Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Exuberant Eating, Veggie Version!

Welcome to our veggie board! For everyone following, interested in, or curious about being a vegetarian, or a vegan, and how to combine that with the dietary guidelines for IBS, here you go! This is the perfect board just for you.

I'm copying over a post below from the main Eating for IBS diet board, as I think it speaks particularly well to becoming a veggie while successfully managing IBS. This post is courtesy of Sand (thanks Sand!), a longtime poster with great IBS experience, knowledge, and attitude.

"Over the past few weeks, I've seen quite a few people on the Boards who feel there's nothing to eat under Heather's guidelines. I know that when you first start out it can be tough to figure out substitutions for whatever you're used to eating but the alternatives do exist and you will find them as you get used to eating this new way. I'd like to offer a few thoughts that might make it easier to expand your menu if you're one of the people convinced there are no good options.

Don't assume it's impossible to eat this way if you don't, won't, or can't cook. There are a couple of great old posts about how to follow Heather's guidelines without setting more than a tippy-toe in a kitchen:
I Don't Cook! #1
I Don't Cook! #2

If you do cook - or want to start - spend some time really looking through the Recipe Index and the recipes in Heather's Eating For IBS. You can almost certainly find dishes that are appealing and safe for you however touchy your tummy is. If you despair of getting any IF down, remember that most people can tolerate smoothies - you can start off with ones that are almost all SF and up the amount of IF gradually. And if you're really feeling deprived, try some of the desserts - Anti-Depressant Brownies are a universal favorite.

Don't assume the only foods you can cook are those in Heather's cookbook and on the Recipe Board. They're a great place to start but once you understand the concepts behind Heather's guidelines, you'll be amazed by how many "outside" recipes you can handle, either as-is or with minor alterations. I've been watching at least some programs on the Food Network every weekday since about the beginning of July and it's rare for me to not find at least one recipe every day that I think might be workable. And if you have favorite recipes of your own, they may be adaptable, too.

Don't assume you can't handle spices. Maybe you can't but a lot of IBSers can. I always thought it was the spiciness of Mexican food that destroyed my tummy but once I started following Heather's guidelines, I realized it was the fat and the cheese that were doing the damage. So if you like spicy food, give it a try. Even if you find you truly can't handle spicy food now give it a try again every so often as you stabilize. I found that as my tummy calmed down and stayed calm it got better able to handle foods it objected to early on.

Similarly, don't assume you can't handle onions, garlic, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Again, maybe you can't but once you're eliminating the trigger foods that so often accompany them, you may be pleasantly surprised. If you truly can't handle them, see if you can handle some substitutes: onion powder instead of onions, garlic powder instead of garlic. If a stew, soup, or sauce calls for tomatoes, see if you can handle a little tomato sauce instead - you get some of the flavor a little more gently. If that doesn't work, there's a Mock Tomato Sauce on the Recipe Board that may work for you. Bell peppers are harder to find a substitute for but sometimes you can simply leave them out and the dish still tastes fine.

Don't think you need to be able to eat soy in order to follow Heather's guidelines. Rice milk makes a perfectly good substitute for cow's milk in recipes and almond milk is quite drinkable. There are rice ice creams, too - Rice Dream Carob Almond Chip is quite good. There are also rice and almond cheeses and if you're a really big cheese fan, you can look for a book called "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook" to discover some interesting cheese fake-outs. Yogurt is tougher but if you do a Search on the Diet Board with no time limit, you'll discover a post from Kandee about making kefit from rice milk. It's not yogurt but it might do as a substitute.

Don't assume you need to eat anything "weird" in order to follow Heather's guidelines. I don't eat tofu or quinoa or, really, anything I didn't eat before I found Heather's diet except for dairy substitutes and low-fat mayonnaise. I don't shop at health food stores and I buy only 3 or 4 items at Whole foods.

Realize that what you are able to safely eat now is not necessarily all you're going to be able to safely eat forever. It took me months and months but I eventually got to the point where I can eat green salads. I ate dry Rice Chex for breakfast for longer than I like to remember but now I can handle egg whites and IBS-safe muffins and even fruit for breakfast. I don't think we are ever cured of IBS but I've definitely found that the longer my tummy stays calm the better able it is to regulate itself and the further I can push the limits of what I eat.

This same concept applies to eating at restaurants and other people's houses. Once you become stable, getting a little bit of something you shouldn't will be less disastrous than it is when you first start out. If you end up having to eat around the grated parmesan on your spaghetti with marinara or you have a sneaking suspicion that your grilled chicken isn't quite as low in fat as you thought it would be, the consequences will be less severe.

Along the same lines - and don't tell anyone I said so - once you're stable you may find you can "cheat" a little without catastrophic results. Heather says she has a small piece of chocolate every day. I can occasionally handle a glass of wine. The key concepts here are stable, small, and occasional.

Most important, please believe that - even if you never stray from the guidelines at all - Heather's EFI Diet is not a boring regimen of limited food choices and near starvation. As scary as food can be for those of us with IBS, feeding ourselves well and regularly is part of the key to managing IBS. And making sure we eat from as wide a menu as possible makes it far more likely we'll be able to stick with the program.

I hope this opens up some possibilities and makes following the guidelines less stressful. Heather's diet has been a godsend for me and I hope it will be the same for all of you."

Everybody, grab those veggies, start cooking, and bring on the questions!

XXOO
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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