Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | "I feel like I cannot eat any fruit unless it is cooked and mixed in with something."

"Recently bananas, apples, oranges and grapes have been causing me major problems. What gives? Just say away from fruit for a while?"

First, I'd call your doc and make sure you've been tested for fructose intolerance. That can mimic IBS or overlap with it.

Fructose is fruit sugar. Apples and grapes are pretty high fructose. Bananas are very low fructose, though, so it's odd you'd react to them.

Insoluble fiber in fruit can also cause problems, and cooking will help break that fiber down and make fruit more tolerable. Bananas are not a culprit there though, either, as they have almost no insoluble fiber and actually are a good safe soluble fiber staple.

If you are tolerating fruit when it's peeled and cooked into something, like a soluble fiber foundation food (oatmeal, rice cereal, corn cereal/polenta, or blended into smoothies) then stick to eating it that way. That is still going to get you good fruit nutrition.

It's actually not at all uncommon for folks with IBS to NOT tolerate plain whole fruit, especially by itself on an empty stomach. It's just too much insoluble fiber, as well as fructose, to eat this way when you have a hypersensitive gut.

Cook it, blend it, peel/deseed it, add it soluble fiber safe foods, etc. You can also bake it right into safe quick breads like banana, pumpkin, zucchini, etc. See here for IBS friendly recipes down the page: Breakfast Bread Recipes

XOXO
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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