Diet for IBS Tips
Part II

5. I eat a lot of cooked soup with some meat and assorted non -starchy vegetables. Soup has turned out to be a sort of a miracle food for me lately. It's easy to digest and filled with nutrients. The more I eat the better I feel. My husband also has a touchy stomach, and we both noticed that soup made us feel good, but oddly salads never had the same impact. Initially I didn't know why, but now I think this may be in part because the long cooking process in making soup makes them easier to digest and kills most, if not all, of the fungus or bacteria on the foods. With salads we always wash the vegetables before we eat them, but washing just doesn't have the same bacteria killing effectiveness as boiling and simmering food for an hour or two. Salads seemed to work okay for us occasionally if we eat them with highly acidic dressings (see tip #8 below).

I know that according to many health advocates, raw foods are the best for you and easiest to digest. I personally don't think raw foods are easiest to digest. If they were, then that is what people would feed to babies. I beleive baby food is the easiet thing to digest and baby food is well cooked and mushy just like soup. Plus, numerous studies show that people often lose weight on raw food diets. If raw foods were easy to digest, then presumably people would gain weight rather than lose weight on them.

6. I have to go easy on spicy foods. Many spices, such as ginger, and cinnamon and cayenne pepper, contain antibacterial and antifungal properties. As such, they have been traditionally been used in hot climates to help keep food from spoiling. They are also used in many herbal medicine for conditions like sinus infections and athlete's foot to kill bacteria and fungus.

I've noticed that if I have too many foods with spices like these, I'll get an upset stomach, similar to what happens when I have to take a lot of antibiotics. My theory on why spicy foods cause upset stomachs in some people like me is that the antibacterial properties work like prescription antibiotics to kill stomach bacteria - both the pathogenic bacteria and yeast along with the helpful bacteria like acidophilus. So without the helpful bacteria killed by the spices, I have a hard time digesting my food.

7. I stopped eating most grains and rice, especially whole grain foods. I still have to serve some grains at home because my kids like traditional kid foods like macaroni and cheese and pizza. However, I personally cut back on grains as much as possible. I used to think that the people who advocated no grain diets were a bit extreme, but the less grain I eat these days the better I seem to feel. I think whole grain foods probably have too much fiber for somebody like me.

Many alternative health authors are also discouraging people from eating grains because the long storage process leads to a high mold content. At first this concept seemed kind of crazy to me -- grains are so ubiquitous in our everyday diets it seemed hard to believe they could be a cause of health problems. Yet, the more I read on the subject the more sense it makes, and the more I experiment with my own family's diet we do undeniably feel better without a lot of grains. I do remember growing up in the Midwest and seeing silos everywhere, and looking back now I can see that food stored for months like in a high humidity climate that probably would develop a lot of mold and fungus spores.

8. I stopped eating raw fruits and vegetables unless I had them with an acidic, low sugar salad dressing. I noticed that my IBS symptoms would get worse whenever I ate raw fruits and vegetables. At one time I had athlete's foot fungus on my feet, and whenever I ate raw produce I could literally feel my feet itch more. I think this is because uncooked produce naturally comes with a lot of bacteria and fungus. It's probably not a problem for most people, but if your body has an overload of unhealthy bacteria and yeast to begin with it can become problematic. I noticed from my diet diary (see below) that I didn't have a lot of itching if I consumed these raw foods with a highly acidic dressing. I think this is because the acid in the dressing may kill the mold and fungus on the produce, and I suspect it is the conventional wisdom behind why historically salads are usually eaten with an acid containing dressing like vinegar, lemon juice or buttermilk (which contains acid producing bacteria).

9. I saved the best tip for last. I kept a diet diary. We have solved innumerable healthy problems in my family by keeping logs of what we eat and then recording how we feel. The diet listed here that ended up helping me is one I just created on my own and isn't based completely on any established diet that I'm aware of. It's a combo of low carb, anti-yeast and an Ayurvedic kapha balancing diet. I usually start out trying different diets like the common anti-yeast diets, but I always take whatever the authors say with a grain of salt, and just use trial and analysis to see what really works best for me.

You may also be interested in:

• Helpful Bacteria
• Mitral Valve Prolapse
• Magnesium Migraine Link
• Fibromyalgia Diet
• Acidic and Alkaline Foods

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