Hi there, I’m starting the BSD today and bought the book a week ago – I’ve been desperately trying to find a way to contact someone regards how to change up recipes due to food allergies and intolerances. I don’t tend to eat dairy – I get ill on cows milk, but eat eggs and hard cheese. I’m allergic to red peppers and mushrooms and in the first 2 days all of these feature. I’ve become very skilled at adapting recipes and substituting ingredients – but this is a rare health plan where no nutritional information is given other than the calories – I mean I can substitute a 100 calorie shake for a 100 calorie chocolate bar, but I doubt that would be part of the programme. Does anyone know how to reach the team that built this programme so I can get some proper nutritional info from them?

Hi gefspacegirl
Welcome to the BSD forums. There is a ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page, maybe the team that monitors that contact point can help you with you quest to contact the team who built the eating plan.

However, there is no need to stick rigidly to the meal plans in the book, so sensible substitutions can be made. Think most of us using the forum, are mixing and matching – some dishes from the book and some of our own design. The key points seem to be keeping to the 800 cals a day as closely as possible, keeping fluid intake up, making sure you have a good level of fat in your diet and keeping an eye on carbs – the idea is to get most of your calories from protein and fat.

Hope your first day is going well and that you will soon be posting great results.

Hello gefspacegirl – Substitutions are fine, I substitute to use up what’s lurking in the fridge all the time otherwise would need to buy a new fridge.

Try almond milk if you are not nut intolerant, coconut water (Waitrose’s is sweetened with stevia, not fructose)
– aubergine works well instead of mushrooms, you could use roasted cauli as a base for something instead of stuffing a red pepper . If you can’t directly substitute, then I would adapt the recipe like you already do, also have a look at the recipe section on this site, there are some amazing ideas there.

I follow a low FODMAP diet due to my food intolerances. I’m only on day 2 but feeling optimistic as I think the recipes follow that philosophy quite well. I’m using lactofree free options of things like milk and cheese, and swapping out things I can’t have like onions! Good luck.

Hi gefspacegirl26
I have type 2 diabetes, dealing with food sensitivities and am also on a FODMAP diet (major IBS) and am just doing my own recipes…I use the Monash FODMAP phone app guide for shopping, so I just don’t buy anything not on that plan… and I am using a phone app for my carbs and calories…working well now, takes a few days to get the combinations going but it isn’t hard.

You don’t have to use the book’s recipes for this diet they are just examples. You just need to stay within the 800 calories and keep the carbs down…that is do-able with FODMAP and low amine and salicylate diets. If anything, it really simplifies it. 🙂

What does help is having a good kitchen scale.
Instead of onion I use the green of leek leaves and skip the white.