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We have mentioned FODMAPS - and the importance of eating foods that are low FODMAP during these weeks of spring cleaning. But what are they?? FODMAP is an acronym for Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, and Monosaccharides and Polyols. These terms refer to foods that are all short chain carbohydrate structures- with one (mono), two (di) or other (oligo) sugars linked together. Polyols are actually sugar alcohols - a sugar attached to an alcohol. Some are naturally occurring but most of these get into our diet as part of artificial sweeteners such as xylitol, mannitol, sorbitol. For us to be able to absorb these sugars we need the enzymes to break them to individual units and/or transport them and the ability to do this can be vary variable. For example, many people lack the enzyme lactase which is the enzyme necessary to break down lactose in milk (a disaccharide). These sugars become fermentable because they often pass unabsorbed, undigested through the small intestine to the large intestine- where our gut bugs feast on them, ferment them, and thus produce gas as well as a host of other problems, including abdominal pain and diarrhea. Of course, we can't cut out all FODMAPS - we do need to feed some of our bacteria making several of these foods are actually prebiotics - and feed our friendly bacteria. But in order to weed out our inner garden, a few weeks of eliminating high FODMAP foods will promote overall gut health - and then when carefully added back can be evaluated for each of us as fine (no reaction) or problem (gas, bloating, abdominal symptoms. And since gluten and dairy foods are the two most commonly problematic - we will eliminate/severely limit these groups during these weeks. Download the attached file for low, medium, and high FODMAP foods. Think about which of these ever give you discomfort - and plan to stay away from the high FODMAP foods for the next weeks! 
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Susan J Vannucci
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