Grumpy gut cooking - Seeking resources and recipes for IBD and IBS

Seeking cookbook or recipes for healing an exceptionally grumpy gut.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) run rampant in my family.  I'm trying to learn more about it, but my trip to the library has been rather depressing.  I thought maybe a cookbook that specialises in IBD problems would be useful.  Afterall, a grumpy gut is influenced by food.

But the books I found so far, have recipes go like this:

Open a can of...
mix in a packet of...
add to that one cup of this brand name sauce...
and some margarine...

I don't eat any of those things.  

What I really need is a cookbook that writes about cooking from scratch.  It suggests I get this raw ingredient, add to it that raw ingredient...  If it could be specific to IBD or IBS, so much the better.

Anyone know of such a resource?  
If it could mention the low residue (fibre) alternatives, so much the better.  

There are many IBS cookbooks out there. But as coming from someone who have IBS, they are not always helpful. The foods that can cause intestinal distress vary widely from person to person. In your post you mention raw foods, this can be a real trigger for me. Some things I can eat raw, but many give me trouble. And sometimes it depends on how I've been doing. Fermented food helps a lot.

I would start by looking into the FODMAP diet. There are cookbooks and lots of info online.

Good luck

I'll look up FODMAP.  Thank you for this.  It's hard to know what to search for when one's just starting out.  This helps.


Raw foods bother me too.

I'm more interested in raw ingredients.  (maybe there's a better word for this?)

For example, if I want to cook a casserole, I wouldn't start it by opening a can of soup and adding to it a packet of soup base, then a packet of frozen of veggies... topped with a pre-mixed brand name packet of breadcrumbs and pop it in the microwave.  This seems to be the kind of recipes I keep stumbling on.

When I'm thinking raw ingredients, I'm thinking a recipe like: start with a cauliflower and a potato, add to it some broth (recipe found on page #) or veggie soup (recipe found on page #) ... Top with breadcrumb of your choice (for a recipe on how to transform any bread, gluten-free or otherwise, into breadcrumbs, see page #).  Bake in the oven for suchandsuch a time.

Okay, sorry, I misunderstood about the raw foods. Maybe whole foods is a better word.

Stacy Witscher wrote:Okay, sorry, I misunderstood about the raw foods. Maybe whole foods is a better word.

I like it.  

Hey ranson, do you have access to raw milk? I make kefir from raw milk, and may I suggest it for you. Once made, it contains trillions of good bacteria. It really does do wonders for correcting grumpy guts and establishing a new foundation for happy gutness :) Raw milk really does make the best kefir. If you can't get raw milk, may I also recommend water kefir. Basically you dissolve organic cane sugar in water, add a little molasses for minerals to feed the kefir grains, and about 4 days later you have water kefir. It needs a different kind of "grain" than the milk kefir. Both are available online. If you have any questions regarding kefir, please feel free to ask. Good luck!!

James Freyr wrote:Hey ranson, do you have access to raw milk? I make kefir from raw milk, and may I suggest it for you. Once made, it contains trillions of good bacteria. It really does do wonders for correcting grumpy guts and establishing a new foundation for happy gutness :) Raw milk really does make the best kefir. If you can't get raw milk, may I also recommend water kefir. Basically you dissolve organic cane sugar in water, add a little molasses for minerals to feed the kefir grains, and about 4 days later you have water kefir. It needs a different kind of "grain" than the milk kefir. Both are available online. If you have any questions regarding kefir, please feel free to ask. Good luck!!

If you could make a thread telling how to make it, that would be great.  Step by step please :)

I would recommend checking out the GAPS (gut and psychology syndrome) diet, devised by Natasha Campbell-McBride to treat psychological issues she believes are related to malfunctioning gut biota. It's been picked up by people who are looking at treating physical gut issues like you are describing and I believe they have now released a volume called the Gut and Physiology Syndrome, but if I'm mistaken about that there are definitely internet resources around it. The basics of the diet are a focus on quality bone broth, fermented dairy and vegetables, and stewed produce.  For extreme cases she basically recommends going onto a broth fast as she claims it is the easiest food product for your body to integrate and it supports the development and recovery of your natural gut biota which will slowly make your body better able to deal with all other foods. Best of luck to you, and I'd love to hear what you try and what results you get. I also have digestive issues in my family (crohns, IBS, etc.) and I suspect many people in the west these days do. Makes you wonder what they're putting in the food eh?

My husband has Crohn's, which is one of the more severe forms of IBS. The SCD (Special Carbohydrate Diet) has helped a lot. The Special Carbohydrate Diet is based on removing food sources from the bad bacteria and yeasts in our guts. One removes all starches (no grains, no potato, no grain-like-foods like quinua) as well as all sugars except those in fruit and honey. If you've heard of the GAPS (Gut and Psycology Syndrome Diet), it is based on SCD.

Here's the main book on the subject:  https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Vicious-Cycle-Intestinal-Through/dp/0969276818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507046717&sr=8-1&keywords=breaking+the+vicious+cycle It has some recipies in there.

Almost every SCD recipe I've encountered is from scratch. Most processed food are "illegal" because it's hard to tell if the manufacturers added in small amounts of starch or other illegal ingredients. I find most of my recipes online, just typing in google things like "SCD Cake" or "SCD "

http://comfybelly.com and http://pecanbread.com have a lot of recipes that I see posted by people on my facebook SCD group. As for actual physical cookbooks, I haven't bought any, but I see a bunch of them on amazon. Here's an amazon search.  https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=SCD+cookbook

FODMAPS, as well as Autoimmune Paleo, and Dr Terry Wahl's diets are also all very similar to SCD. They all just focus on slightly different foods. Dr. Wahl's diet is very focused on eating lots of vegetables and fruits.

I can second searching for Low FODMAP — that's the usual tagline people refer to these diets as for cooking. I dated a woman who suffered from IBS for a while, and my love of cooking + difficulty of eating out meant I got a lot of practice cooking in that way. I used to have a lot of success searching Instagram for #lowfodmap and kind of making up my own recipe based on theirs. After a couple of months cooking that way, it was pretty easy to modify most recipes to be low FODMAP. Lots of green onions (low fructose), quinoa-based pastas, mozzarella (low lactose), potatoes, eggs, tomatoes, and trial-and-erroring mixing various non-wheat flours for bread-y things. The hardest thing for me was eliminating onions and garlic — it turns out a huge base of my cooking relies on that savory/sweet combo that onions provide. But you get over it.

For me it was less about what to cook with (most foods are fine!) and more about what I can't cook with. Avoiding onions, garlic, gluten, and dairy got me most of the way there. Avoiding fructose was always a little frustrating, especially since different fruits have different ratios of fructose/sucrose depending on their ripeness, but I rarely cooked with anything fructose heavy (aside from onions) anyway.

http://www.lowfodmap.com/cookbook/ is probably where I'd send you to start off. There's a few recipes on the site, but the cookbook is also nice to have.

Sure thing Todd! Link here.

Can't say I have been formally diagnosed with this but after bad food poisoning from a holiday a few years ago nothing had as big a change in fixing any issues until recently when I have been drinking more Dandelion root tea. Kefir, ginger and the avoiding certain foods helped but we not as long lasting in thier effect.

Can't say it will work for you but I think it might be worth trying.

For my own relatively mild irritable bowel syndrome  (I very much like the British term for it, which is "spastic colon.") I have found that massive quantities of fiber are very helpful.  Like, old fashioned oats with ground flaxseed added to it.  Or just massive amounts of vegetables.  Probiotics are also very helpful.  Yogurt is easy but home fermented vegetables are even better.  (Carrot sticks with disks of ginger root makes a really nice fermented pickle.)

How about fruit smoothies..??  One of my favorites.... purple grapes, mango, peach, pineapple, strawberry, orange juice and water.  About half and half OJ and water, if you use all OJ then the smoothie will be overpowered by OJ flavor.

And if you are wanting to take it to a level where you are, "healing an exceptionally grumpy gut", give this book a look.  The Detox Miracle Sourcebook

Unfortunately, there are no IBS cookbooks that will get rid of IBS.  Cooking is the problem here.  You may be able to slightly manage it, but.......it's only going to progress.  I think if anyone is going to stick on the cooked food path then fermented foods would probably go a long ways to helping out. "making your own would be best"  But that's not a fix, it's just another band-aid.

I wish I could tell you a cheesy burrito recipe with special rice, beans, cheese, sauce, etc.. that would be beneficial to the gut....but that's just impossible.  The reality is that our bodies are designed to eat certain foods, and when we stray from those foods the bodies begin to degenerate, to the point we are at today where it's been generation after generation going from more and more cooked foods to processed foods.  And that's why nearly everyone is sick....food, or the semblance of it, found in the aisles of grocery stores.

Find quality ripe fruit, detox the body and it will sing.

I'm part of an SCD facebook group, and there are frequently people posting that they went in for a colonoscopy after years of eating SCD, and their colons looked like they'd never had Crohn's. Healing did occur for these people. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet is a healing diet for many, not just a maintenance diet. It is a strict diet to follow, however, especially if you want healing results.

Kyle Neath wrote:Lots of green onions (low fructose)..........The hardest thing for me was eliminating onions and garlic — it turns out a huge base of my cooking relies on that savory/sweet combo that onions provide. But you get over it.

I can't tell if you're eating " lots of green onions" or have eliminated them. Did I miss something?

Onions are certainly a trouble food for me. I once added too many to a pan of yellow squash and I was up all night. It felt like I was having a heart attach. It was just the onions. Same thing happened to my sister. It's miserable.

I have something going on now. Abdominal pain for three days now, fever last evening, somewhat better this morning but I don't know what sparked all of this. I did have a green salad with a little onion several nights ago and I wonder if it could have caused intestinal inflammation, which brought on fever.

I am better this morning, like I said, but disappointed that I'll have to miss our "Opening Day of Hunting Season" gathering this evening.

I can't tell if you're eating " lots of green onions" or have eliminated them. Did I miss something?

Sorry, I meant eating lots of green onions (only the green part!). They retain a lot of the onion-y flavor without any of the fructose & friends that make onions so unpleasant for those with IBS.

I wanted to link this thread over here.  I feel it has pertinence. Homemade Lactobacillus Serum

It may seem odd, but I had read that eating the color orange is good/healing for the gut.  So I was making lots of mango and orange juice smoothies....which was making my gut feel amazing.  I think the citristar is a quality citrus juicer, I've tried others with better "ratings", but they were junk.

When eating fruit, food combining can be important.  Eat fruit first in the day, before eating other heavy meals.  Fruit digests quickly and easily, if it runs into something heavy and slow in the gut it will begin to ferment.  And supposedly people have become drunk and cited for drunk driving because of this....yet unbeknownst to them, they had no clue what was happening.

Some people cannot handle fruit though, so they've used green juices to open up the door.

Eating fermented foods along side the cooked food meals will help. I always intuitively feel like I want fermented foods if I've been eating lots of cooked food meals.

I think every IBD situation is different, so figuring what triggers you and what feels good will help out a bit.  I've read of people keeping a food journal by eating only one thing at a time, and keeping track of what feels good and what triggers them, then they have a list of personal trigger foods.

Thank you to everyone posting in this thread.  I'm absorbing so many good ideas and trying new things.  I got a bit distracted by the comfybelly blog - so many delicious recipes to try - that I forgot to learn about the theory behind it.

My partner has gut problems and is as thin as a stick. Many here say that raw is good, while Chinese medicine often discourages raw, because it is difficult to digest what views are there?
You mentioned kefir, but I can't get the raw milk, is shop milk OK?

Studies on crohn's disease show a possible link with dishwashing soaps. Seems to weaken the gut lining or something making it sensitive and permeable.

Seems rinsing off the soap from dishes may be more important than washing them.

I'm not for or against raw as a rule. Some things I can tolerate raw and others not so much. In some foods, the nutrients are more available if cooked. As others have said, these things can be very individual. Fiber is something I need to watch, the daily recommended allowance of 25-35 grams a day works well for me, but anything over that and I'm in agony.  Many people make kefir with store milk. I would think that raw would be better, but store kefir is better than nothing,

I don't have Crohn's disease, but I have to ask, who doesn't rinse their dishes? Maybe those people who fill the sink to rinse all the dishes, and after the first plate, the rinse water contains soap? But this is more typical in a professional 3-sink system.

I've been reading a lot about glutamine, an essential amino acid, and it's role as a gut healer and instestinal health promoter. It is found naturally in many foods.

Naturalnews.com has an interesting article about healing your gut naturally with the amino acid l-glutamine.

Dr.Jockers.com lists these as the 10 best food sources: (Dr. David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS is a doctor of natural medicine, functional nutritionist and corrective care chiropractor. )

1)Bone Broth and Bone Broth Protein

2) Grass-fed Whey Protein

3) Grass-fed Raw Dairy

4) Grass-fed beef/Bison

5) Spirulina

6) Cabbage

7) Asparagus

Broccoli

9) Venison

10)  Organic poultry  


Fix your gut.com has great detailed information on how to prepare cabbage juices to get the maximum glutamine benefits, including these two:


How to Make Fresh Homemade Cabbage Juice – Full of Natural L-Glutamine

Fermented Cabbage Juice – Probiotic Goodness!

(In the list above, I think the number 8 is going to submit as a smiley face. I'm leaving it that way because I like broccoli.)

(Edited to give proper credits.)

At present I rarely use soap for anything, testing a hypothesis that most of the bacteria killed by soap are likely the ones that would protect me from any real microbial threat.

That being said, I have always been able to taste when soap is not completely rinsed, and with people using the double sink system (i grew up with that as sop for dishwashing) or not quite going over every surface with fresh rinse water, it is likely that some soap film remains occasionally.

For most people they can get away with eating that very occasional bit of soap, but I figured it might be good to mention this for people with a sensitivity that might be helped with a little extra attention to the rinse, and possibly a little less use of soap.

Not sure this advice will be useful, but take this with a grain of salt if it applies.

I had some gut issues for months that were really bothering me and tearing down my health.  Heather's Tummy Teas products (and the fiber) all helped...some.  But they didn't fix anything.

Then I discovered I was getting a lot of inulin in my diet because of recent changes.  I can't tolerate inulin well, and it was destroying my health.  I wish I'd realized sooner.

Anyway, I eliminated all inulin.  It's not that difficult, as long as you're reading ingredients and not eating something that has it naturally.  

Then I discovered Farmhouse Culture Gut Shot at my local health food store.  https://www.farmhouseculture.com/gut-shots  It's a fermented probiotic, and taking it regularly went a HUGE way towards improving my digestion and helping my overall health.

They stopped carrying it, and i couldn't get it for a while, but I was recently able to special order some, and I'm once again finding it a huge help for building me up physically.

Of course if you already get plenty of fresh fermented foods, and don't use inulin, none of these things will apply to you.  I'm sharing this in case anyone reading this happens to be in a similar situation to where I was.   It was horrible and needless suffering, and from what I've read, I'm not the only one to have some real issues with inulin.  (There are other foods my body refuses to tolerate that I've learned to avoid, and any diet advice that tells me to "eat more beans" as a protein source, or anything other than a source of pain, is going to be ignored!)

NOTE: I took all sorts of probiotics, both before and after.  I mention this product specifically because I feel it had the most dramatically helpful effect--more than any pill form of probiotic I've taken--and I've had some really good ones.  For some of us, the advice to "just eat more yogurt and you'll be fine" doesn't cut it.  We need truly effective and powerful (yet gentle and healing) stuff to kickstart a healthy gut biome!

Angelika Maier wrote:My partner has gut problems and is as thin as a stick. Many here say that raw is good, while Chinese medicine often discourages raw, because it is difficult to digest what views are there?

Humans are the only species to use fire/heat to alter their food.  After applying heat to food, the chemistry/structure of it changes, and in all instances that I'm aware of it's only a detriment to alter food with heat.  Through the years I've heard how applying heat to certain foods releases more nutrients or some compound... tomatoes for example.  There was a study that everyone touted saying that cooked tomatoes have more available lycopene than raw tomatoes.  But the truth is that if you properly chew the tomatoes you'll get way more lycopene than you ever could by cooking them.  Plus when you alter it with heat you're destroying many of the benefits of that produce, which go far beyond just nutrients.

If it requires heat/cooking to become edible......maybe it's not meant for the human body.  Trying to eat raw broccoli, sweet potatoes, cabbage, onion, squash, kale, etc... can be pretty rough on the system.  The human body isn't really appeased by veggies, and it doesn't have the structure to thrive on them.

I've heard of ayurveda and TCM saying that raw food is bad for this dosha or that person.  Some ayurvedic "healer" told a family member that eating raw food would kill him....and it caused enough fear that he listened to the person for a couple of months....and got worse.  Then he finally quit spending his money there and made improvements.  To put it bluntly, a true healer will know how to actually heal the body, I see the results of these people and it's as if they are taking stabs in the dark.  When they recommend cooked rice over raw fruit, I cringe, and feel bad for the people that get hooked into their systems.  To me, it's easy to see how little they know when they begin talking, but to others it seems like it's great because it's so traditional.  Even an uneducated child knows what the body wants.  Put a bowl of rice, plate of meat, bowl of veggies, bowl of ripe fruit, etc... in front of a toddler.  Let em decide...the fruit will be gone.

Angelika - for your partner that's thin as a stick with GI problems.  Check out the book I mentioned in my first post above.  That's the top of the mountain of eating clean for the human body.  When you reach this level, the body has miraculous healings take place.

Try Zero Carb. Eat meat, drink water. Favor red meat. Pasture raised is better, mostly from an environmental perspective, but not required. Meat is easier to digest than plants and plants have chemical defenses that irritate the gut to varying degrees. Modern conventional wheat is especially bad. A healthy person can usually tolerate most plant foods. If the gut's damaged, not so much.

https://zerocarbzen.com/zero-carb/

SCD should work too, if you're not histamine intolerant. If you don't like either take a look at Autoimmune Paleo (AIP). Whatever you do, remember that carbs feed very bad things.

Following the Gut And Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) protocol appears to be useful. It is an extension of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) created by Dr Natasha Campbell-Mcbride.  I have been following it for non-ibs symptoms and it is helping.  It has been the first thing to do something useful to normalise my bowels reliably.  Fibre did nothing: I could eat 250 grams of Prunes and no distrubance.

The important thing to note is that it can take YEARS to heal the gut.  It can sometimes feel like a few steps forward then many backwards, but listen to your body and you will work out which foods work for you.  There are many GAPS cookbooks and they are ALL made from scratch.

There is a particular focus on home-made broths from pastured animal bones and fermented foods (most but not all: exclusions include kombucha), with other mentions such as egg-yolks (if tolerated) and Cod Liver Oil, but the full list is available in the book ref: http://www.doctor-natasha.com/gaps-book.php and on the website http://gaps.me  

Good luck.  Nothing works for everyone.

Agree with many of the comments listed above, particularly a low FODMAP diet as a place to start….the good ol' elimination diet!

My IBS, a condition which, by the way, can be hard to diagnose, has gotten worse over the years, so I recently met with my Dr. to discuss options. She ordered for me to take a SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) test; it's a non invasive breath test, but must be prepared for & meticulously executed over a period of several hours; it is done at home & FedEx’d to a lab. Anyway, for me, the results came back in "moderate" range and can account for many of the more intense symptoms I’ve been experiencing. SIBO has a tie-in w/ IBS, or so the current thinking has it. I have not yet started the treatment; there are two medications prescribed (and my insurance company had to approve them) and is followed by several months of a VERY restricted diet & I wanted to wait until after the holiday season and all the food-abundant gatherings there are!

Anyway, I post this as added information to what others have offered. Maybe other readers might want to look into SIBO as a possibility, as there are many conditions surrounding the gut that can mimic others. Researching it and discussing options with your physician is a start. I’m lucky that my Doc is a holistic practitioner (she’s the one who suggested the test….I’d never heard of SIBO before) & willing to work with me.

Here are some sites that may be helpful:

Heather’s site for IBS related stuff (someone else mentioned her products on this thread); you can sign up for her newsletter, which is helpful, as she passes along the latest findings & has good advice; I use her Acacia Senegal soluble fiber and peppermint capsules (I buy my own bulk fennel seeds from the local co-op to make fennel tea)
http://www.helpforibs.com/news/

An abstract from the National Institute of Health on SIBO
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099351/

I ordered a book ‘The SIBO Solution’ from them; it mentions FODMAP as well as having lists of OK and not OK foods while being “treated”. I don’t know that one would necessarily buy the book if there is not a diagnosis (particularly the medical-treatment phase), but it’s worth checking out the website. It is written by a lay-person, not someone in the medical field, and is based on her journey through the process.
https://hollywoodhomestead.com/sibo-solution/

Hope this is of use to someone out there in online land....

I'm learning so much about IBD lately.  It's fascinating stuff.  Thank you, everyone, for all the good info in this thread.

I have finally got my diagnosis and it's Crohn's.  This means I'm now on a humungous pill which I'm supposed to take with meals - of course, it's hard to eat when eating makes one hurt so it's difficult to take the pill that will make the hurting stop.  

I'm reducing my wheat.  I already know North American wheat is a trigger food, but European wheat seems okay.  The problem is, when I go a couple of days without wheat, my skin creates a terrible ammonia smell - like I've bathed in stale cat piss.  The smell won't wash off, but it goes away if I have a bowl of pasta.  I've always been something of a carb-o-holic, so I've never gone a day without rice or pasta before.  I don't know what's going on with this smell.  There's something in gluten-free bread and pasta that makes my gut hurt, so that sucks.  

The other problem I have is I'm craving vegetables and pulses.  So I pig out on these foods, but the fibre in them seems to trigger major flare-ups.  I'm feeling majorly deficient in some nutrient I can get from these foods, but eating them hurts.  

Anyway, feeling down about the whole thing.  If only I could identify my trigger foods and start healing.  I've done the elimination tests years ago - so whatever's affecting me now is a new food sensitivity.  The library keeps wanting their books back, but there's one about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that actually looked useful.  I'm going to try to get this one out again.    

With vegetables, my husband can only handle them if they are well cooked. Supposedly raw veggies and pulses are a more advanced food once the tummy is not quite as grumpy.

As for the cat-pee smell, it might be ketosis if you're not eating other carbs. It could also be bacteria die-off from them being hungry for starch and not getting any.

Bananas, well-cooked eggs, and applesauce are my husband's go-to foods when his tummy is slightly flaring. That usually means I make some sort of "banancakes."

Pretty much mix up 1 very ripe banana (needs spots on it, at the very least) with 1 duck egg. Vanilla extract can be added for flavor. A little salt helps too.

You can fry it in a pan for a pancake. Drizzle finished pancakes with honey if you feel it needs it.

You can multiply the recipe, like 9 bananas and 9 duck eggs and a bigger glug of vanilla and pour it in some well-buttered/coconut oiled, baking pans. Bake in oven until toothpick comes out clean, like 45 minutes, less if you use a muffin pan

Primer: I haven't read all the replies

The absolutely most important thing for IBS and other gut issues is bone-broth - you can buy kettle and fire, or make your own, from pastured animals. And lots of it - several cups a day. And probiotics - I'm personally a big fan of sauerkraut, and make it with loads of probiotics in it - but many people with IBS have problems either with mastcell activation (ie. histamin sensitivity) or high contents of fiber. You can make sauerkraut with low histamin levels, and if you have problems with the fiber you can drink the juice instead of eating the kraut.

FODMAPS is a good idea (I saw it mentioned), but the AIP protocol has recently been clinically tested on IBS and it is showing really promising results (something like 70-80% of the participants were symptom free within like 6 weeks - I'll try to find the article). One can go low FODMAPS and AIP together - but both are pretty hard diets.

I have "something" like IBS - like painful bubbles of air travelling through my intestines, and me feeling every single turn inside me... takes about 24 hours to clear each time - used to be pretty chronic 15 years ago, now it is rare and there are months between incidences, back then I also had very frequent GERD, actually chronic (my entire time at university I got drunk something like twice because one beer would give me severe reflux). But I'm not really sure what it is bc. I haven't had it diagnosed - when I was 25 I was diagnosed with ulcers, but that was without any testing, just the Dr going of my description of my symptoms. Mine is off-set by too much sugar, gluten and unfermented dairy (esp. cows). A low-carb diet helps me a lot, so I am currently on a keto-AIP diet - not so much chasing ketones, as chasing that feeling I have in my entire body when I'm not ingesting carbs (not even the complex ones). If I had a Functional Medicine Dr. nearby, and I could afford all the testing, it would have been a lot easier to find my way in this jungle, because it is a jungle and the solutions are very different for each person depending on what the root cause of the problem is.

One thing is absolutely certain - the SAD diet is not good for any of these inflammatory disseases.

Now I will go back, read the thread and find that article for you.

@ R Ranson: Our bodies sure are complicated vessels, bringing both joy and consternation. Glad you finally have a diagnosis, it must be a relief, as all that wondering is worrying! Getting older brings new surprises now & then….like in the way-back (younger self) I was always kinda smug about not having any allergies. Ha! Imagine how my smugness disappeared with adult-onset allergies and food sensitivities, and the older I get, the more “surprises” crop up.

I hope the path you now follow will bring you healing and relief….even if you must be wistful for some of the goodies of which you can no longer partake.

Also, if you find particularly good books that you depend on, perhaps investing in copies to build a little reference library, if you are able, would be a good idea.

To quote Erasmus, a classical scholar, “When I get a little money, I buy books; if there is any left I buy food and clothes.” I have that quote pinned to my wall, well, because yay books!

Back again - read all the replies.

I think it is a question of testing honestly. So if veggies irritate your gut, cut them out for a week - maybe go on a bonebroth fast like the GAPS diet, you can actually add meat and veggies to your broth in that fase, but only specific kinds. Warning though... I had terrible die off when I tried it, I was SO sick - pain in my entire body, all my muscles and joints were hurting so much that the only state that was tolerable for my was walking - 24 hours a day, for 3 days straight until I caved and ate a bowl of rice. Now, a year later I go on bonebroth fasts regularly (no meat or veggies), and I have no die off symptoms. I did that by easing into a keto-AIP diet - where I started off going paleo, then AIP and then cutting out more and more carbs as I found that I was reacting to them - eg. I could be symptom free from my seasonal allergies and eat 1 dried apricot and start sneezing at once, or have my eczema disappear all together and drink one glass of sugar-free horchata, or one glass of kefir - and have my eczema flare immediately. Towards the end I was maybe eating a little carrots or sweet-potatoes - but I feel better if I don't. Still miss them though, and do cheat on occasion. I pretty much try to eat as many greens as prescribed in the Wahl's protocol - the paleo plus version which is keto - ie. 6 cups of greens pr. day, but I don't eat one of them as berries, because it makes me crave sweets even more.

Actually most of my symptoms of IBS went away just on a weight watchers diet... because it is pretty low carb. But it is also very low in fat, so I just couldn't continue on it.

I agree that the smell kan be ketones - they smell like amonia... get some chew some peppermint leaves or something (or xylitol chewing gum) it helps. And die of can make you smell awful too. But die off ends, and you don't have to be in ketosis all the time to reap the health benefits (except I have heard of people being in ketosis for like 2 years straight and they say the benefits just get better and better - esp. mental clarity and general energy).

Cooked food is easier to digest, you get more calories out of them too (one of the reasons we were able to develop our big brains were that we learned to use fire to "predigest our foods). Raw food is super healthy though and many minerals and enzymes are destroyed in the cooking process, like vitamin c and CQ10 - but you can only digest them if your gut has not been recked already. I can eat tons of raw veggies now, and I enjoy it, some people get awful gas from the amount of cruciferous veggies I consume... I have heard that it is because of an imbalance in their gut bacteria - the good bacteria don't produce those foul smelling gases... don't know if it is true though. Paleo/keto etc. does not have to be 100% carnivore - it is a huge spectrum from 97% vegetarian to 97% carnivore, and you can find your sweet spot. The thing is though that a lot of research shows that the greater variety of veggies that you eat the greater variety of beneficial gut bacteria you have. Makes sense to me. So for me it would always be a goal to get back to eating more different veggies. I just have to constantly make sure that I am not feeding a carb addiction, which I believe I have bc. of the pathogenic bugs that are still in my gut.  

The new intolerances that you are experiencing is possibly due to a leaky gut - and whole undigested proteins will enter your bloodstream, which the body will react to. Again bone broth is THE best way of healing a leaky gut - and going gluten-free (not with that awful gluten free bread you can buy in the stores though). If you do an elimination diet, sticking to a whole foods - possibly gluten free - diet for the rest of your life, might be a good idea. Natacha Campbell-McBride talks about this in the GAPS book - and she explains that once your micro-biome has been disrupted you will need to be more careful for the rest of your life, because it simply is more likely that you will get out of balance again more quickly. I do however think that one can get back to something that resembles a "normal" diet (not the SAD of course)... some people even record that they can eat a little organic sourdough bread once in a while with no ill effect. I have recently reintroduced nightshades and butter, and I do eat a little cheese once in a while. Though still no eggs and not seeds, and absolutely no nuts...

I can't find the article I was referring, will need more time to search - but I need to clean my house now.  

OK - this is my absolute favorite subject...

The books I currently own on this subject is:
The GAPS diet
The Wahl's Protocol
The Salt Fix
Unconvetional Medicine
The Complete Guide to Fasting

I have others but those I really like, esp. The Wahl's Protocol and The GAPS diet - I look things up in them frequently.

You can learn a lot on the web - but having these books as references is really helpfull, and often they are way more in depth, or the information is more organised than a blog (like you can learn everything about rocket mass heaters here on permies, but if you buy the book it is all much more accessible).

I like Dr. Mark Hyman, Chris Kresser, Paleomom (though don't agree with her about the ketogenic diet) - and lots of lots more.  

Because it's a gut issue, we immediately think of what we are eating.  

But there might be another factor - stress.  There's certainly a lot of research on the connection to IBS and Crohn's .  Perhaps a cognitive behaviour approach, meditation or mindfulness might be helpful.  

If you have IBS or other upset (such as Crohn's but I haven't read about that specifically) it is highly likely that you are not getting along with the microbial ecosystem residing in your large intestine. A microbial mafia has probably got the place locked down, to the detriment of your health.

Have a look into "resistant starch." It is starch that is indigestible by humans and therefore makes it into the large intestine intact, where it acts as food for our microbial allies, such as bifidobacteria. It is probably the most important food/gut related discovery of the last 20-30 or however many years.

The number one source of resistant starch is raw potatoes. Another good source is cooked and cooled potatoes. Cooking destroys the starch in its raw form, but what's called "retrograde" resistant starch forms during the cooling process. Both raw (RS2) and retrograde (RS3) are highly beneficial.

Resistant starch appears to have been a critical part of our ancestral diets and very important to our evolution. For example we even have cellular receptors in the lining of the intestines that are activated directly by RS2. Yet it is nearly absent from the typical modern diet.

The world leader in resistant starch information is ordinary-guy Tim Steele, who has a blog https://potatohack.com/ and put together the book "Potato Hack" which is an enjoyable read. The potato hack is a weight-loss method where you eat only potatoes for 2-3 days every now and then. Seems to work for a lot of people, and not just for weight-loss. Check the Amazon reviews for interesting testimonials.

Although resistant starch is fermentable, it isn't an ODMAP so it isn't technically a FODMAP, even though it is similar. The low-FODMAP diet may help with symptoms in the short-term but it is no way to eat in the long-term because it starves your large intestine microbial enemies at the cost of also starving your microbial allies. From the potato hack blog (https://potatohack.com/2016/12/27/potato-diet-prebiotic-probiotic):

A well-fed large intestine may weigh 6-10 pounds when full.  A dehydrated, low-carb, fiber-poor large intestine may only weigh half that.

For health you want a flourishing large intestinal community just like you want a flourishing microbial community in your garden soil. Carpet-bombing or starving your large intestine kills the microbe-mafia and reduces symptoms of illness the same way carpet-bombing the soil or using a sterile growing medium can temporarily reduce pests and disease in your crops.

I think resistant starch is to your gut the way carbon is to the soil. If you only have the time to focus on one thing for your soil, add more carbon. Similarly, if you only have the mental space to think about one thing for your gut health, or overall health even, plow resistant starch into your diet (or "mulch" with resistant starch if you prefer, don't want to trigger anyone especially giant men named Paul).

Keep in mind I am not a doctor (thank goodness), I only play one to friends and family.

I'd bet on pathogen die-off causing the ammonia smell. Lots of pathogens poop ammonia and they'll release even more when they die. This stuff is supposed to help mop up ammonia:
http://www.jigsawhealth.com/supplements/butyrex/
Or just tough it out, but if your blood-brain barrier is compromised ammonia can really mess with your head. Ammonia creates a more hospitable (less acidic) environment for pathogens.

Fiber helps "move things along" because it scrapes the lining of your intestines and the irritation causes mucous to be released. This is very much not what you want with IBS-D. If you need help "moving things along", increase consumption of animal fats.

If histamine isn't a problem, bone broth is awesome.

If histamine is a problem and you have the usual sinus issues give Nasalcrom spray a try. Amazing stuff. Mast cell stabilizer, not a steroid. Went OTC a while ago. It can be hard to find because the pharmaceutical mafia pushes newer prescription meds that did nothing for me.

Starving out SIBO pathogens with very low carb or Zero Carb looks like the most promising approach. SIBO can dump a lot of histamine into your system too.

I have found that eating only red meat from ruminants, strict zero carb, is the diet that works best for my grumpy gut.  I made great progress with a year on the SCD, and various other diets prior, but nothing was as profound and obviously right for me than ZC.  It's worth 30 days of experimentation if you are still searching for your gut health.  Strict.  It's not so much "more meat" as it is "nothing from plants."