Once you have been diagnosed, your doctor may suggest trying medication or other lifestyle changes to manage your symptoms. If symptoms persist, you can then consider a low FODMAP diet with the support of a dietitian. You can ask your doctor for a referral to an FODMAP specialist dietitian, or request support from a private dietitian. Some private health insurers will also cover sessions with a FODMAP trained dietitian.    

We are often developing lots of new Low FODMAP, Gluten & Dairy Free products, but we like to keep things a secret until they are ready to share with you all! So keep an eye on our website and social for news and updates on new launches. You can also sign up to our newsletter below to make sure you’re the first to know!

We’d love to hear what products you’d like to see from Bay’s Kitchen, so please let us know by filling out our contact form. 

Yes. They are certified by FODMAP Friendly – you can visit their site here to find out more about their certification: http://fodmapfriendly.com/

Our sauces are also Gluten Free certified and Vegan approved!

Yes! Bay’s Kitchen products can be enjoyed by all the family. We have really focussed on taste of the products, so everyone can enjoy them together!

However, it is not advisable to ONLY eat Low FODMAP foods unless you have been advised to do so by a medical professional, as the diet is very restrictive. Anyone not on the diet can enjoy our foods, but ensure it is part of their usual balanced diet.