Best Foods for IBS Diet

Greetings! Eric Bakker. We’re going to talk today in this video about the best foods to eat for IBS. The best foods to eat for IBS are the ones that are not going to aggravate you and help to build up the work that you’re going to hopefully be doing, because you’ve been watching the other videos. You’re going to be helping to rebuild the gut function again. You’ll have taken some supplements to eradicate unwanted pathogens. You’ll have taken a supplement that contains some beneficial bacteria and enzymes to help bust up different kinds of starches, proteins and fats, to assist digestion, and you’ll have taken a supplement that contains good vitamins and minerals in an anti-microbial base that’s going to help build cellular health and give you energy back again. Stop weight loss, encourage appetite to come back again for example.

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The foods are going to play into the hands of the work that you’re doing with good supplementation. The foods are going to play into the hands of the low stress lifestyle that you’ve taken on board to adopt. Because you understand the connection between stress and IBS. If you don’t understand that connection, please go back and look at some of my other videos, because IBS is a hell of a lot more than just eating these foods and avoiding other foods.

To understand the kind of material I’m going to present with this video, we need to talk about prebiotics. Back in 1994, there was a guy called Marcel Roberfroid who started to understand that we already knew we had beneficial bacteria, but Roberfroid started to really think, “Well, hang on a minute, what did these guys eat? What do these beneficial bacteria feed on? What do they need? Do they eat McDonalds? Do they eat pizzas? Do they have Advil and diet coke? No. They need stuff called prebiotics that feed the probiotics.”

Beneficial bacteria need food. You need food. You need pizzas and beer and whatever you eat. You know what I mean? The point is beneficial bacteria need to be fed, and one of the best foods for them is stuff called oligosaccharides. We’ve got simple sugars, monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides (which have got a carbohydrate chain of about 3 to 10), then we’ve got starches, which are much more complex sugars. Difficult to break down. Sugars create a lot of wanted and unwanted effects in the gut.

We know through looking at specific carbohydrate diets for example that we need to avoid the simple sugars like lactose and sucrose because they react very quickly in the gut. They cause a lot of gas and fermentation. Candida loves these kinds of sugars. If you want to build Candida levels up to high levels, just have a couple tablespoons of sugar a day. You’ll be farting like a bullfrog and you’ll be sick in no time. These are the sugars we want to avoid. Roberfroid started to discover that people, A: need to break down the oligosaccharides properly (again, where enzymes are important to come into the Candida equation and IBS equation), also that the oligosaccharides actually feed up beneficial bacteria in the colon, especially. These foods by default have quite a sweet taste.

If we look in the States, in America, people may get between one to three grams per day of oligosaccharides. If we go to Europe, many European countries like Greece and Italy, people eat 3 to10, even 15 grams a day of these foods, because their diet leans more towards these kinds of foods. I believe also this is one of the key reasons why a lot people in these sort of countries have less problems with their bowel than people in Europe and US and Australia/New Zealand do.

Oligosaccharides can be broken down into fructooligosaccharides and galactooligosaccharides. We know breast milk for example is a very good food for babies, because it’s high in galactooligosaccharides. It’s an exceptionally good food. I often wonder about babies that are formula-fed and not breast-fed anymore – what kind of a start they get in life. Then they get sick, they get antibiotics and they start on the merry-go-round of drugs.

I’m going to read out a list of some foods now and it’s actually on my website EricBakker.com. You can read this page. It’s called “Natural Alternatives to Antibiotics, Part four.” These are foods high in FOS, GOS and inulin. One thing I would like to also say in this video is I’m not a fan of prebiotics at all in dietary supplements. For this reason, I have not use them in any of my products. Be very careful if you’re taking FOS or inulin in a dietary supplement, because it can really help to build SIBO right up. It can push Candida up, SIBO up. It can give you massively strong effects, which you may perceive to be die off, when, in fact, actually you’re eating a kind of a sugar that’s playing right into the hands of an overgrowth. Just be very careful.

The foods: Jerusalem artichokes, we call them fartichokes. If you eat too many of them, you’ll be farting, so be very careful if you’re eating Jerusalem artichokes for the first time. Just start on one. Don’t eat the whole bowl full because you will fart like you’ve never farted before, so just be careful. Burdock roots, chicory roots, dandelion roots, garlic, onions, leeks, shallots. These are very high in FOS. These are excellent foods to feed up beneficial bacteria. Garlic is amazing, and so are the allium family like brown onions. Try and eat some brown onions raw in summertime every day. This is going to really help encourage good growth of bugs in the gut. This is going to stop cramping, but start with small amounts. This is the key.

Any time you take on these foods on board, don’t just start with a huge bowl full twice a day, because you’ll get a problem. Green plantain bananas. Very good. Raw cacao. I may say sometimes to take raw cacao out of your diet as an elimination, but small amounts can be trialed with you if you’ve got bad IBS as you improve because they can be a good prebiotic food. Green tea. One to two cups of green tea a day. A great choice for a person with IBS.

Brassica family. Some people will say, “Don’t eat these foods. You’ll be bloating and farting all over the place.” You can try and bake them or steam them. Eating them raw may cause a problem. You may find some brassicas to be very good and others to be very detrimental, so you need to experiment. Brussels sprouts for example are quite a strong brassica. They may cause a lot of discomfort with IBS. The brassica family are what you put in there as you improve. Don’t put them in at the onset. You may have been told by your naturopath or nutritionist to take all the brassicas out. We’re talking cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, bok choy, choy sum, like all of these kind of things. Some of these you can keep in, for example, bok choy or choy sum. The Chinese veggies may be fine, but you may find you have a real big problem with broccoli and brussels sprouts and cauliflower. As you improve, put the brassicas in, because they’re an exceptional food for the body.

Legumes. Adzuki beans, pinto beans, navy beans, mung beans. Sprouts, another good form of sugars. They’re nice and sweet to chew on. Again, with beans, start slow. Don’t have massive big bean dishes to start with. Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecan nuts. These are all very good sources of inulin and FOS and GOS. Again, start slow. Rye dough sour bread. If you can tolerate gluten, try a little bit of rye dough sour bread.

These are quite good foods to include with IBS. But remember, please follow the advice I said about the best diet. Where we first keep you off all sugar and crap, and we start putting in a meat, eggs, vegetables and yogurt kind of approach. Then we move you into a low allergy phase, and then we start putting these foods in there. These pinnacle foods to help build very good levels of gut health back, promoting bacteria. Don’t get confused. These aren’t the foods you do on day one.

These are the foods that you slowly start to incorporate as you improve. If you keep on this diet I’m saying here, you can be completely IBS free within six months. How can I say that? Because I’ve said that many times before with patients and I’ve had a great outcome with a lot of people. Thanks for tuning in. See you in the next video.

Before you leave the page make sure to watch My TOP 5 Candida Fighting Foods. I share my 5 favorite foods that beat candida overgrowth. The video is on my youtube channel and you can click here to watch it. Let me know if you have any other questions.