A new leaf

IBS sufferers need to avoid certain carbohydrates, but can still enjoy nutritious greens with a bit of digging.

- Jennifer Bowden

Question:

I have been diagnosed with IBS and have used the low-Fodmap diet to help with it. However, one of my "triggers" is dark-green leafy vegetables, such as spinach. I can safely eat silverbeet, but leafy green recommendations do not mention it. How do I obtain the same nutrition that I would have from dark-green leafy vegetables without exacerbating my IBS problem? 

Answer:

Irritable bowel syndrome, like politics and religion, is a topic often avoided at dinner parties. Yet if you're throwing a dinner party, there's a good chance one of your guests has IBS, as an estimated one in seven adults experiences it.

IBS is characterised by abdominal pain, bloating, wind and altered bowel habits, whether diarrhoea, constipation or a combination of both. Because these symptoms overlap with other conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, coeliac disease, endometriosis and bowel cancer, a medical professional must rule these conditions out and diagnose IBS, rather than it being self-diagnosed.

Fodmaps (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols) is an acronym coined by researchers at Monash University in Melbourne for a group of short-chain carbohydrates. These carbs draw water out of the body into the small intestine, thereby increasing water delivery to the colon, and they are rapidly fermented by colon bacteria that produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane.