Question: (Fill in the blank) food isn’t on the SIBO specific food guide can I eat it?
The food guide is just that a guide, a place to start from but it is not rigid. Any food that you know you can tolerate you can incorporate it into your diet as soon as you like. If you are not sure if you can tolerate it then try a small amount and see what happens.
Question: How long do I have to be on this diet for? Will I ever be able to go back to eating “normal” food again?
That depends on your particular case. Each person is different. For some they might only have to do the diet for a few 4-5 months but for others it could be for the rest of their lives potentially. After being on the diet for a while you find out which food you can permanently reincorporate and which ones consistently seem to cause a reaction.
Question: The diet says you can’t make broth from bones with cartilage on them. What is wrong with cartilage?
I know its a weird nuance about the cartilage. Cartilage is found in and around joints. Cartilage is made of polysaccharides called Glucosaminoglycans or GAG’s which are a preferential food source for bacteria. To avoid GAG’s make broth out of meat or the middle piece of a long bone. You can ask your butcher for marrow bone which won’t have any cartilage on it. Making broth with chicken carcass is pretty much out because it is hard to find a big enough piece without a joint, but you could use the chicken meat.
Is Honey Allowed on the SIBO Specific Diet?
Honey is allowed on the SIBO Specific Diet but not all types. Acceptable types of honey are clover, alfalfa, wildflower and raspberry. These forms of honey have a 50:50 ratio of fructose to glucose and are potentially less reactive for those with fructose intolerance when compared to other types of honeys that have a higher fructose content. Many people who have SIBO also have an underlying fructose intolerance so choosing foods with lesser amounts of fructose is desirable.
Why is garlic “illegal” but garlic oil is ok?
It is the actual fibrous part of the garlic that is the problem not the essential oil in the garlic. If you refer to my garlic oil recipe you will see the garlic is allowed to infused into the oil but the actual garlic gets tossed out.
This recipe has foods that are in the high FODMAPs column, I thought that you are not supposed to eat those foods?
All of the recipes on this site are SCD legal but not all are low FODMAP’s. Many people use this site and everyone is in different stages of food reintroduction. Some people find they are able to tolerate high FODMAPs foods while other cannot. You will have to determine what foods you are able to tolerate yourself. The majority of recipes contain foods that have low reactivity but I have thrown in a few with high FODMAPs items such as cauliflower for those who are wanting to expanding their diets. See my SIBO info page to learn more about how to use the food guide.