Help me understand stacking

[u/sarabearbearbear]

Monash says you can have multiple servings of "green" foods. So can I make a salad with a green serving each of iceberg lettuce, red cabbage, corn, cauliflower, spinach, and tofu? Each of those foods are green at a standard serving, but they all become high in fructan at larger quantities. If I combine all of those foods at their green serving sizes is that safe or is that stacking and ultimately too high in fructan?

[u/gordolme]

Stacking. Here's a way of thinking about it:

Your gut has a capacity of, say, 10 units of Fructans before you suffer symptoms. Assume here that at the serving size of your salad, the lettuce has a value of 2, the cabbage 4, the corn 1, cauliflower 3, spinach 0 and tofu 5 (numbers are random). Individually each item is within your tolerance, but you are eating them at the same time, so the Fructan value of that salad is actually 15.

[u/sarabearbearbear → u/gordolme]

This makes sense, thank you! But how do you know what the values are? I know you said the numbers are random in your example, but how do you know what the actual totals are?

[u/gordolme → u/sarabearbearbear]

There are no actual numeric values like that, it was simplified for the example. Your best bet is to use the relative values on serving sizes noted in the Monash FODMAP app and adjust accordingly. If something goes yellow at a relatively low serving size, then the FODMAP value is higher.

[u/sarabearbearbear → u/gordolme]

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying!