Swedish Egg

Swedish Egg

Monday, March 16, 2015

Your SIBO safe foods list: Trust your gut.

Long before I ever heard of SIBO, I knew I had "digestive problems". Officially, I called it IBS-C.

For those who don’t know, IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. IBS is a functional bowel disorder, meaning it has no known apparent physical cause. People with IBS suffer from gastrointestinal pain, gas and bloating, and exhibit altered bowel habits of different types. IBS-C means you exhibit Constipation, everybody’s favorite sexy word. There’s also IBS-D for Diarrhea, another really sexy situation. And IBS-M for Mixed, an awesome combo of C and D. (IBS-M is also known as IBS-A, for Alternating. The naming experts haven’t decided which they like best, so you might see either in print.)

Anyway, I've suffered from IBS-C since I was a young woman. Sometimes it’s gotten better, sometimes worse. I’ve dealt with it in different ways, applying all my knowledge as a lifelong natural foods devotee and alternative health seeker, an armchair (lay) herbalist and, finally, after earning a Master of Science degree in Human Nutrition in 2002, a bonafide clinical nutritionist.

My gut got really bad in the spring of 2013. I was constantly bloated, my pants didn't fit, I felt like I couldn't eat anything. So one morning, while writing about all this in my journal, I decided to put on my Tireless Investigator hat and try to figure it out.

What I did was to think about different foods and imagine how they felt in my belly when I ate them. I'm a sensitive person, highly empathic. I've known for a long time that even just by holding a food in my hands, say, a bag of Red Hot Blues organic corn chips (cue salivary glands) I can sense how it will feel in my body, which is often: not so great.

So, sitting there that day, in the throes of an IBS flare, I tuned into myself and imagined different foods—how they looked, smelled, tasted. Some food thoughts made my innards clench. A very few caused no response at all, or an actual sense of comfort. Our mind-body connection is very strong. Even in response to a thought, the body knows.

After imagining lots of different foods in my mind, I came up with a short list of foods that I knew I could eat without causing myself more pain. Foods that wouldn't make me bloat or feel like I had a bunch of sour puke rotting in my gut all day long.

The short list looked like this:

three safest foods
spinach • broth • eggs

It's a very short list, true. But I knew it was super safe. I could eat anything on this list and not feel sick! Hope glimmered. It was a beginning.


From spinach with eggs poached in broth I spread out. Here's my expanded list from that same day:

my safe foods

cooked vegetables
spinach
chard
zucchini
carrots
green beans

proteins
eggs
salmon, shrimp, fish
chicken
raw goat cheese

fermented foods
carrot pickles
water kefir
24-hour yogurt

raw f & v
blueberries
fresh ripe tomatoes
sweet red peppers
snow peas
carrots, carrot juice
green herbs
bananas
avocado

safe treats
coconut butter
cacao nibs
very dark chocolate
wine

One problem I had with my list was the protein section. Back when I was doing this tuning-in exercise in early 2013, I was a strict vegetarian. Had been for a full year. In fact, I was coming off of several years of eating a plant-based, pescatarian (i.e. vegetarian + fish) diet and for much of that time, a high raw food diet with plenty of green smoothies, salads, raw vegetable juices, nuts, seeds and dehydrated delicacies.

I was very reluctant to put chicken on the list. Even the fish and shrimp was a concession. But I could tell, in my gut, that chicken would digest. It was a sad moment for me. I would really rather not eat animals. This is still true. It was a big coming to terms.

I realize now that because of my particular IBS-C situation (think slow transit time and a redundant colon) eating so much fiber and complex carbohydrates was a bad idea. Fiber and complex carbs, as well as fructose and other simple sugars, are highly FERMENTABLE. Inside your warm, dark, juicy intestines these carbohydrates get digested by bacteria that make GAS.

Most of these bacteria are supposed to just hang out in your large intestine where they belong. In fact, we need carb-fermenting bacteria in our large intestines, so much so that in the colon, these little guys are even affectionately known as friendly flora

But after a while, if the large intestines don't empty out regularly, the semi-digested foodstuff in your small intestines backs up. And when those fun-loving, friendly colonic bacteria sneak on up the road to party in the small intestine, whooping it up and replicating themselves into millions of bacteria babies, it’s a bad situation. Then you’ve got SIBO.

The only way to get those microbes out of there is to kill them off, either by drugging them (with antibiotic herbs or drugs) and/or by starving them. Which brings me back to my safe food list, and another really interesting thing.

Soon after I came up with the above list (which, by the way, has been added to, subtracted from and refined over time since I created it in 2013) I started doing a bunch of research online. First I found out about FODMAPS: Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols, i.e. gas-producing sugars and starches. Then I learned more about GAPS (and it's older cousin SCD, which I'd heard of before but mistakenly thought was just for celiac disease). When I put the two diets together, low-FODMAPS+GAPS, there was my list!

I knew I was on to something.

Right around that time, an article came out in the Townsend Letter that recommended the same crossover diet for treating SIBO: a low-FODMAPS, grain-free, broth-based GAPS/SCD-style program. I was so excited when I found that article, written by naturopathic doctors Alison Siebecker and Steven Sandberg-Lewis.

The Siebecker-Sandberg-Lewis article confirmed that people with my kind of gastrointestinal symptoms seem to be okay eating only the foods that are allowed on both diets (low-FODMAPS and GAPS/SCD), because these foods don’t feed the bacterial overgrowth. In fact, eating this diet can even heal the problem, provided the underlying cause (in my case, C) is also addressed.

Since those days, more research has been done on SIBO, more people are writing about it and more food lists and dietary interventions have been proposed. Dr. Siebecker, for instance, has created a detailed, color coded downloadable list that is fabulous. (Click on the “learn” tab at the top of this blog for link.)

It’s very helpful to read other people's legal/illegal food lists but if you have IBS or SIBO, I strongly encourage you to do what I did: 

Sit quietly with yourself. Access your inner wisdom. Honor your intuition. And make your own list.

In other words: Trust your gut.

There might be some foods on someone else's list that won't agree with you. Others that are missing from their list that don’t bother you at all. The bottom line is this: Only you can know what your own personal safe foods are.

Your short list of truly safe foods, the ones you’ll go to during a flare, is likely very short. Any expanded lists will only be accurate sometimes, depending on whether or not you are flaring, and to what degree. But the short list - that's your go-to. And boy is it nice to have a safe place to rest!

For me, a medium poached egg, cooked in broth, on a soft green bed of wilted spinach is calm belly heaven. What’s your pleasure?

7 comments:

  1. Hello, Friends! It's July 2016 and I have a new Safe Foods List to share with you. Things Change. As you work with your diet and progress, stall or heal, be prepared to adapt. I've been dealing with SIBO for 1.5 years and in the time since I first posted my safe foods list, above, some foods no longer work for me (think fruit), while others I'd avoided (i.e. butternut squash) are now fine! Which all goes to show: SexySibo is a work in progress. Keep paying attention and you'll stay in sync with your body's needs. xoDiana

    my *NEW* safe foods list

    cooked vegetables:
    -spinach
    -chard
    -zucchini
    -carrots
    -green beans
    -winter squash (butternut, kabocha, spaghetti, acorn)

    proteins
    -eggs
    -seafood--salmon, shrimp, etc.
    -meat & fowl--chicken, beef, paleo bacon, etc.

    lactose-free dairy
    -aged hard cheeses (ideally raw milk, goat or sheep milk)
    -full fat Greek yogurt (no added gums or pectins) or full fat 24-hour yogurt (GAPS style)-1/2 cup serving
    -heavy cream (no added gums or pectins)

    raw veggies (avoid raw veg if symptoms are active)
    -lettuces
    -baby spinach
    -carrots
    -green herbs (chives, dill, cilantro, etc.)
    -ripe tomato
    -red bell peppers
    -olives

    safe treats & sweets
    -wine
    -spirits with lime juice
    -chubby checkers (see recipe on this blog!)
    -safe sweeteners: monkfruit (Lakanto); erythritol (Zero); stevia

    fruits (safe only if 100% symptom free to begin)
    -avocado (up to 1/4 medium avo.)
    -blueberries - 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup MAX!!

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  2. Your cocoa is off the list now? I was holding out hope that a coconut milk cocoa drink to stay legal :(

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    Replies
    1. Hi "Unknown"...Thanks for your comment. Here are a couple things to bear in mind:

      1) My 'safe foods list' represents my fall-back plan, something I drop back to to recover from a flare. It may change over time, but it's always my Short List. I do go wider (for instance, by eating chocolate here and there) after my GI situation calms down.

      2) The name of this post is "Trust YOUR Gut" - not my gut!! If coconut milk cocoa feels calm and soothing in your belly, even when you are bloating, than it deserves a place on your own personal safe foods list. SIBO is such an individual condition; every body truly is unique.

      Wishing you happy digestion, today and every day.
      :) Diana

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  3. You can eat spinach??? With all that fiber? I used to LOVE spinach salad... years ago. I'd kill for ANY vegetable right now. I know, fiber is good for everyone! Except me. I can deal with eggs and I just rallied enough strength to make some chicken broth with only some herbs. So much effort for 3 quarts... but I'm so sick of eggs (and I used to adore them).

    I can't trust my gut because it gives me no data. No emotions or feelings. I think most days it doesn't want ANYTHING. I did 2 rounds of Rx antibiotics and I'm now looking into a round of the herbals. That and a DIY elemental diet are all I have left.

    I know there's a strong gut-brain connection, but after 2 years of struggling with this it's getting really hard to maintain any sort of positive attitude. Worries about not working and running out of money leak into any attempts at meditation.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Radian Bridge, I'm so sorry to hear about your limited food options...that's really tough. Yes, I can eat spinach quite well. Have you tried zucchini (peeled and cooked)? Limited diets can have a snowball effect leading to more and more restriction, but sometimes it seems like there is no other option. I hope you have a good practitioner to work with, and find healing and relief soon. -Diana

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  4. LOL I'm severely intolerant to the 3 "safe foods", oxalates, egg protein allergy with Sulfur intolerance and you can't consume broth when you have MCAS... there's no winning!

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    Replies
    1. Dear Nicole, I know... it can be so frustrating! Please remember, these were MY 3 safe foods...yours (or another person's) very well may be entirely, absolutely different.

      Are you able to tune in and discern the foods that feel "right" to your body? Official food tolerance lists from experts can be very useful, but for me, learning to read and listen to the signals and messages from one's own body is the key to create and maintain digestive health and comfort, day to day and ongoing (slips and flares happen). Feel free to be in touch if you'd like some support. My fees and services are posted here: https://www.eat2evolve.com/services

      Warmly, Diana

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