Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hi - whole wheat can be tricky. It is such a huge trigger for some folks (like Hansolo) that they have zero tolerance for it. For other people, it's a lot more tolerable.

I'm going to copy some text from the First Year about this - the full page is at first year.

"I'm confused! How can the same food have insoluble and soluble fiber?

Most all grains, cereals, legumes, and tubers have an outer insoluble fiber layer, and a soluble fiber interior (and the same is true for some fruits and vegetables, such as apples and zucchini). It's very easy to actually see this with your own eyes. If you take a cooked grain of brown rice, wheat berry, kernel of corn, potato, or bean you can separate the tough exterior (the bran, skin, or shell) from the creamy interior. When the bran is removed from wheat berries and they're milled the result is white flour; when the bran is removed from brown rice the result is white rice. There aren't many similar common commercial processes that remove the insoluble fiber exterior from legumes, fruits, or vegetables, but finely blending, pureeing, or peeling these whole foods will greatly minimize their trigger risk.

Wheat in particular causes confusion for many, many people with IBS who are unsure about whether or not it is a safe food for them. There is no flat yes or no answer to this concern because, as we've just learned, it depends. Whole wheat, with its outer layer of bran, is high in insoluble fiber. This means that it's a trigger. That's why whole wheat bread, whole wheat cereals, and bran can cause such awful problems for people with IBS.

However, when you remove the bran from whole wheat you end up with white flour (the regular kind you can buy in any grocery store, that you using in baking cookies, breads, muffins, etc.). Though this is still wheat flour, it is not whole wheat flour, and this makes a world of difference. White flour contains no insoluble fiber but it does have soluble fiber, which is the stabilizing force of the IBS diet (just picture the thick gel that results when you dissolve a piece of white bread in a glass of water). This is why white breads are such great safe staples.

When you read the ingredients on packaged foods they might not specify if the wheat flour used is "white" or "whole", but it's usually pretty easy to tell. For breads, a brief glance will tell you if there is whole wheat in it (you'll see little brown flakes). If the bread is pure white, like French or sourdough, you're safe. For most crackers, pretzels, muffins, etc. only white flour will be used. The exception is health food store products, which are likely to use whole wheat. However, they will almost always tout this fact so you won't be left wondering.

The whole wheat (and other insoluble fiber) intolerances so common to IBS are markedly different from true food allergies. If you're allergic to wheat, it will make no difference if the grain is left whole or refined by removing the bran. In addition, with many allergies even minuscule quantities of the trigger, whether eaten with other foods or alone, can trigger violent reactions. Fortunately, with IBS this is rarely the case, so we just have to be careful with whole wheat and other insoluble fibers. If we do take care we can easily and frequently eat them in small quantities when they're combined with high soluble fiber foods. In addition, with wheat, once the bran has been removed so has the risk of an IBS attack, and this gives us great dietary freedom when it comes to white breads and other refined wheat flour foods."

In general, when a food contains whole wheat the label will explicitly say this. If the ingredients just say "wheat flour" that almost always means white flour, and you're safe.

You may find that you can incorporate whole wheat the same you can other insoluble fibers - by having it in smaller quantities, with soluble fiber, when you're well-stabilized, etc. So a lot of folks can have a piece of white bread and then small piece of whole wheat, or they can add a sprinkle of bran flakes on top of their cream of rice cereal, that type of thing. But be cautious as you try this - you might be one of the people with zero tolerance to wheat bran. In that case you'll have to choose other, safer whole grains (like brown rice and oatmeal).

Best,
Heather

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Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!

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