Preparation is key to success so before starting the low-FODMAP diet it’s worth taking some time to get ready.

Preparing a one week meal plan is a good way to start as it will give you a better idea of what you need to buy when you go shopping. Our shopping list will also help you get ideas of what foods to buy. You will probably find that you need to add a few things in your food cupboard and fridge but if you do weekly meal plans you can make gradual changes adding new foods, products and ingredients etc week by week. Make sure to include some snacks and treats so you don’t fall on that hurdle.

We try to make our recipes as nutritious as possible and you can incorporate these in your diet plan. If you need further help with your meal plans there are some good books and websites out there. Monash University’s Low-FODMAP diet App is also a great source for information and you can find a link to this App, books and websites under “what is FODMAPs”

When making your first meal plan you might want to look at what you normally eat and make small and simple changes. Finding substitutes or an alternative to what you normally eat is a good way of easing your way into the low-FODMAP diet.
For example – If you start your day with cereal and milk you can choose cornflakes with lactose free milk instead. If you eat toast with honey you can swap this for gluten free bread with butter and jam, cheese or peanut butter.

Just remember that your meals need to be nutritious and contain enough vitamins, fibre and proteins for you to stay healthy.

Once you get used to the low-FODMAP diet you might want to be a bit more adventurous with your meals trying different and new foods enriching your diet and health.

Prep cooking on a Sunday
Lunch is the meal the we find most challenging as you’re not always at home.
Taking some time every Sunday to cook food that can be used to make up lunches during the week is a really good idea. Believe us, you’ll be glad you’ve done it.

Below are some examples of what you can cook and store in the fridge & freeze ready to use for lunch and in some cases also dinner.
Quinoa – make a batch, refrigerate and use it in salads or with meat dishes
Potatoes/new potatoes – great for salads and other dishes.
Gluten free pasta – you can have this with a home made tomato sauce or in salads.
Roasted vegetables – it’s so simple to roast vegetables and they will go with almost anything. Try, carrots, parsnip, aubergine, courgette, potato, squash or turnip.
Eggs – boil a few eggs to have in your salad or on their own.
Roasted or cooked meat – If you for example cook a chicken or roast a ham joint, you have beautiful, unprocessed meat for the whole week. You can also freeze it in portions to use as and when you need it. We’ve done a post on how to cook a chicken and get stock at the same time here
Stock – Most bought stock contains onion and is therefore no good if you’re on the low-FODMAP diet. Making your own is therefore the best option.
You can use the stock for soups, risottos, stews, sauces etc. Again you can read our post on how to cook a chicken and stock for tips.
Bread – We both agree that gluten free bread from the shop is ok but not great. Nothing tastes as good as your own homemade bread and it’s not as hard as you might think. We luuuuve this bread
Baking – If you have time and like baking, you’ll never regret making some biscuits or cake for yourself. Our favourite is chocolate brownies

Many of our lunch and dinner recipes are made up using one or more of the things listed above. We know by experience that having these ready for the week will make your life so much easier.

Snacks
If you like a sweet treat we strongly recommend you have some snack substitutes ready in the cupboard for when the urge arises.
Here are our favourites

Dark Chocolate – a few squares of good, high quality dark chocolate has been our saviour. We love it with a small cup of coffee or peppermint tea.
Nuts – a handful of nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts are nice and easy to have in between meals.
Lactose free, almond or coconut yogurt with a little bit of fruit and some nuts. Please make sure the fruit is low-fodmap fruit.
Gluten free crisp bread with peanut butter and a few slices of banana
Small portions of low-FODMAP fruit.
Smoothies – bear in mind that you can only have one serving of fruit per meal so instead have smoothies that mainly contain ingredients such as vegetables, nuts, almond milk, raw cacao, vanilla pod and then add a little bit of fruit. See this post about our favourite green smoothie for some inspiration.We’ve made a shopping list of things we’d recommend getting before starting the low -FODMAP diet. These are things we eat and use regularly when cooking. We all have different taste in foods so you will probably need to customise it to
Wierd and wonderful products and ingredients

Some of the products we use may be new to you such as buckwheat flour, rice flour, coconut oil & yogurt, rice syrup, psyllium husk powder etc. But there is no need to panic
before starting the low-FODMAP diet these were new to us too. Our research into better health lead us to using these products as they are natural and unrefined – much better for us. We also found it has enhanced our cooking, enabling us to make some amazing tasting dishes.If you want to try these products that we recommend, buying one or two to start off with and then increase as and when you become more confident with the changes of the low-FODMAP diet (we want to ease you in gently). We ordered most of our products and ingredients online but we also found some in health stores such as Holland and Barret.