How To Help Irritable Bowel Syndrome
A Gluten Free Diet:
- Avoid all wheat such as bread and pasta, and all foods which contain gluten. Avoid barley and rye also, as these contain gluten.
Avoiding gluten means avoiding many commercially prepared products such as baked beans and cornflakes, unless the product specifically tells you that it is gluten free. Wheat is used to thicken baked beans, and corn flakes are often flavoured with malt which contains gluten.
- Omit dairy foods from the diet as well, except for butter, unless you have a reason for avoiding butter. Instead of using dairy products, use coconut milk and cream in your cooking, and prepare home-made nut and seed milks for use on porridge, for cooking, and in smoothies.
- Do not use processed foods such as margarine.
- Avoid all food which has preservatives in it.
- Avoid all sugar, dairy milk and cheese, wheat, and fermented foods. Candida is often the cause of irritable bowel syndrome, and sugar, dairy products, yeasts and even gluten in wheat can feed candida overgrowth. It is important to avoid sugar for a time, as well as wheat.
- Do not use artificial sweeteners to replace that sugar. Sorbitol and mannitol are damaging to the liver and kidneys.
It is really important to avoid all yeast, as in bread and alcohol, sugar, and all condiments such as tomato sauce, oyster sauce, or soy sauce, as these all contain yeast ferment: Vinegar is a fermented food, and this must be avoided, at least until you have recovered.
Alcohol is a sugar food as well as a yeast food: Quit alcohol.
Quit smoking, if you are a smoker.
- Cook Your Own Food: It is best to prepare all your meals at home. This way, you can be sure that no preservatives, no gluten, dairy or sugar or yeast products will end up in your food.
- Adopt a High Fiber, Alkaline Diet. Use more green vegetables in the diet, both raw and cooked. Sprout mung beans and alfalfa so that you have them on hand to use daily. Use brown rice as a wheat substitute. You can use meat, chicken and fish in moderation. Freerange eggs are good. Try to procure organic free range meats and eggs. Sunflower seeds and sesame seeds will provide extra protein and calcium.
- Use Ginger as a Medicine: Half a teaspoon of powdered ginger roots taken each day can help irritable bowel syndrome. This can be added to honey, or made into ginger tea.
- Freshly grated ginger root can also be used to make a tea. Use half a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger to a cup of hot water. Let this sit for ten minutes, then drink the tea before your meal.
- Peppermint Tea, fennel tea, chamomile and hops are also helpful to sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome. You can experiment with these to see which of these work best for you.
- Garlic helps to combat candida: Add garlic to your cooking, and add crushed raw garlic to your oil salad dressing. Do not use garlic if it causes tummy upsets.
- Cut down on your coffee drinking: Caffeine in coffee can over- excite the system, including the bowel. Caffeine also interferes with the balance of intestinal flora, which causes candida to proliferate in the bowel.: This can be a cause of irritable bowel syndrome.
- It is a good idea to have a professional colonic cleanse at a colonic irrigation clinic. Home enemas are also good, if you know how to use them, but getting a thorough cleanse done professionally cannot be beaten. Sometimes irritable bowel syndrome occurs simply because of congestion in pockets of the bowel. This does not stop bowel movements entirely, but causes a partial blockage where toxins gather. Water colonics can get rid of this toxic material so easily. You might find that your bowel settles down after the effete matter has been removed from it.
Gentle massage of the tummy with olive oil can help. End with three clockwise circles around the outside of the solar plexus area.