Like I’ve mentioned before, I felt extra stressed the entire week. Believe it or not, Honey Nut Cheerios may be to blame. I heartily dug into my new breakfast food as soon I as bought it on Sunday, October 17th. I managed to finish the family size box of 18 servings in roughly a week. That meant I was eating well over the recommended 1cup serving size every day.
On the Stanford FODMAP guide, Cheerios are listed as okay. However, honey is not. Eating so much honey likely caused my stomach to churn; in turn, that raised my stress levels to epic heights. On the /r/ibs subReddit, many other users reported similar findings when eating Honey Nut Cheerios:
“I’ve been having digestive issues with Honey Nut Cherrios. Like bad. I had a bowl for breakfast yesterday morning and I’m still feeling the effects of it. I use almond milk as I’m lactose intolerant and no other cereal has fucked me up this bad.”
On Tuesday, I bought a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (aka a Monash certified low FODMAP cereal) from Safeway. On Wednesday, when I poured myself a bowl, I was sure to mete out 1cup exactly. As expected, it was much much less than I had been eating.
After eating Corn Flakes for a few days, I did feel better, but not as much as I thought I would. My stomach continued to have trouble digesting. Online research showed that I had bought the wrong variety of Corn Flakes. The original version has a recommended serving size of 1/2cup; the gluten-free version (aka what I should have gotten) has a recommended size of 1cup.
On a related note, I recently learned that kombucha is unfortunately also a high FODMAP food. As much as I like the fermented Asian iced tea, I guess I’ll have to cut back (the recommended limit is 8oz).
PS: I’ll probably try Kellogg’s Rice Krispies or gluten-free Rice Chex next
