IBS Cookbook For Dummies E-Book

Carolyn Dean

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 537

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

A unique guide to decreasing symptoms of IBS through delicious food Do you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)? You're not alone; it is estimated that about 35 million Americans experience the symptoms of IBS. IBS Cookbook For Dummies provides those affected by IBS with easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand recipes to create meals using foods and methods that decrease the risk of experiencing the discomfort of symptoms associated with the disorder. Inside you'll find the dietary tips and information you need to decrease your symptoms and discomfort simply by watching what you eat. You'll find more than 100 tasty recipes you can easily make at home. And since individuals with IBS often suffer from various complications-including bowel obstructions, sores and ulcers within the intestinal tract, and malnutrition or the presence of nutritional deficiencies-IBS Cookbook For Dummies provides a nutritional meal plan that will help alleviate these complications. * Presents more than 70 delicious, easy-to-make recipes designed to ease the symptoms of IBS * Helps you avoid "trigger" foods and choose healthier alternatives * Includes tips for menu planning, including healthy meals and snacks * Explains what to eat when traveling and dining out No need to suffer when you have IBS; just get this handy guide to start eating-and feeling-better!

Leseprobe

IBS Cookbook For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: You Are What You Eat: Food and IBS

Part II: Eating For Your Intestinal Health

Part III: Simple Solutions for Specific Situations

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Part V: Appendixes

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: You Are What You Eat: Food and IBS

Chapter 1: IBS, Food, and You

Following the Food Trail: How Food Is Supposed to Travel through Your System

Recognizing IBS’ Common Cause and Triggers

Causing IBS

Triggering an attack

How What You Eat Affects Your IBS

Differentiating from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

Considering Other Ailments Masquerading as IBS

Celiac disease

Yeast overgrowth

Lactose intolerance

Food allergies and food sensitivities

Treating Your Symptoms With Nutrition: What an IBS-Friendly Diet Looks Like

Supplementing a Healthy Diet

Making magnesium your new best friend

Making room for other important vitamins and minerals

Using digestive supplements to help digest your food

Beginning the Healing Process

Chapter 2: Finding Your Intestinal Triggers

Identifying Trigger Foods

Knowing the top five trigger foods

Listening to your body

Making a food diary

Asking your ancestors

Dairy as a Trigger Food

Dairy and IBS

Eating dairy-free

Concern about calcium

Taking the dairy challenge

Gluten in Grains as a Trigger Food

Gluten and IBS

Eating gluten-free

Taking the gluten challenge

Sugar as a Trigger Food

Refined sugar and IBS

Why eat sugar-free?

Taking the sugar challenge

Sugar substitutes and IBS

Fructose as a Trigger Food

Fructose and IBS

Eating fructose-free

Taking the fructose challenge

Fiber as a Trigger Food

Insoluble fiber and IBS

Journaling fiber foods

Chapter 3: Transitioning to an IBS-Friendly Diet

Tracking Your Transition with a Food Diary

Rotating Your Way to Health

Substituting Trigger Foods

Finding possible cheese solutions

Being savvy about synthetics

Mapping Your Weekly Meal Plan

Building your basic recipe list

Planning a menu first

Shopping for success

Reading food labels

Being Patient with Results: Charting Your Numbers

Considering Common Diet Solutions

Benefiting from the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)

Eating Raw for IBS

Getting the most out of vegetarianism

Looking at organic eating

Chapter 4: Stocking Your Kitchen to Support Your Diet

Getting Rid of the Junk in Your Pantry and Freezer

Stocking IBS-Safe Essentials

Starting with snacks

Sifting through breakfast cereals

Looking at lunch

Digging for dinner

Beefing up your baking goods

Setting Yourself Up for Success in the Kitchen

Keeping tabs on your safe foods

Storing food conveniently

Having handy tools at the ready

Chapter 5: When Symptoms Strike: Soothing Your Gut on Difficult Days

Avoiding Certain Foods During an Attack

Focusing on Therapeutic Foods

Dealing with IBS-D

Controlling IBS-C

Keeping Soothing Recipes Close By

Exploring Other Helpful Options

Snoozing away your symptoms

Dealing with stress

Treating with medicine

Medicating acute attacks with homeopathy and magnesium

Defending against infections

Borrowing benefits from other theories

Part II: Eating For Your Intestinal Health

Chapter 6: Beginning Your Day with Breakfast (Without the Consequences)

Factoring In Soluble Foods

Being Grateful for Grains and Cereals

Piling On the Pancakes

Basking in Bread

Devouring Dairy (And Dairyless) Yogurt

Savoring Eggcellence

Chapter 7: Satisfying the Munchies and Your Stomach: Snacks and Appetizers

Choosing Soluble-Fiber Finger Foods

Starting Things Off with Creative Appetizers

Dipping for Chips

Featuring Fish

Chapter 8: Drinks for Any Time of Day or Night

Where’s the Fiber?

Soothing Your Stomach with Smoothies

Drinking Up Your Nutrients with Juices

Examining Milk Substitutes

Tasting Tea and Coffee that Won’t Upset Your Tummy

Getting more than taste from tea

Catching up with coffee

Enjoying a Lively Lemonade

Chapter 9: Settling Your Stomach with Stellar Soups

Finding Soluble Fiber in Soup

Taking Stock

Serving Up Hot, Healthy, and Healing Soups

Cooling Off with Cool Soups

Chapter 10: Serving Up Stomach-Safe Salads

Sneaking Soluble Fiber into Your Salads

Sensational Salad Recipes

Delightful Dressings and Magnificent Mayos

Chapter 11: Marvelous Main Dishes that Won’t Torment Your Gut

Savoring the Solubility Factor

Beefing Up Your Stew for a Meaty Main Dish

Perking Up Poultry without Ravaging Your Stomach

Something’s Fishy: Fantastic Fish Dishes

Pasta Imposters: Getting that Pasta Feeling without the Side Effects

Making it a Meal: Other Hearty Main Dishes

Chapter 12: Siding with Side Dishes

Sizing Up Soluble Fiber in Sides

Getting Familiar with Grains

Reveling in Rice

Vegetables Take Sides

Bringing on the Bread

Potato Pretenders: Creating Potato-esque Side Dishes

And the Rest Is Gravy

Chapter 13: Diving Into Worry-Free Desserts

Filling Your Desserts with Fiber

Having Your Cake (And Cobbler!) and Eating It Too

The Pies Have It! Making Pies without the Baking

Pudding Your Best Food Forward: Enjoying Smooth Treats

Creating Coconut Cookies and Bread

Topping Things Off: Decadent Dessert Toppers

Part III: Simple Solutions for Specific Situations

Chapter 14: Eating On the Go

Being Prepared Keeps You in Control

Preparation starts in the kitchen: Cooking meals in advance

Keeping a portable snack pack on hand

Enjoying Common Events without Worrying About Side Effects

Enjoying food at the office

Sending kids to school

Socializing with IBS: Functioning at a function

Venturing Further Afield: Eating On the Road

Chapter 15: Making Mealtime Easier for Kids with IBS

Figuring Out Your Kid’s Trigger Foods

Finding fiber that satisfies your tot’s tastes

Suspecting food sensitivities

Challenging foods to find the culprits

Keeping a kid’s food diary to connect symptoms and triggers

Helping Your Kid (And the Family) Cope Emotionally with IBS

Creating As Little Headache As Possible in the Kitchen

Involving Kids in Shopping

Making IBS-Friendly Foods for Your Kids

Breakfasting for kids

Munching lunches for little munchkins

Dining in

Don’t desert dessert

Chapter 16: Finding Safe Dishes When You’re Dining Out

Planning Ahead for an Enjoyable Experience

Eating out when you have IBS-D

Eating out when you have IBS-C

Avoiding Fast Food

Finding IBS-Friendlier Food in Your Favorite Restaurant

Mastering the meat-and-potatoes breakfast

Making Mexican work for you

Inviting Italian back to the table

Staying safe with Chinese

Treating yourself to Thai

Enjoying Japanese food

Surviving steak- and chophouses

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Tips for Making Foods Friendlier to Your Tummy

Cook Your Fruits and Vegetables

Puree Your Foods

Juice Your Fruits and Vegetables

Have a Side of Soluble Fiber

Consider the Fit for Life Strategy

Change Up Your Drink Routine

Watch Fatty Meats (And Grill, Don’t Fry)

Defuse Dairy

Minimize Serving Size

Think Food Friendly

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Keep Yeast in Check

Quickly Identifying a Yeast-Related Flare-Up

Making Sure Your Doctor Considers All Courses of Action

Starving Yeast

Replacing Yeast

Killing Yeast in the Gut

Treating Yeast Where It Lies

Avoiding Overuse of Antibiotics

Treating Infections with Supplements

Helping with Herbs

Healing with Homeopathy

Chapter 19: Ten Tempting Trigger Foods You May Want to Avoid

Steering Clear of Artificial Sweeteners

Distancing Yourself from Dairy

Waving Good-bye to Wheat

Saying “Sayonara, Sushi”

Pushing Away Popcorn

Trashing Trail Mix and Ditching Dried Fruit

Marooning MSG and Other Unpronounceable Ingredients

Canning Caffeine and Alcohol

Forgetting Fast Food Sauces, Condiments, and Gravies

Flipping the Switch on Fatty Foods

Chapter 20: Ten Strategies for Avoiding Common Eating Traps

Find Safe Ways to Socialize with Friends

Use the Sniff Test to Avoid Taking that One Little Bite

Don’t Assume One Small Indulgence Is a Huge Problem

Remind Yourself that IBS Doesn’t Recognize Special Occasions

Start Taking Care of Your IBS Today

Create a Healthy Environment for Yourself

Don’t Keep Triggers in the House

Resist the Temptation to Skip Meals

Don’t Succumb to Emotional Eating

Pay Attention to How You Feel As You Eat

Part V: Appendixes

Appendix A: Metric Conversion Guide

Appendix B: Sensible Trigger Food Substitutes

Appendix C: Soluble and Insoluble Fiber Charts

Appendix D: Surprising Sources of Major Triggers

IBS Cookbook For Dummies®

by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, and L. Christine Wheeler, MA

IBS Cookbook For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009937834

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, is known as “The Doctor of the Future,” but it began in her teens when she read all the health literature she could get her hands on. When no one wanted to take her advice about nutrition and exercise, she decided to become a doctor — then they’d have to listen! She graduated with her MD in 1978 from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, did her internship at Mount Sinai in Toronto, and graduated from the Ontario College of Naturopathic Medicine (now the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine). She has been dedicated to the practice of natural medicine and helping patients and clients take charge of their health ever since.

Carolyn is the author and coauthor of 18 books, including IBS For Dummies (Wiley), The Magnesium Miracle (Ballantine Books), and The Yeast Connection and Women’s Health (Square One Publishers). Carolyn offers an online newsletter and a 48-week Internet health program called Future Health Now! Her goal isn’t about telling people to take handfuls of supplements; it’s about diet, lifestyle, and cultivating a great attitude!

As the Medical Director of the Nutritional Magnesium Association (www.nutritionalmagnesium.org), Carolyn helps educate the public about the benefits of magnesium. She also offers a wellness telephone consultation service. With her dual degrees in medicine and naturopathic medicine, she’s able to choose the best from both worlds for clients from around the world. You can join Carolyn’s newsletter and health program and find out more about her myriad projects at www.drcarolyndean.com.

Christine Wheeler, MA, divides her professional life between writing and editing books on health and natural wellness and being a Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Practitioner. She’s ghostwritten four titles she can’t tell you about, but her work with her sister Carolyn is out in the open. They coauthored IBS For Dummies (Wiley) and the book you are holding in your hands.

Christine is also an expert in helping people who fear public speaking and experience performance anxiety and has cocreated the successful audio program Eliminating Your Fear of Public Speaking: Finding Your Voice with EFT, which you can find at www.tappingvancouver.com.

As an EFT Practitioner, Christine has helped countless people resolve the emotional and physical pain and symptoms associated with having IBS and other illnesses and conditions. She works with clients in person in her private practice in Vancouver, Canada, and in phone consultations with people from all over the world. You can find her at www.christinewheeler.com.

Dedication

Carolyn places dedications on the heads of Bob and all her new friends on Maui who have made writing a book in paradise quite blissful.

Christine dedicates this book, and any words she writes, to Ken.

Authors' Acknowledgments

Huge thanks go to the team of experts at Wiley starting with Stacy Kennedy, our Acquisitions Editor, who knew it was time for our first book to have an offspring. To Alissa Schwipps, Senior Project Editor, thank you for your patience, guidance, and great ideas as we navigated through writing our first cookbook. Thanks also to Copy Editor Megan Knoll who made great suggestions, and our recipe editors Emily Nolan and Connie Sarros who provided very colorful feedback.

Thank you to our agent, Jack Sach of BookEnds, who knew we had a cookbook in us and encouraged us to let it out.

We have such appreciation for our chefs who have contributed their beautiful recipes in the hopes of helping people who are dealing with intestinal disorders. Their passion for their work fueled our passion for this book. An extra special thanks goes to our healing chef, Colleen Robinson, who tirelessly helped us to adapt recipes to make them friendlier and friendlier for people with IBS. Chefs Shannon Leone and Angela Elliott get a standing ovation for turning over their kitchens and cookbooks to us; your contributions are invaluable.

Thank you to our past readers, clients, and patients who have shared with us how reading and using IBS For Dummies helped them with their condition. We were happy to have the opportunity to write another book for all of you.

Carolyn: A special thanks to Wiley for the six months of nonstop fun with my sister Chris. And to my dear friends Barbara Ann and J.W. who showered me with perspective. My husband of 40 years still asks me “Carolyn, do we eat asparagus?”, so we just fasted our way through this cookbook!

Christine: I’d like to thank my sister Carolyn for making me love books as a kid and for making me love writing books now. To my great friend Rob Egger, thanks for knowing exactly when to phone, text, email, or make me go to a movie. In so many ways, I’m grateful for my partner Ken for the love, encouragement, and laughter and for cooking meals while I was writing a cookbook.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Alissa Schwipps

Acquisitions Editor: Stacy Kennedy

Copy Editor: Megan Knoll

Assistant Editor: Erin Calligan Mooney

Editorial Program Coordinator: Joe Niesen

Technical Editor: Barbara B. Bolen, PhD

Senior Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich

Editorial Assistants: Jennette ElNaggar, David Lutton

Art Coordinator: Alicia B. South

Photographer: T. J. Hine Photography, Inc.

Food Stylist: Lisa Bishop

Cover Photos: © T. J. Hine Photography, Inc.

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Katherine Crocker

Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Christine Williams

Proofreaders: Cindy Ballew, Melissa Cossell

Indexer: Rebecca R. Plunkett

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

If you picked up this book, that means you are ready for a change. How many times have you said to yourself, I really want to find out what foods my body loves; I really need to clean up my diet; I really don’t need to eat all this junk food; I know what makes me feel worse and I keep on doing it? We feel your pain; you are not alone. But you’ll find this book to be an easy and even fun way to explore a new way of eating for your IBS.

A lot of people struggle with IBS at some point or the other in their lifetimes, so you’re not alone in your quest for IBS solutions. Both of us have had many bouts of IBS over the last 20 years, but we’re both able to control our symptoms by avoiding wheat, limiting dairy and sugar, and doing Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) for the stress and emotional factors that can contribute to IBS. With our training (Christine’s in EFT and Carolyn’s in medicine and nutrition), and the fact that we both fancy ourselves as comedians, we hope to give you a memorable resource with creative ideas for what to eat and how to cook it in order to keep IBS at bay. For example, we advise eating organic foods if at all possible. Genetically modified grains, corn, and soy seem to be the wave of the future, but these genetic experiments are associated with gut disturbance in animals. The only way to avoid them is to buy organic. As you find out about IBS-friendly food, we assure you that you’ll be able to befriend food again.

About This Book

We’ve written IBS Cookbook For Dummies as a companion to IBS For Dummies (Wiley).But here we take a closer look at the role food and food preparation can play in both triggering and managing your IBS. Our goal is to show you that not all foods, or even all foods you may expect, are off limits — you just have to know your individual body to recognize what it can and can’t handle.

You don’t have to read this book from start to finish — unless you want to, of course. (When we read a For Dummies book, we go straight to the cartoons at the beginning of each part. Then when we’re laughing we know we’re in the best frame of mind for learning!) Jumping around in a For Dummies book is great exercise, so we’ve set it up so that you can start reading this book anywhere you want. Simply look over the index or table of contents and then proceed to the chapter that tells you exactly what you need to know.

By the way, we take full responsibility for all jokes, puns, silly alliteration, and bathroom humor. It’s the part of the job we love most.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following conventions are used throughout the text to make things consistent and easy to understand:

All Web addresses appear in monofont.

New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.

Bold highlights the action parts of numbered steps as well as keywords in some bulleted lists.

IBS-D stands for IBS-diarrhea, and IBS-C stands for IBS-constipation.

When you see the acronym SCD, it stands for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet™, which is specifically formulated for intestinal conditions. You can read more about it in Chapter 3.

Here are a few more conventions that apply to the recipes:

Eggs are large.

Pepper is freshly ground black pepper unless otherwise specified.

Butter is unsalted.

Sugar is granulated unless otherwise noted.

Stevia is a natural noncaloric sweetener.

All herbs are fresh unless dried herbs are specified.

All temperatures are Fahrenheit. (Check out Appendix A for information about converting temperatures to Celsius.)

T If vegetarian recipes are your thing, look for recipes preceded by this tomato icon, which signals that a dish contains no meat.

Many cookbooks pride themselves on including esoteric ingredients they gather from all parts of the globe. Not us; you can find all our ingredients in your local grocery store, health food store, or online. We pride ourselves on having contributing chefs, cooks and food lovers who have provided us with IBS-friendly recipes that will appeal to your taste buds no matter what your stage and degree of IBS. Some recipes will provide more guidance than others but we think each one will be easy to follow whether you are a cooking maven or newbie.

We’ve tried our best to make these recipes as consistent with each other as possible, but they do come from several different sources, so they may not all have the same level of detail or guidance.

What You’re Not to Read

We’d love you to read every word of our book, but if you just want to get in and out with the info you need, we flag some interesting but nonessential information that you can skip if you’re in a hurry. You can come back to it later on as you become addicted to our lovely book.

Text in sidebars: Sidebars are shaded boxes that usually give detailed examples or stories about our IBS clients with all the personal data removed so they won’t be embarrassed and we won’t be sued.

Anything with a Technical Stuff icon: This icon indicates information that the scientist in you would love but that isn’t necessary on the first reading.

The stuff on the copyright page: No kidding. You’ll find nothing of interest here unless you’re inexplicably enamored by legal language and Library of Congress numbers.

Foolish Assumptions

We can actually be quite accurate with our assumptions about who is reading this book because we’ve both suffered the symptoms of IBS. You may not identify with every one of the following descriptions, but if even one of them makes sense to you, this book is for you:

You’ve seen umpteen doctors and given them your money, time, and parts of your dignity, but none of them have given you relief.

You’re looking for support and reinforcement because those around you think your problem is in your head, not your bowels.

You have to wake up at least one hour earlier than you want to in the morning to make sure your gut isn’t going to play any tricks on you on your drive to work.

You’re tired of missing every important family gathering, or spending them in the bathroom.

You’ve become a genius at covering up abdominal pain that would take down a Marine.

You find yourself gazing longingly at the incontinence products in the drugstore.

You know someone with IBS and want to be able to provide support (and possibly snacks).

How This Book Is Organized

Earlier in this introduction, we mention our love for the cartoons that begin each part in a For Dummies book. Of course, the cartoons are just the tip of the iceberg. Each part is chock full of valuable information, so here we give you an overview of what information you can find in this book and where.

Part I: You Are What You Eat: Food and IBS

What goes in must come out, but when you have IBS you can’t help but wonder what the foods you eat are doing along the way. This part helps you identify your symptoms and some simple ways you can treat them with natural medicines and foods.

You find out about foods that are thought to trigger IBS and how to determine what foods trigger you.

Finally, we show you how to transition to an IBS-friendly diet, clear your kitchen of unfriendly foods, and stock up on better options.

Part II: Eating For Your Intestinal Health

We’re excited to share more than 100 recipes for every meal of the day as well as snacks, soups, salads, drinks, and desserts, including options that mimic some old comfort-food favorites so you can enjoy them again safely. We provide these recipes with IBS-friendliness in mind, but you can expect many of them to become favorites of the whole family.

Part III: Simple Solutions for Specific Situations

Some IBS circumstances require special considerations. For example, even just leaving the house can be a challenge if you have IBS, so here you get some great tips for eating safely when you can’t be in your own kitchen, whether you’re out with friends or headed to an event. Parents of IBS kids can find a whole chapter of recipes and tips to help them help children make the transition to a more IBS-friendly diet.

Part IV: The Part of Tens

Some of the most important points in the book are condensed into these four chapters. They remind you to avoid certain foods and common eating traps, show you how to make the foods you do eat a little more digestible, and tip you off to the underdiscussed (at least in our opinion) problem of yeast overgrowth.

Part V: Appendixes

These four appendixes give conversion info for those of the metric persuasion, show you how to substitute more friendly alternatives to certain triggers, identify the fiber contents of many common foods, and help you find triggers where they may be hiding in foods and ingredient lists.

Icons Used in This Book

To make this book easier to read and simpler to use, we include some icons that can help you find and fathom key ideas and information.

This icon appears whenever an idea or item can save you time, money, or stress when taking care of your IBS.

Any time you see this icon, you know the information that follows is so important it’s worth reading more than once.

This icon flags information that highlights dangers to your health or well-being.

This icon appears next to information that’s interesting but not essential. Don’t be afraid to skip these paragraphs.

Where to Go from Here

This book is organized so that you can start wherever you want and find cross references to other chapters for the complete story. If you’re still feeling lost, we have a few suggestions about where to begin. If you want a primer on food and IBS or want to let your spouse or partner in on what’s brewing in your gut, read Chapter 1. If you’re ready for the recipes, dive into Part II to find out what’s cooking. If you have a child with IBS, Chapter 15 is a good starting point.

Of course, you can always go straight through from start to finish. But be forewarned: When you see how much fun we had, you may find yourself reading the book from cover to cover, laughing uproariously at all our jokes.

Part I

You Are What You Eat: Food and IBS

In this part . . .

Reconciling your body’s need for food and your IBS’s intolerance of many foods can be difficult, so in this part we help you break down your new eating plan. Chapter 1 gives you an overview of food’s relationship with IBS. All IBS sufferers are different, so Chapter 2 helps you determine your own personal triggers, which can be the opposite of your best friend’s. In Chapter 3, we help you transition toward an IBS-friendlier diet that’s based on your needs; Chapter 4 shows you how to support that diet with a properly stocked kitchen. Finally, Chapter 5 gives you tips on calming your stomach when you have a flare-up despite your best attempts.

Chapter 1

IBS, Food, and You

In This Chapter

Understanding the cause, effects, and triggers of IBS

Watching out for similar conditions

Exploring nutritional and medical treatments for IBS

Remember the day you found out that you may have IBS? Maybe your doctor offered you the diagnosis along with a prescription for the appropriate intestinal accelerant or depressant. Or maybe you surfed the Internet from your perch on the toilet, entered your list of symptoms into the search engine, and came up with IBS. Either way, finding that diagnosis likely brought some relief because you finally knew that you weren’t alone (or crazy) — IBS is real!

Lots of people with IBS try to tough it out on their own without seeking medical treatment (according to some, about 70 percent). We’ve seen the lists of books our clients have read, the Web sites they’ve surfed, and the support groups they’ve attended. We hear your cries of frustration as you sit in front of 17 Web pages that all offer conflicting information about what to do, feel, eat, wear, think, take, and expect for IBS.

Feeling powerless? Well, one major way to take control of your IBS symptoms and your general health is to pay attention to the food you eat, and this chapter shows you just how to do that by providing you with an overview of IBS and how what you eat can affect it.

Following the Food Trail: How Food Is Supposed to Travel through Your System

Irritable bowel syndrome isn’t all in your head, but it can make you feel crazy and out of control when it strikes. Most medical professionals agree that IBS doesn’t cause any structural changes in the gut, which is why it’s still called a syndrome and not a disease. What IBS does specifically (besides making your life miserable) is change the form and frequency of your bowel movements. No matter the name, know that you can regain control of your body and soothe your IBS symptoms simply by changing what and how you eat. But to do that, you first need to understand how the human body breaks down food so that you can recognize what your body