- The tip I'm about to show you will completely change
the way you think about and approach a low FODMAP diet.
In fact, it's the fastest and easiest way to get started
and you don't even need a meal plan to follow.
Now, I'm gonna leave you hanging for a bit
because I want to introduce myself.
It would be rude not to.
My name is Joe Leech, I am a dietitian,
I particularly focus and create content around gut health,
IBS, and the low FODMAP diet.
My website is dietvsdisease.org.
If you want more information, you can always go there
and use the search bar and hopefully you find
what you're looking for.
Now, when people typically start this diet,
they ask for a meal plan, and it makes sense
because meal plans can be really useful.
But, they're not useful for all of us,
particularly if you create meals for your partner,
or you create meals for tiny humans in your house
and you have a lot of kids to look after,
you know, completely changing your eating pattern
and what you eat each week is not really practical
and it's not ideal.
So I tell people, well why start a new meal plan
when you don't have to?
You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
So what am I talking about?
Let me show you.
I tell people to simply modify
what they already eat.
What they, okay, hopefully you can read that.
My writing is pretty messy,
I promise that was as neat as I could do it.
It tell them to modify what they already eat.
So, how do we do that?
Three steps.
I'll just keep this as a pointer.
So step one.
You list out ingredients of a few
of the most common meals you have.
So for example, you might eat, I don't know,
spaghetti bolognese one night and some other nights
you might have fish tacos, I don't know.
I obviously didn't really plan that far ahead.
But, right, you think about some meals you already do.
And list out what the ingredients have, you have.
Now step two.
How much of the ingredients are in your serving?
So you wanna think about that as well
in terms of portions because obviously portion sizes
are important for the low FODMAP diet.
Step number three, use a low FODMAP list
to swap out the high FODMAP ingredients
in the foods you already eat
and swap in low FODMAP alternatives.
So when I say use a low FODMAP list,
you can use the Monash University low FODMAP app
in the App Store, you can use, I have a list
which is based on what's been released in research papers.
And now I realize people watching won't have that,
but I can put that in the comments, for example,
I have it on my website, you can get it for free.
It's a list of, you know,
it's an eat this, not that list.
So, things you can't eat, and things you can eat instead,
so it's easy to swap.
And so now, all of a sudden, you're making meals that,
you're just modifying meals that you already have
and you're making them low FODMAP
rather than tossing all your favorites out
and eating low FODMAP garden salads and things.
So this is foods you already know you and your family like
and you've just gotta modify them slightly
to be low FODMAP.
So, let's do an example, okay?
An example of how you can modify what you already eat
rather than going from scratch.
So let's go with the spaghetti bolognese example.
In Australia, we call it spag bol or spag bog for short.
Spaghetti bolognese.
Of course, spag bol here.
We'd love to hear what you call
spaghetti bolognese for short, we shorten everything.
So, in spag bol, let's saw you normally eat,
spaghetti, duh.
Regular spaghetti, you have pasta sauce
like pre-made pasta sauce in a bottle.
Hopefully you can read that and it's big enough.
What else do we have, we don't just have sauce and pasta.
We might have some
people might put some garlic and onion.
For those playing at home, that's obviously high FODMAP
so we're gonna have to remove that.
What else, oh yeah, duh,
maybe you have beef mince.
It's kind of boring, okay mushrooms as well.
Yeah, now we're talking.
So this is the normal meal that you eat with your family
on Mondays or whatever and, you know,
you like to take leftovers to work
'cause it's super easy.
So great.
What's high FODMAP here.
Well this is where you whip out your list.
Oh, and you know what portions you have in particular.
So you might have one cup of spaghetti,
one cup of sauce, you can estimate.
Now, you get out your list.
And this is where we do the swaps.
Now I know lots of the list in my head already,
so I can cheat and do it quickly.
So which one are high FODMAP here?
Spaghetti is.
Spaghetti's got fructans in it
because it's from wheat flour.
Just like bread.
So high FODMAP.
Pasta sauce.
Yes and no, it depends on the ingredients
in the pasta sauce and nine times out of ten,
they're gonna have garlic and or onion or something else
high FODMAP in the ingredients.
So you wanna read the ingredients label
and make sure you sus it out.
But let's assume that that's high FODMAP.
Starting to run out of foods here.
Garlic and onion, well we know that's high FODMAP.
Beef mince.
So, FODMAPS are, the come from plant,
come from carbohydrates, so plant based food.
So in terms of meat and fish and eggs,
they are all good.
The don't have any FODMAPS in them at all, that's fine.
And mushroom, unfortunately one of my favorite
things in the world, at least in the elimination phase,
you know, it's a temporary phase,
we're being strict, we're gonna cut them out.
So we need swaps for these.
Not beef mince, but for these ones.
When you've got your FODMAP swaps list,
so using Monash University list,
then this becomes really easy.
So what can we swap them with?
Gluten free spaghetti.
Not that gluten is a FODMAP, gluten is not a FODMAP,
it's a protein, but when gluten's taken out,
the fructans in the wheat, a lot of them are also removed.
So you end up with, for gluten free products,
are low FODMAP too, to an extent.
Portion size matters but you can have one cup
of cooked spaghetti for example
whereas normal spaghetti would be high FODMAP.
Pasta sauce.
Okay well, tomatoes if you look on the list,
tomatoes are low FODMAP, so we could instead
just use tomato, canned, tinned, what do you call it?
Tinned tomatoes.
You know, whole tomatoes or crushed, whatever
as long as the ingredients just says tomatoes, salt.
That's what it's gonna say.
Maybe water.
Low FODMAP, so that's the sauce.
Garlic and onion, hm.
Yeah we can use like spring onion, the green tops
of like, they're kind of like chives.
What else are they called?
Shallots.
We could use that, or you could use garlic infused oil.
It's not a big deal really
if we didn't have the garlic flavor.
Let's just put garlic infused oil.
Olive oil.
O O olive oil.
Beef mince (pop) the same.
Kind of mushroom, a low FODMAP alternative,
I mean there's types of mushrooms you can have,
but let's just say shredded carrot
because I'm biased and that's what I do
and I think people should be eating more carrot.
Because they are delicious.
So.
Now you've got gluten free spaghetti,
which people can't even tell anyway.
Tinned tomatoes, garlic infused olive oil,
so maybe you'd cook the minced in that first
and then add the tomatoes and the carrot
and then put it on the spaghetti.
Yeah, we've got carrot, mince is the same,
we've got carrot instead of mushroom,
and all of a sudden, you're still having spag bol,
good old spag bol, but it's low FODMAP.
And so when you serve it at home,
your kids don't notice and your partner
probably won't even notice either, maybe.
Maybe they'll notice slightly with the spaghetti,
but no one's gonna be the wiser.
And you'll still have some leftovers that you can
take for lunch tomorrow, and that is low FODMAP.
Think about that.
You can do that with all your meals really.
So to recap,
well I won't rub it off.
So to recap, you want to identify your most common meals,
so sit down and write what they are.
What are the ingredients that you use in those meals?
So you can write them out.
And then you wanna swap them,
the high FODMAP ingredients for low FODMAP ones.
Think about your portions as well.
If you're eating a big, gigantic bowl
of gluten free pasta, you might still get
an upset tummy, so being sensible about that.
Yeah, swapping those ingredients out
and there you have it.
That's how you modify what you already have.
And I think this is really the easiest way to get going.
Of course a meal plan can help if you want more ideas,
but I tell people if they're cooking for others
and they're busy and they've got,
you know, you have tiny humans to feed,
this is the best way to go about it.
That's all I've got.
If you enjoyed this, let me know in the comments.
Hey, if you've got some ideas or questions,
I'll try to reply to them all.
More importantly, if you know someone
who would really enjoy this video or find it useful,
please tag them in the comments
or you can share the video, of course
that would be great as well.
And yeah, speak soon.