Well I’ve been away from this blog for about a year for personal reason’s. What’s brought me back all of a sudden? I’ve been placed on the FODMAP diet.
Never heard of it?
This is an elimination (lots of elimination) diet used to address some of the symptoms of IBS. This isn’t about the causes of IBS (apparently still unknown, so every GP keeps telling me), just alleviating some of the symptoms. I’m not going to go into a lengthy explanation of what the FODMAP diet is because quite frankly it’s best to hear it from the horses mouth. Click here to go to the Monash University FODMAP site. Monash did the original research in this area and continue to investigate FODMAP friendly and unfriendly foods.
Being placed on this diet was a daunting experience. I love food and it felt as if all of a sudden I’d lost one of my greatest pleasures in life. I’ll be honest, deep down I hoped that it wouldn’t work and I could go back to eating all of the foods I enjoy. But I’m a week in and my symptoms are pretty much under control, well the ones that the diet addresses at least. So suddenly eating has become incredibly complicated, and because my GP decided against referring me to a dietician, I was left feeling a bit lost and lacking the information I needed to go it alone. I now know that i shouldn’t have let that happen, and if I’d known then what I have since realised, I would have insisted in being referred to a FODMAP trained dietician. If faced with this situation please learn from my mistake. This thing is tough and it is really easy to unwittingly make mistakes. My lifesaver has been the FODMAP diet app produced by the Monash University research team. It’s only available for iPhone at the moment but the android version is coming.
Naturally I have also trawled the Internet looking for recipes, tips about places to eat out, etc. the thing is, there’s not very much out there. Which is why I’m back here. There is a need to build the FODMAP online community. This will be my contribution towards that development.
A Question of Taste 