All pages on this website are written by myself, (C) Peter Thomson. I am a real person, not AI.
There is growing evidence that inulin and oligofructose in the diet can be a common cause of Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome and other related disorders
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Digestive disorders and food intolerances probably have a wide range of causes, but there is growing evidence that inulin in food can be the cause for many people.
These pages suggest how to test this possibility for yourself, and how to create a healthy diet free from inulins.I have struggled with problems with my digestive system since I was a small child.
At first I was told that it wasn't anything to do with what I ate - it was just one of those things.
My abdomen tended to be swollen and I missed a lot of school with digestive problems and headaches.
I did notice that on holiday at a family hotel the problems largely went away, and later I realised that I wasn't eating any bread or cakes.
At university breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs, and an evening meal of meat and vegetables, and again my digestion improved. (no lunch, I couldn't afford it)
In my 20s I started to notice a pattern, bacon and eggs for breakfast and I had a comfortable morning, but a wheat based cereal and toast gave me severe problems.
A sandwich lunch gave me an uncomfortable afternoon.
At the age of 30 I was given my first diagnosis by the medical profession. Possibly coeliac, or Crohn's or irritable bowel syndrome, and a suggestion to try a gluten free diet.
And that led me into my research into what exactly I could eat and cook on a gluten-free diet, and the gluten-free diet cookbook.
However the gluten-free diet didn't solve all my problems and I started to build up a list of other foods that I had to avoid.
Further visits to the medical profession and an internal investigation revealed that something was still badly irritating my digestive system, but there was no agreement as to exactly what it was.
By this time I was tutoring courses on data analysis and decided to investigate more methodically exactly what it was that I could and could not eat.
But even though I ate as varied a diet as I could and kept detailed diaries for a couple of years of what I ate and my symptoms I could not find any obvious patterns.
So I took a different approach. From being as varied as possible I started with a diet that was as simple as possible:
Nothing out of packets or tins! Just chicken potato rice and brassicas, and rapeseed oil. Foods that I was fairly sure didn't give me any problems.
Also note that I was only drinking water. No coffee, no tea and
After two weeks on this plain diet my symptoms faded away altogether, and in my mind confirmed that it was something in my diet causing the problems.
I now started a slow process of testing one natural food each two weeks, slowly increasing the amount each day until I detected any problems (if any) and keeping a detailed diary of any symptoms and mood.
If there were no symptoms I could add it to my safe list and my basic diet. If there were symptoms I stopped eating that food, and then had to wait a week for my digestion to recover before trying the next thing.
For each food that caused symptoms or discomfort I had a record of how long it took, and how much I had eaten before symptoms started, and could start to create a list of foods,in the order of how severe the symptoms were and how quickly they appeared.
Jerusalem artichokes headed that list with a violent response within a few minutes!
Gluten-free oats came quite high on this list, suggesting that gluten wasn't the main problem.
Coffee also came high on this list.
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Meal Planning for an Inulin Free Diet to avoid irritable bowel disease