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Under the FAQ section Heather says "The number one rule here is: Never eat insoluble fiber alone or on an empty stomach. Always eat it with a larger quantity of soluble fiber, and you will help keep your IBS stable." So according to Heather a 1:1 ratio is not even acceptable. Am I correct. I get confused because I know these are guidelines but the word NEVER is a pretty black and white term for her to use.
Huh. Look at that. To tell you the truth I had completely forgotten this line. I guess it's been too long since *I* read the FAQs.

I still stand by my original statement: if you think you need more IF try going up. You'll always need an SF cushion but as my gut calmed down I definitely found I could swing more IF to SF. (Which I guess makes me just someone else who's confusing you since I seem to be disagreeing somewhat with Heather. Sorry about that.)

Another question....if I cook down insoluble fiber does that mean it is not as effective in helping move things along? I read in her book that cooking insoluble veggies "makes there fiber content dramatically less." So is it not going to have the effect I need it to have on my system to get things moving?
The quote I found is:

For fruits, vegetables, and legumes in general, peeling, chopping, cooking, and pureeing them will significantly minimize the impact of their insoluble fiber.

Here's how I understand this. If you remove peels and/or seeds from IF foods you actually reduce the amount of IF they contain - just as you would if you simply cut away half the piece of food. If you chop, cook, and/or puree them, don't change the amount of IF but you do make it easier for your digestive system to handle. So, no, chopping, cooking, and pureeing IF foods will NOT make them less effective.

(The next few paragraphs are a cross between pontificating and musing. Feel free to skip them.)

Here's how I look at it - please don't quote me to anyone who has a science degree. Let's express the amount of energy required to digest food as GI-ergs: foods that are difficult to digest (what we call IF) require our digestive systems to come up with more GI-ergs than foods that are easy to digest (what we call SF). In people with normally functioning digestive systems, this is no problem. If it takes, say, 5 GI-ergs to digest a piece of bread, the normal digestive system produces 5 GI-ergs; if it takes 25 GI-ergs to digest a tomato, the normal digestive system just cranks itself up and produces 25 GI-ergs.

For IBSers, though, the system doesn't work so well. Our digestive tracts do fine when asked to produce 5 GI-ergs or maybe even 10 or 15. Ask them to produce 25 GI-ergs, though, and they go berserk. It's like our digestive systems can't stop at 25 and instead rocket up to 35 or 40 or 50. The result is either a crippling cramp or uncontrollable shakes - sort of like what happens if you try to hold a weight that's much too heavy for you. So what does all this means?

First, it means that if you can introduce SF first you can get your digestive system cranked up to, say, 10 GI-ergs. Then when you introduce IF which requires 25 GI-ergs, your digestive tract only has to muscle up another 15 GI-ergs - it's already producing 10. It's more likely to be able to go from 10 to 25 without going haywire than it is to be able to go from 0 to 25 without going haywire.

Second - and finally circling back around to the whole peel/chop/cook thing - if you can alter food so that it requires less energy to digest, your digestive tract doesn't have to come up with so many GI-ergs and is less likely to go berserk. So you peel and seed the IF food to remove the really tough IF - the kind that would require your poor digestive tract to come up with, say, 30 GI-ergs. Then you chop, cook, and/or puree the rest to give your digestive system a head start on digesting the food. Chopping, cooking, and pureeing simply mimic what your digestive system would have to do to the food anyhow. Eat a quartered raw tomato and your digestive tract has to work really, really hard to get it digested - maybe 25 GI-ergs. Remove the peel and seeds, cook the flesh, and turn it into tomato puree and it's practically already digested. All the IF from the flesh is still there but it now requires much, much less work to digest - maybe 15 GI-ergs. Presto! You've greatly reduced the danger of your digestive system going haywire when confronted with tomato.

One last thing....I have been eating grains for IF because they are generally easier to prepare with my workday schedule as a teacher. Below is a list of a typical day of eating. Would you please take a look at it and let me know what you think? I really would appreciate it.
SFS-3Grams
Breakfast:Oatmeal w/ 1/4 cup Blueberries and 2 tsp. ground flax
Snack: Corn Chips (About 12-15 Baked Tostidos)
SFS-3Grams
Snack2: Cheerios w/ sliced banana
SFS- 3 Grams
Lunch: Turkey sand. w/ well cooked greenbeans
SFS- 3 Grams
Snack3: Soy Yogurt w/ 1 T ground Flax
SFS- 3 Grams
Dinner: Chix Breast w/ rice and veggies
This is difficult for me because I don't know a darn thing about flax - I assume it's some kind of IF but beyond that I'm clueless about it. Other than that, this looks like a nice well-rounded menu.

If you're looking for more IF, though, the first place I'd start is with those Baked Tostitos. I know they're made from corn but cornmeal (like oatmeal and brown rice) is one of those half SF/half IF things so if you're looking for more IF I'd try replacing them with something like an apple. If you want to be cautious, start with 1/4 of a peeled apple and gradually work up to a whole peeled apple. Then start leaving the peel on 1/4 of the apple and gradually work your way up to a whole apple with peel. Eat just a couple of pretzels first to make sure there's a little pure SF to get things started.

Beyond that, you can consider adding some more veggies to your lunch. If you are able to heat stuff up, consider some vegetable soup - or eat it room temp if you don't mind that. You can also bump up the fiber in your cereal snack (again, whole oats - half SF/half IF) by sneaking a little whole wheat cereal (like GrapeNuts or shredded wheat) into your Cheerios. (Start very small - it's taken me 2 years to be able to tolerate any GrapeNuts at all.) Or throw in just a few nuts - chopped or ground to make them easier to handle.

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By definition dietary fiber (IF and SF) consists of nondigestible carbohydrates and lignin that are intrinsic and intact in plants. No amount of grinding or chopping will change the digestibility of these fibers. Also, while cooking may change the amount of dietary fiber is does not change its digestibility.

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So... the chopping, pureeing, blending etc. of vegetables and legumes and so forth actually makes no difference to whether they are easier to digest for us? And raw is just as digestible as cooked? - if it reduces the amount of fibre, is that SF or IF or both in equal ratios??

If that's the case, maybe it IS all in my head; maybe when something looks pre-digested I fell more relaxed about swallowing it. Hm. This GI tract really is just a piece of machinery isn't it.

Sorry Andrew - I'm not stable but busting in on your post anyway

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You're very kind, Andrew, but Heather has already written the book. Books, really. If I have a role in communicating her ideas, I think it's in my ability to indulge in, shall we say, flights of fancy like GI-ergs to try to explain by example while Heather has to stick more closely to reputable thinking. Reality can be so terribly limiting, don't you think?

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Two last question.....what are the 50/50 items? Are they brown rice, quinoa, corn meal, and oats. Am I right or are there any others.
I'm honestly not sure about quinoa - my impression is that it's high SF and high protein (and high fat for a grain but not in an absolute sense) but I truly don't know about it's IF content. My understanding is that brown rice, corn meal, and oatmeal are about 50/50 SF/IF *and* the IF in them is a form that IBSers seem to find relatively easy to handle.

And If I eat these with IF should I still be taking a SFS supplement before I eat them.
Brown rice, corn meal, and oatmeal all show up on Heather's SF list so I consider them all to be SF foods that can serve as a cushion for IF and don't require you to consume additional SF.

One final note about these three foods: Tolerance for them is somewhat variable. I don't tolerate oatmeal well but do great with corn meal and have since the day I started the Diet. (I hate brown rice so I've never tried it.) It's not so much that oatmeal triggers an attack as it is that my digestive tract simply feels unsettled when I eat it.

Thank you and I really do appreciate your time. I think as gratitude to this diet other stable people should continue to post to the board and help those of us who still don't quite have it down.
You're quite welcome.

I'm not quite sure what to say about people who become stable sticking around to help. I think a fair number of us do so but it is natural as IBS becomes less of an issue to move on to other aspects of your life and simply spend less time on the Boards. After all, isn't that what you would dearly love to be able to do at some point?

One thing I found very helpful - in a mildly obsessive-compulsive way - when I first started the Diet and found the Boards was to go back and read old posts. I set up my profile so that posts would display from oldest to newest which meant the oldest posts ended up at the top and I just started reading. It may be my imagination but it seems to me that when the Boards first started up the people on them were more focused on following Heather's guidelines and on helping other people on the Boards understand and follow them, too. You might give it a try and see what you think.

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