Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Julie, here are some suggestions of foods that I find to be very safe. This is the type of food plan I would follow myself if I needed to go back to basics (which I often do).

Breakfast: Corn Chex and/or Rice Chex. I eat them with rice milk and a sliced banana. (This is still my breakfast every day.)

Lunch: White bread (preferably organic) with sliced turkey or chicken. Get the turkey from a deli (even a grocery store deli), and get a fairly plain kind: not a lot of spices on it. Don't buy the pre-packaged lunch meat which is very high in preservatives.

Dinner: White rice or potato or sweet potato or plain rolls or French bread. Avoid any kind of butter or margarine, any other dairy products, or any really funky spices. No whole wheat or whole grain. You could add chicken or turkey if it's white meat, skinless, not excessively spiced. Or fish but also careful about the spices and personally I'd stay away from oily fish like catfish or more fatty fish like salmon even though many people say they are OK with salmon. Tuna, swordfish, tilapia (whitefish), shrimp should be OK.

Snacks: Fat-free saltines, any kind of white bread product if it's not whole wheat or whole grain. I tend to eat throughout the day a plain bagel, fat free saltines, and some other kinds of plain bread like naan.

Veggies: Carrots. I'm not aware of any other totally safe veggie; I believe most others have IF.

Fruit: Bananas and apple sauce.

Just to be clear: I (intentionally) left out a lot of foods that many people can tolerate after they've gotten stabilized. Also I'd like to caution you about oatmeal, which a lot of people consider a safe food, but causes me big problems. I'm also unsure at the moment about graham crackers. So my personal advice is to avoid both of those until you can test them.

Avoid anything that is on Heather's list of trigger foods. I also find soy products cause bloating/gas if you're not used to them, and so far I've not been able to build up a tolerance for them. You might also want to be really careful about any kinds of sauces/spices/seasonings/dips that you might want with those foods. I don't understand them well enough to know what to avoid and what not to, so at the moment I avoid most of them. For example, I don't add any mayo or mayo substitute on my sandwiches.

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