Heather Van Vorous is a patient-expert in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) who has had IBS since she was a small child and who thought for years that she was the only person in the world with IBS. After a decade of not getting much help from the medical profession, she gradually learned which foods triggered her IBS and which foods soothed it, through years of trial and error. She then thoroughly researched why these foods had the physical effects they did.

Refusing to forego great food to control her health, Heather then set about developing recipes that were both safe and scrumptious. The advent of the internet made her realize that she was far from alone in having IBS, a disorder that affects an estimated 15-20% of the population in the US alone. To help the many people she came across online, whose lives were ruined by their IBS, she compiled all the advice she had to give and eventually this turned into a full-fledged eating plan. In order to encourage the people she was hoping to help with was food to eat that was also IBS safe, she added a selection of the hundreds of recipes she had devised to the eating plan.
In doing her extensive research in order to verify and annotate the accuracy of the medical and nutritional information she gives, Heather became aware that there were no books with accurate dietary information on IBS already available. So, in 2000, she had her eating plan and recipes published as this book.
This is primarily a recipe book, but it also gives detailed information about the whys and wherefores of this diet. There is a short, but informative chapter with a huge amount of medical references titled ‘So, What Is IBS, And How Do I Know I Have It?’. Then there are three chapters on how to control IBS with this diet, how to work the diet around your life and why the diet works, including such topics as:
· IBS trigger foods.
· Insoluble Fiber.
· How to eat and cook to get the best from your food and have the most control over your IBS.
· Supplements.
· What to eat when you can’t eat anything.
· Traveling.
· Restaurants.
Then there are two chapters on ‘IBS Kitchen Essentials’ and ‘Specialty Ingredients’, which explains the ethnic products used in the recipes.
The diet is designed to manage IBS, but because the recipes are nutritious, low-fat, low-residue, dairy-free and delicious, it can also be helpful for people with lactose intolerance, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and other digestive disorders. As is mentioned in the book, food allergies and intolerances should be ruled out or diagnosed as part of the IBS diagnosis process, so the book doesn’t even try to work around every food intolerance people with IBS might also suffer from. However, there is such variety in the recipes that it would be rare for someone to find nothing that they can medically eat. All the recipes in the book have a nutritional analysis included, making them easy to include in carefully watched diets, whether high-protein or low-fat.
The extensive recipe section of the book is split into:
· Beverages.
· Appetizers & Snacks.
· Breakfasts.
· Breads.
· Side Dishes & Salads.
· Soups & Sandwiches.
· Main Dishes.
· Desserts.
At the back of the book is a weeks worth of Menus At-A-Glance, giving suggestions of what you could eat in a typical week. This is arranged for convenience, with part of dinner for one day being used in lunch for the next day and so on, and would give someone with no idea where to start, a way to get into the swing of the diet.
Every single recipe I have cooked from the book is delicious, with the exception only of the typo in the ‘Vietnamese Lemongrass Ginger Chicken’ recipe that meant I added far too much fish sauce! (NB. All corrections can be found at the IBS Recipe Exchange on helpforibs.com). Although many of the main dishes are too complicated for everyday in a Spoonie household, this is true of most recipe books and this one still contains plenty of dishes that can be diet staples. And because the diet guidelines are well described in the early chapters, it is simple to come up with easy foods that still follow the diet. The best thing about the recipes I have found is that they are so delicious anyone will eat them. There’s no need to cook entirely separate foods for you and your family or even friends. I have served the cakes to my most fussy men friends who shun all diet foods, with no problem and have served dishes at dinner parties. The foods are truly delicious and nutritious.
The diet really works, as has been shown by the thousands of people who have been helped by it and who contacted Heather through her website (www.helpforibs.com). In my case, my eminent gastroenterologist was running out of ideas of medications to try on me in order to control my severe IBS and no-one could explain why the supplement I had been prescribed hurt as well as helped (it contained far too much insoluble fiber and IBS triggers). Heather’s diet saved me from my IBS- within days of starting it, my symptoms had reduced and six months later I was stabilizing and started to come off all the medications that had never truly worked. Four years later, my IBS is still stable and I only get symptoms when I have been detouring too far from Heather’s diet. I now control my IBS, whereas before it truly controlled me.
‘Eating For IBS’ By Heather Van Vorous
ISBN 1-56924-600-9
© 2007 by Lindsey Middlemiss, butyoudontlooksick.com