The quick facts:
Who am I? My name is Jennifer and I am a primary school teacher, part-time Masters student and home cook living in Melbourne, Australia. I suffer from IBS and follow a low fodmap diet.
Why am I blogging? I want to help others on the low fodmap diet fall in love with food again. I want to provide first-hand, real life, home-cook advice to help make their journey easier. Ultimately, I want to provide the practical tips that I dearly needed when I started on my low fodmap journey.
Why do I call this blog the ‘Fussy Fodmapper’? Find out in my blog post here.
The longer story:
I wasn’t always fussy. Growing up I took great pride in the fact that I could eat anything I wanted. My two sisters have numerous food allergies and my parents both had food intolerances. I was the one that could, and did, eat anything I wanted.
I absolutely loved my food. Anyone close to me knew that the way to my heart was serving me a delicious meal, just don’t ask me to share! The problem was food didn’t always love me back. I refused to believe that it was what I was eating and I told myself numerous stories to explain my symptoms. It mustn’t have been cooked properly. I’ve caught gastro. I have “traveller’s belly”. I was in denial.
When holidaying in Vietnam I became quite ill. I had caught the “traveller’s belly” that plagued me every time I tried the local cuisine. But this time was different and I didn’t bounce back. When I got back to Australia, doctors concluded that it was a parasite and gave me a strong course of medication. Unfortunately this just made everything worse. Leaving the house became too difficult. For months, the only foods I could stomach were rice and chicken broth. Food had become my enemy. I lost over 15 kgs and had too many tests to count before the doctors finally diagnosed it as IBS.
It was recommended that I try the low fodmap diet, alongside my other treatments, to help relieve my symptoms. I researched, attended talks by Monash University and sought advice from dietitians (yes plural, I had become fussy after all). The fodmap diet allowed me to move beyond rice and broth and is helping me regain control over my life. Looking back, fodmaps were the culprits for many of my attacks, the parasite and medication just exacerbated my condition. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
My journey has been tough and I have had to learn a certain amount of self control when it comes to food. Luckily I love cooking and have been modifying my favourite recipes into low fodmap options. I started this blog to help others like me fall in love with food again.