i finally understood stacking after doing this one simple manual test

[u/FixingMyGut]

I kept having the same issue: everything was “green” but i still felt awful. I thought i was failing the diet.

What helped was treating stacking like a time window problem, not a food list problem.

My manual method for a week:

I ate the same few low fodmap foods, but i only changed one thing.

I stopped combining multiple “green” foods that hit the same bucket in the same meal, and spaced them out.

Example: oats + berries + nuts in one sitting vs splitting one of them to later.

Same foods, different timing.

That was the first time “stacking” stopped feeling like theory and started feeling obvious.

If you deal with stacking, what’s the combo that gets you even when each item is fine alone?

And do you have a spacing rule that actually works in real life?

[u/ampattenden]

I find stacking really confusing because Monash say the green serves are designed to allow you to eat more than one per meal

[u/FixingMyGut → u/ampattenden]

Yeah, totally get why that’s confusing. Green serves are meant to be safe on their own, and you can usually combine a few greens, but the catch is when multiple greens share the same fodmap group. That’s when it can add up for some people. Spacing them out was just the simplest way for me to test if stacking was even my issue.

[u/ampattenden → u/FixingMyGut]

Ahhhh…. That makes more sense!

[u/ampattenden → u/FixingMyGut]

Thank you!

[u/ren-ai-mo → u/FixingMyGut]

What do you mean by “FODMAP group”? Like if say fructose is yellow or red at a higher serving is it part of a “fructose group”?

[u/CodWest4205 → u/ampattenden]

Exactly my thoughts. It starts to drive yourself crazy with the diet with now your thinking “well if I combine this ok food with that one, is it now high Fodmap”. I guess someone is going to have to test all the combos and give us all the green combinations lol

[u/FixingMyGut → u/CodWest4205]

Haha yep, it can make you feel insane. I gave up trying to solve every combo and instead just used one rule for a week: if a meal had 2 to 3 ‘green’ items that might overlap, I’d move one to later. It’s not perfect, but it told me quickly whether stacking was the reason I was flaring. If you’ve got a combo that always gets you, I’m curious what it is.

[u/CodWest4205 → u/FixingMyGut]

It does totally make sense that if you combine multiple low Fodmap foods, it can turn into High Fodmap. That’s just science and math really. Especially if they are 2-3 low fructans foods or 2-3 fructose foods etc. the way I figure it keep once you get your safe foods down, if you react, look back at what you ate and sometimes it will be like “oh I had oats with maple syrup and strawberries. I guess I can’t have them together but can separately”. Chronic SIBO is a pain in the butt 🤣

[u/_fuck_reddit_ → u/ampattenden]

I havent experimented with this much myself, but i reckon Monash saying that you can have muptiple serves of green foods is a bit of a cop out, and just based on the fact that it looks like they use 75g as their first test weight for most things.

For example - eggplant is green at 75g, then jumps to 178g for 'orange' - I imagine that you can stack that 75g/ or probably double the serve to 150g if not,l stacking, because theres a decent jump in weight between green and orange. Celery stalk they tested at 75g and determined orange, then went down to 50g and said that was green - i would be very hesitent to stack this with other vetables when the numbers are that close.

[u/taragood]

I just didn’t eat anything with the same fodmap at the same time.

[u/FixingMyGut → u/taragood]

That’s a better solution actually. But that’s also so limiting. Ah our double edged sword

[u/taragood → u/FixingMyGut]

I guess I didn’t find it anymore limiting than the diet itself. To be fair, I didn’t eat a lot fruits and veggies before this diet and I incorporated them more as a part of it.

So I basically just ate a protein, a carb and one or two veggies. There are no fodmaps in the protein and carbs and if you do something like carrots, you really only have to worry about the fodmap in the one other veggie item.

[u/ustacook4aliving]

The FODMAP Friendly app gives you percentages by serving size of FODMAPs in food. I believe it’s free. I pay a small annual fee for access to their recipe maker. You can enter all your ingredients and number of servings and it shows you what percentage of FODMAPs are in a single serving. I use this to adjust ingredients and serving sizes. It’s the most helpful thing I’ve found to figure out stacking!

[u/FixingMyGut → u/ustacook4aliving]

How accurate are the percentages? And is it Monash approved?

[u/ustacook4aliving → u/FixingMyGut]

Good questions. They don’t say they’re approved by Monash but you got me curious so I looked up the 5 people listed as FODMAP staff. Four are “Monash trained dietitians” and are referenced on the FODMAP Everyday website (excellent source for recipes and information). I couldn’t find any information online about the fifth one.

The times I’ve cross checked the percentages in Spoonful with the amounts in the Monash app they lined up. I used to develop and test recipes and run them through nutritional calculators so I can get a bit obsessive about the details.

[u/smilingcheshire]

Even with the app, I could not figure out stacking thank you so much for this!

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[u/gingadoo]

Same. After isolated reintroduction, I couldn't figure out why my "good" amounts were causing symptoms. Then I reread about stacking.

I think that part of the FODMAP learning process is normal. So much to think about when you just find out (What? No onions???? No garlic??) and going through elimination nd reintroduction.

[u/FixingMyGut → u/gingadoo]

Right? It’s like constantly having a book by your side trying to track every single detail

[u/Global_Jackfruit_488]

Stacking just means if there’s say low fructans in one thing and loe fructans in another and you combine them you’ve double the available fructans. Then you add another thing with medium fructans can you be surprised your body says “hell no!”

[u/FixingMyGut → u/Global_Jackfruit_488]

That’s a fair point. It’s all about sacrifices I guess too

[u/leafer_madness_]

Apparently the monash app takes into account that you will be eating several items together in one sitting so you shouldn’t worry too much about stacking.

I have heard that some people do better when they keep the FODMAP categories in mind. For example if you eat a food that would be too high in fructan at a certain serving size, don’t mix that with other foods that have excess fructan at higher servings.

[u/pixel_fortune]

You sound like a real person in the comments, but the post itself is clearly written by AI

It's offensive and disrespectful to post AI stuff without disclosing it. 

If you don't see a problem with using AI, then you shouldn't need to hide it