What are the best foods to eat for IBS?

The IBS Interrupt™ Perspective: When you are desperate to stop the flare-ups, it is easy to treat food like the enemy. An elimination diet for IBS like Low FODMAP can provide a good temporary baseline. However the absolute best food for IBS that help is simply whatever your body digests best right now.
The IBS Food Trap: Forcing yourself to eat “healthy” foods that trigger your gut, or getting stuck in a cycle of eating bland, boring meals that drain all the joy out of life.
The Big Shift: Realizing that food is often just the messenger. Other hidden emotional or nervous system triggers are at play.
Key Takeaway: Moving beyond food restrictions to uncover the deeper, non-diet triggers keeping your system on alert is the core of my 3-step IBS Interrupt™ Process.

What are the best foods for IBS?

As a good starting point, the best foods for IBS that help are ones that are on this low Fodmap list. Or you can get the regularly updated Monash University app (they continue ongoing research into Fodmaps) and see what inspires you on there.

If you’re wondering: Fodmaps? What are they? Then check out this more detailed article on Fodmaps and food intolerance. 30 years ago, when the list didn’t exist yet, I started removing foods I couldn’t digest from my diet. And it turns out they were all on the Low Fodmap list.

There are other more restrictive diets for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, like the meat-based carnivore diet, and the paleo diet (excluding legumes and grains). While these may have temporary benefits, any restrictive diet for IBS can result in a lack of nutrients, and become confining if used long-term.

Above all, you need to experiment and see what works the best for YOU in terms of foods, portion sizes and combinations. For example, you may find you can digest 2 or 3 strawberries, but not more. Or that strawberries on their own are fine, a spoonful of cream on it’s own is OK, but not the two together.

You may find that you digest cooked, warm foods better than raw or chilled ones.

And cooking from scratch (without interference from additives, colourings and thickenings) will allow you to understand what you really digest.

Your IBS is unique. And the best diet for IBS will be unique to you too.

If you’re intolerant to a lot of foods

Many IBS sufferers deal with food intolerance, which reduces the choice of diet for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. And over time they find it increasingly difficult to find foods they digest.

However there may be an underlying reason why you can’t digest your favourite food anymore, so it would be wise to check this out.

IBS foods that help – Eat what you digest the best

Above EVERYTHING else, the best foods for IBS are the foods YOU digest the best.

This may sound obvious, but I often have clients who are forcing food on themselves, because they’ve read that “should” be eating a specific food.

Even if they have a really hard time digesting it.

Becasue we’ve all been silently brainwashed into what we “should” and “shouldn’t” be eating.

However, continuing to eat foods that you KNOW you can’t tolerate is a no-no – even if they are on some special IBS-friendly food list.

Don’t force your body to eat “healthy” food

So you’ve heard that you need to have 5 fruit or veg per day to be healthy…

But you have a hard time digesting them.

STOP!

By all means keep your diet as varied as you possibly can and vary the nutrients (and yes I know that with IBS, you may have very limited choices).

At the same time, don’t go force-feeding yourself foods that your digestion cannot handle – in the name of “health”.

I repeat: The best foods to eat for IBS are the ones you digest (or what you digest the best). No forcing!

Sometimes the foods we digest the best aren’t particularly healthy.

For example, my go-to used to be French fries with bolognese sauce and a glass of Diet Coke!

I don’t suggest having something like that for every meal, but when your body needs soothing, soothe it!

Be nice to yourself too!

It IS hard having IBS, and feeling regularly deprived. I know would crave something every once in a while, or give myself what I wanted after a hard day at work.

We’re only human and that pizza can smell so enticing! So let yourself off the hook if you indulge – and then kick yourself.

And put whatever you fancied on a list of things you’re going to shamelessly tuck into when you’ve beaten IBS.

“What!” I hear you say because that may sound impossible right now…. I’m living proof it is possible.

And I believe it’s possible for you too.

Which makes all this temporary, and a little easier to bear:)

Make your diet for IBS tastier

Nothing is worse for morale than consuming the same bland foods day in, day out.

IBS foods that help can be tasty, without sabotaging digestion.

If you know how!

Try garlic-infused oil

Many IBS sufferers don’t digest garlic, which is a shame because it boosts digestion – and gives food taste.

Instead of straight garlic, try using a garlic-infused oil: oil that has garlic in the bottle, where you get the flavour, but not the garlic.

If you want to make sure there are no preservatives, just add a few garlic cloves to a bottle of olive oil, and dribble onto food at the end of cooking (olive oil is not suitable for frying).

Lemon

Lemon can be a great ally. If you use an organic lemon, you can use the juice and the zest to give your food some zing.

Use IBS-friendly herbs

There are some tasty herbs that are also good for digestion.

I put rosemary in some roast potatoes, and it was surprisingly good.

You may not know how to use herbs in cooking – but you can learn.

The best thing is to have them around, because you’ll be more likely to use them.

If you’re worried about food and getting enough nutrients to stay healthy, check out this article. You may find you’re doing better than you think!

What if IBS wasn’t just about food?

While on paper it makes total sense to tweak your diet for irritable bowel syndrome to digest better and eat IBS foods that help…

From my own experience, I discovered that food was just ONE of my IBS triggers.

That’s why you can suddenly experience a flare-up, even when you have eaten what you usually digest.

Because there are other factors at play! (If IBS was simple, you would already have found the way out.)

This is why I developed the IBS Interrupt™ Process. So your underlying IBS triggers come to light, and you can durably interrupt the IBS symptom cycle – and get the relief you are craving.