Lisa,Here is what I've found aggravates my IBS-C.Definite trigger
foods:anything spicy - and I love Mexican and Thai food
anything w/ garlicanything w/ MSGall raw veggiessome cooked vegetables (beans and broccoli)any kind of beefSometime trigger
foods:most cheesesanything w/ wheat (pasta, bread, etc.)alcohol (beer more than wine)Completely safe
foods:chickenwhite ricemost canned fruitOf course, please realize your triggers may be different from mine. Everyone seems to react differently. So for instance, a lot of people have problems with dairy, but most dairy products go over fine with me.Also, my reactions to the above can vary. The worse my IBS is acting up, the more important it becomes for me to avoid certain foods. So sometimes my "sometime triggers" are fine to eat while other times they definitely make things worse. I will only eat stuff in that category if I have been feeling good for a couple of days.One thing to note is that plain chicken and rice usually go over well with most people and neither are gas producing (which is what I'm assuming usually causes the distension). What I personally did to help me sort all this out was to eat a lot of chicken and rice for a couple days to see if that helped any. (And it was amazing, my gas problem pretty much just went away.) I then tried adding other things back in. (This was sort of my mini-version of the elimination diet). I have also found that it seems to be more important to be good about what I eat for lunch than what I eat for dinner. So I often try to eat some kind chicken and rice meal for lunch and then it's easier for me to have something like pasta for dinner without it bothering me. I hope some of this helps. All of this is just based on my own experience so I have no idea if it would help anyone else. Also, FYI this did not stop my constipation (though it did seem to make it a little better). This mainly helps me with the gas, abdominal pain and distension.-Tara
