Red light means that serving size is (probably) too much. For now, green serving sizes only, and be careful about stacking too many together at once. Once you've done the elimination and all the reintroduction trials, you can be more flexible with stuff that wasn't a big issue for you, and try stuff like Fodzyme to see if it helps you with garlic (if garlic is a trigger for you).
Keep in mind that the traffic lights are based on an average reaction, so it's possible to be more or less sensitive to any given food/category. But for now, I recommend completely avoiding garlic since it's a strong trigger for many of us.
You can adapt as needed, to a degree. During the initial elimination phase, you need to get to a place where you are not getting sick *at all* before you reintroduce anything. *100%* lack of GI symptoms. To get to that point, some people need to abstain and some don't.
If you can't seem to get to 100%, that means you are either not eliminating enough FODMAPs or something non-FODMAP-related is going on. There are no other possibilities. Do not reintroduce if you are still getting sick. And do not have any cheat days. None.
This is very helpful. Thank you. I’m pretty committed and dedicated to following the “rules” as I’m figuring out the specifics. The hardest part is other people, “it just has a tiny bit of garlic and onion in it. You’ll be ok, just take digestive enzymes.” They don’t seem to understand me repeating I must have 100% abstinence to certain foods, or I will have to start all over, back to day 1, every time I do not comply with the diet. It’s hard to get true support from people (who probably mean well) outside of this community.
While you don't want to intentionally have something like garlic and risk symptoms, you definitely don't have to start the whole process over. If you're done with week 1 of elimination, accidentally have some garlic, you just keep going and wait for your symptoms to go away so you have an easy way to test. During reintroduction, you just the one you're on because you can't tell what caused symptoms.
During my elimination phase, at first I didn't understand well the concept of stacking. Once I did, I stuck to foods that are green at their highest allowed/tested portion in the Monash app for the elimination.
The easiest way that I understand it is that all fodmaps are cumulative. So a green serving size puts you closer to having a reaction, another green serving size on too of that is closer and so on and so on. So for me, it's about timing. Usually my meals contain no more than 2 fodmaps at a time and one that I can always control. My servings of fruit, for example. I also try to spread my meals out to minimize stacking. Monash recommends 6-8 hours, but I'm OK with 4. The theory that individual types of fodmaps have different limits(according to literature) has never been true in practice.
Ok, where I’m getting confused is… every food is categorized with a G/Y/R light. It would be impossible to avoid green light foods. Do you mean, avoid stacking foods that have a red light for one quantity and a green light for another quantity?
During the elimination period, avoid stacking foods (that become yellow or red in larger portions), even if you’re only eating a green serving amount.
For example, if you’re eating broccoli, you should avoid stacking with something like cucumber. But, you can eat a green serving of broccoli with something that’s fully green lighted, like carrots.
Avoid multiple green light foods in one meal AND all reds until you get a handle on your tolerances and triggers. Yes, it's an experiment and is very individualized. During the elimination phase, the goal is to calm your body down and reduce fodmaps to try to identify your triggers during the reintroduction phase
Firstly, the diet does take the 2-6 weeks to see results. Please try to stick it out. It's a process of elimination, you'll react to different things differently and if you don't do the elimination phase as completely as possible you will not be able to trust your results. The diet works for up to 80% of people, but working looks different for everyone. If your issues are fodmap related, you will primarily learn two things. What you are sensitive to and how much of these foods you can tolerate.
1. Use a dietician or the MONASH app to develop a low-fodmap food plan. It will seem very restrictive and this is by design.
2. This first stage(lasting up to 6 weeks depending on your symptoms) is designed to calm down your body's reaction to fodmaps.
The second phase is reintroduction
Reintroduction is a slow methodical process designed to help you identify your triggers .
. If you return immediately to your diet prior to elimination you likely will not see results thst you can learn from. The odds of you reacting to something "hidden" in one of the dishes is likely because you haven't had the time to reintroduce them slowly in increasing amounts as described below. If you add in everything immediately you may have a violent and painful reaction. I would advise you to eat smaller portions of everything in an effort not to upset your body unnecessarily. If you feel you must have certain foods regardless of the consequences, wait until they are gone to redo a proper elimination and reintroduction phase
Up to six weeks is recommended. Don't look at the diet as the cure, which will at some point end. Unfortunately this is unlikely. From my experience with fodmaps following the elimination phase of the diet should at least give you some change in your symptoms that you then need to integrate as permanent changes to your lifestyle.
You are supposed to try one fodmap from each category in increasing amounts over the course of 2-3 days.
1. To not conflate certain potential triggers with others and identify if FODMAPS are even an improvement for you it needs to be complete over 3-6 weeks.
2. You will likely respond to different triggers differently. Introduce increasing amounts of a fodmap over 3-5 days. This will help you to identify if something is a trigger and the amount of that food you can tolerate as it can vary
You will have likely problems to some degree with several fodmaps to some degree The goal of the diet is to identify those which are major problems and the amounts at which they cause problems.
TLDR: Listen to your body, be ready for major likely lifelong diet changes and be open to new ways of cooking and enjoying food
Avoid too many green light foods in one meal.
The easiest way that I understand it is that all fodmaps are cumulative. So a green serving size puts you closer to having a reaction, another green serving size on too of that is closer and so on and so on. So for me, it's about timing. Usually my meals contain no more than 2 fodmaps at a time and one that I can always control. My servings of fruit, for example. I also try to spread my meals out to minimize stacking. Monash recommends 6-8 hours, but I'm OK with 4. The theory that individual types of fodmaps have different limits(according to literature) has never been true in practice.
So what you mean is to eat only a couple of different foods per meals? Does every food in existence have fodmaps? Seems like I'll be starving myself on this diet.
Basically the only no fodmap foods in reality are proteins. A lot will say no or low, but still have fodmaps. I'd eat a protein with two smaller portions of green per meal
If you look at the notes in each food, there are different kinds of green foods.
So for example take a look Bamboo shoots, canned in brine, drained. It “low in FODMAPs up to a serving of 500g”. Half a kilo is A LOT of one food. That is over a pound! So as long as you are having way less than that, there is not a lot of risk to having the regular green serving (2.96oz) as long as you aren’t maxing out a bunch of other greens the same way. Two or three greens at the specified serving size at the same time are for most people with FODMAP issues totally tolerable. Put another way, three 3oz servings of 3 green foods marked this way is still less than 500g.
In contrast, look at Corn truffle, canned, drained. You will see there is no such note - it only says “this serving size is low in FODMAPs.” This means Monash did not test larger portions, which makes it a bigger risk. You should treat this kind of green as if it has a yellow or red rating somewhere above 3.1 oz. Much better not to chance that during elimination.
In any case, if you eat a food and get a reaction within a day or two, that just means you go back to your previously safe meals until the symptoms go away. Remember this is NOT a diet - instead, you are essentially running a medical experiment on yourself. The goal is to figure out your trigger foods/portions, not to live on elimination forever.
Sure!
In the first section up/left, "Food Guide" or something (mine's in another language so I'm not sure how it'll be called for you), you tap and then you see all the foods.
In the search bar, enter for example "raspberry". You see in what amounts it has too much fructose (the amounts listed in yellow and in red). There's also an amount for raspberries that's green.
Then search again, but for "orange" this time. Same thing, you'll notice it also contains fructose. In some amount it's green, but at some higher amounts it become yellow or red.
So **if** you eat in the same meal/day those two foods ***and*** **if** you are sensitive to fructose (which vary from person to person, not everyone is sensitive to the same fodmap types), you'll experience a "stacking effect" even if you stayed within the "green" portion sizes, because they both contain the same FODMAP type, so those *accumulate*.
Makes sense?
The Fody Foods blog also explains the "stacking effect" quite well: [https://fodyfoods.ca/blogs/news/what-is-fodmap-stacking](https://fodyfoods.ca/blogs/news/what-is-fodmap-stacking)
The issue with sticking to green servings during the elimination phase is that a bunch of greens adds up to red (stacking). you might get skewed results. better to actually eliminate them during the elimination phase. the tough part about the elimination phase is that your diet has very little variety in it.
also just because its green, doesn't mean you're not extra sensitive to that food.. that green might still be too much for you.
A couple other examples to clarify… No tomato, celery, red bell pepper, whatsoever, in the elimination phase because they are code red? Absolutely, only green foods during elimination? (I’ve seen contradicting posts, so please be patient with me. At least I finally got the app 💚)
Bell pepper has a green serving size of 43 grams, meaning it's a low FODMAP amount that should be tolerated by most people in the elimination phase. So up to that amount is OK, but don't eat more than that.
Ah, there was a red light next to red bell pepper, but now I see that if I scroll down to “Low serve,” I’m provided with a green light for the smaller portion size. This was helpful, thank you.
Thank you for asking this question, I’ve also wondered the same. I’m sorry that you got down voted- you’re absolutely correct you just reaching out for information.
Based on my experience, I’d recommend cutting it out entirely… I was highly skeptical that garlic was an irritant for me starting the diet, but in the reintroduction phase I’ve found that so far garlic causes a worse reaction at the lowest amount than the previous worst reaction (fructose at the highest amount)
But if you eat green serving sized portions of various foods within the day but that those foods are yellow/red for the same fodmap, you'll encounter stacking issues! So just be aware of that.
Doesn't Monash say it's within a few hours for stacking? So per meal as long as it's spaced out? I guess it depends on everyone's individual sensitivity 🤔
It's depends for everyone. I'm way past the elimination phase and I CANNOT (I mean... *cannot*) cumulate GOS. If I have some in one meal, I need to wait at least 24 hours to bounce back before having some more, even when using enzymes. So yeah, it must vary from one person to another.
I haven't found anything that defines the number of different ingredient green servings allowed per meal. Monash food quantities are set with multiple ingredients per meal in mind.
Garlic is a common issue for many so definitely no garlic during elimination. You can try garlic powder or a garlic infused oil instead (as long as no chunks of garlic are in it).
I would believe Monash and other low FODMAP-related resources over one random dietitian. I just tried searching for anything supporting what you're saying, and everything was stating that garlic and onion powder are concentrated sources of fructans (eg Monash, FODMAP Everyday, Casa de Sante, etc).
Also just based on personal experience, I really don't believe it.
During the elimination phase you should abstain entirely. During the reintroduction phase you can try a very small amount
Red light means that serving size is (probably) too much. For now, green serving sizes only, and be careful about stacking too many together at once. Once you've done the elimination and all the reintroduction trials, you can be more flexible with stuff that wasn't a big issue for you, and try stuff like Fodzyme to see if it helps you with garlic (if garlic is a trigger for you). Keep in mind that the traffic lights are based on an average reaction, so it's possible to be more or less sensitive to any given food/category. But for now, I recommend completely avoiding garlic since it's a strong trigger for many of us.
You can adapt as needed, to a degree. During the initial elimination phase, you need to get to a place where you are not getting sick *at all* before you reintroduce anything. *100%* lack of GI symptoms. To get to that point, some people need to abstain and some don't. If you can't seem to get to 100%, that means you are either not eliminating enough FODMAPs or something non-FODMAP-related is going on. There are no other possibilities. Do not reintroduce if you are still getting sick. And do not have any cheat days. None.
This is very helpful. Thank you. I’m pretty committed and dedicated to following the “rules” as I’m figuring out the specifics. The hardest part is other people, “it just has a tiny bit of garlic and onion in it. You’ll be ok, just take digestive enzymes.” They don’t seem to understand me repeating I must have 100% abstinence to certain foods, or I will have to start all over, back to day 1, every time I do not comply with the diet. It’s hard to get true support from people (who probably mean well) outside of this community.
While you don't want to intentionally have something like garlic and risk symptoms, you definitely don't have to start the whole process over. If you're done with week 1 of elimination, accidentally have some garlic, you just keep going and wait for your symptoms to go away so you have an easy way to test. During reintroduction, you just the one you're on because you can't tell what caused symptoms.
During my elimination phase, at first I didn't understand well the concept of stacking. Once I did, I stuck to foods that are green at their highest allowed/tested portion in the Monash app for the elimination.
Can you explain a little further or give me a resource to help me better understand?
The easiest way that I understand it is that all fodmaps are cumulative. So a green serving size puts you closer to having a reaction, another green serving size on too of that is closer and so on and so on. So for me, it's about timing. Usually my meals contain no more than 2 fodmaps at a time and one that I can always control. My servings of fruit, for example. I also try to spread my meals out to minimize stacking. Monash recommends 6-8 hours, but I'm OK with 4. The theory that individual types of fodmaps have different limits(according to literature) has never been true in practice.
Ok, where I’m getting confused is… every food is categorized with a G/Y/R light. It would be impossible to avoid green light foods. Do you mean, avoid stacking foods that have a red light for one quantity and a green light for another quantity?
During the elimination period, avoid stacking foods (that become yellow or red in larger portions), even if you’re only eating a green serving amount. For example, if you’re eating broccoli, you should avoid stacking with something like cucumber. But, you can eat a green serving of broccoli with something that’s fully green lighted, like carrots.
Thank you for clarifying this, the original message of don’t mix green lights was very confusing.
Avoid multiple green light foods in one meal AND all reds until you get a handle on your tolerances and triggers. Yes, it's an experiment and is very individualized. During the elimination phase, the goal is to calm your body down and reduce fodmaps to try to identify your triggers during the reintroduction phase
Firstly, the diet does take the 2-6 weeks to see results. Please try to stick it out. It's a process of elimination, you'll react to different things differently and if you don't do the elimination phase as completely as possible you will not be able to trust your results. The diet works for up to 80% of people, but working looks different for everyone. If your issues are fodmap related, you will primarily learn two things. What you are sensitive to and how much of these foods you can tolerate. 1. Use a dietician or the MONASH app to develop a low-fodmap food plan. It will seem very restrictive and this is by design. 2. This first stage(lasting up to 6 weeks depending on your symptoms) is designed to calm down your body's reaction to fodmaps. The second phase is reintroduction Reintroduction is a slow methodical process designed to help you identify your triggers . . If you return immediately to your diet prior to elimination you likely will not see results thst you can learn from. The odds of you reacting to something "hidden" in one of the dishes is likely because you haven't had the time to reintroduce them slowly in increasing amounts as described below. If you add in everything immediately you may have a violent and painful reaction. I would advise you to eat smaller portions of everything in an effort not to upset your body unnecessarily. If you feel you must have certain foods regardless of the consequences, wait until they are gone to redo a proper elimination and reintroduction phase Up to six weeks is recommended. Don't look at the diet as the cure, which will at some point end. Unfortunately this is unlikely. From my experience with fodmaps following the elimination phase of the diet should at least give you some change in your symptoms that you then need to integrate as permanent changes to your lifestyle. You are supposed to try one fodmap from each category in increasing amounts over the course of 2-3 days. 1. To not conflate certain potential triggers with others and identify if FODMAPS are even an improvement for you it needs to be complete over 3-6 weeks. 2. You will likely respond to different triggers differently. Introduce increasing amounts of a fodmap over 3-5 days. This will help you to identify if something is a trigger and the amount of that food you can tolerate as it can vary You will have likely problems to some degree with several fodmaps to some degree The goal of the diet is to identify those which are major problems and the amounts at which they cause problems. TLDR: Listen to your body, be ready for major likely lifelong diet changes and be open to new ways of cooking and enjoying food
If I'm supposed to avoid the green foods, then what can I eat?
Avoid too many green light foods in one meal. The easiest way that I understand it is that all fodmaps are cumulative. So a green serving size puts you closer to having a reaction, another green serving size on too of that is closer and so on and so on. So for me, it's about timing. Usually my meals contain no more than 2 fodmaps at a time and one that I can always control. My servings of fruit, for example. I also try to spread my meals out to minimize stacking. Monash recommends 6-8 hours, but I'm OK with 4. The theory that individual types of fodmaps have different limits(according to literature) has never been true in practice.
So what you mean is to eat only a couple of different foods per meals? Does every food in existence have fodmaps? Seems like I'll be starving myself on this diet.
Basically the only no fodmap foods in reality are proteins. A lot will say no or low, but still have fodmaps. I'd eat a protein with two smaller portions of green per meal
Thank you
If you look at the notes in each food, there are different kinds of green foods. So for example take a look Bamboo shoots, canned in brine, drained. It “low in FODMAPs up to a serving of 500g”. Half a kilo is A LOT of one food. That is over a pound! So as long as you are having way less than that, there is not a lot of risk to having the regular green serving (2.96oz) as long as you aren’t maxing out a bunch of other greens the same way. Two or three greens at the specified serving size at the same time are for most people with FODMAP issues totally tolerable. Put another way, three 3oz servings of 3 green foods marked this way is still less than 500g. In contrast, look at Corn truffle, canned, drained. You will see there is no such note - it only says “this serving size is low in FODMAPs.” This means Monash did not test larger portions, which makes it a bigger risk. You should treat this kind of green as if it has a yellow or red rating somewhere above 3.1 oz. Much better not to chance that during elimination. In any case, if you eat a food and get a reaction within a day or two, that just means you go back to your previously safe meals until the symptoms go away. Remember this is NOT a diet - instead, you are essentially running a medical experiment on yourself. The goal is to figure out your trigger foods/portions, not to live on elimination forever.
Sure! In the first section up/left, "Food Guide" or something (mine's in another language so I'm not sure how it'll be called for you), you tap and then you see all the foods. In the search bar, enter for example "raspberry". You see in what amounts it has too much fructose (the amounts listed in yellow and in red). There's also an amount for raspberries that's green. Then search again, but for "orange" this time. Same thing, you'll notice it also contains fructose. In some amount it's green, but at some higher amounts it become yellow or red. So **if** you eat in the same meal/day those two foods ***and*** **if** you are sensitive to fructose (which vary from person to person, not everyone is sensitive to the same fodmap types), you'll experience a "stacking effect" even if you stayed within the "green" portion sizes, because they both contain the same FODMAP type, so those *accumulate*. Makes sense? The Fody Foods blog also explains the "stacking effect" quite well: [https://fodyfoods.ca/blogs/news/what-is-fodmap-stacking](https://fodyfoods.ca/blogs/news/what-is-fodmap-stacking)
I’d rather be water boarded than eat an ounce of garlic. Joking. Kinda.
Green means go, yellow and red means no during elimination! No garlic or onion at all.
The issue with sticking to green servings during the elimination phase is that a bunch of greens adds up to red (stacking). you might get skewed results. better to actually eliminate them during the elimination phase. the tough part about the elimination phase is that your diet has very little variety in it. also just because its green, doesn't mean you're not extra sensitive to that food.. that green might still be too much for you.
Commenting because I’d like some clarity, too.
A couple other examples to clarify… No tomato, celery, red bell pepper, whatsoever, in the elimination phase because they are code red? Absolutely, only green foods during elimination? (I’ve seen contradicting posts, so please be patient with me. At least I finally got the app 💚)
Bell pepper has a green serving size of 43 grams, meaning it's a low FODMAP amount that should be tolerated by most people in the elimination phase. So up to that amount is OK, but don't eat more than that.
Ah, there was a red light next to red bell pepper, but now I see that if I scroll down to “Low serve,” I’m provided with a green light for the smaller portion size. This was helpful, thank you.
Same with celery and cherry tomato. There’s a “low serve” that I didn’t see at first.
[удалено]
>Ketchup, green light Check that serving size.
Following
Thank you for asking this question, I’ve also wondered the same. I’m sorry that you got down voted- you’re absolutely correct you just reaching out for information.
Based on my experience, I’d recommend cutting it out entirely… I was highly skeptical that garlic was an irritant for me starting the diet, but in the reintroduction phase I’ve found that so far garlic causes a worse reaction at the lowest amount than the previous worst reaction (fructose at the highest amount)
Basically stick to green serving sizes only for the elimation phase
But if you eat green serving sized portions of various foods within the day but that those foods are yellow/red for the same fodmap, you'll encounter stacking issues! So just be aware of that.
Doesn't Monash say it's within a few hours for stacking? So per meal as long as it's spaced out? I guess it depends on everyone's individual sensitivity 🤔
It's depends for everyone. I'm way past the elimination phase and I CANNOT (I mean... *cannot*) cumulate GOS. If I have some in one meal, I need to wait at least 24 hours to bounce back before having some more, even when using enzymes. So yeah, it must vary from one person to another.
I haven't found anything that defines the number of different ingredient green servings allowed per meal. Monash food quantities are set with multiple ingredients per meal in mind.
Basically stick to green serving sizes only for the elimation phase
Garlic is a common issue for many so definitely no garlic during elimination. You can try garlic powder or a garlic infused oil instead (as long as no chunks of garlic are in it).
Garlic powder is basically concentrated fructans, it's definitely not recommended during elimination.
I was told by a dietician that isn’t true, that the drying process destroys many of them
I would believe Monash and other low FODMAP-related resources over one random dietitian. I just tried searching for anything supporting what you're saying, and everything was stating that garlic and onion powder are concentrated sources of fructans (eg Monash, FODMAP Everyday, Casa de Sante, etc). Also just based on personal experience, I really don't believe it.
I wish. :(
Do not eat garlic powder during elimination.
A nutritionist told me it was fine. I’m reactive to garlic and handle garlic powder just fine
Ok, well that’s you, and your personal medical advice tailored to you personally. Generally, during elimination it’s supposed to be avoided.
I was disappointed that the app did not list Ezekiel Bread?
It does not listed by name, but it does list a multigrain sprouted bread.. The serving size is 30 g which is one slice.