{"id":14072,"date":"2021-08-19T09:17:39","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T08:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/?p=14072"},"modified":"2023-03-01T08:54:45","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T08:54:45","slug":"onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","title":{"rendered":"Onion &#038; garlic: friend or foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2018s becoming more and more common for us to see clients who have already excluded or trialled a removal of garlic and onion to aid their gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc99ff;\"><strong>So what&#8217;s the science and should we be avoiding them?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Garlic and onion both contain Fructans, a type of fermentable carbohydrate which is also a prebiotic (the food which feeds your good gut bacteria). This is a type of fibre that isn\u2019t broken down in your GI tract and so moves from your mouth, past your stomach and small intestine and into your large intestine. It&#8217;s here in the large intestine that it\u2019s fermented (broken down) by bacteria to produce beneficial byproducts which improve our immune health, mental health and metabolic health, to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>For the majority of us, garlic and onion are beneficial, however, some people who have a sensitive gut or IBS may find that they can only tolerate a certain level of these products. In IBS, a hypersensitive gut may mean that when bacteria break down certain products in the large intestine, they trigger symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence or changes in bowel habits. Note that if you experience GI symptoms like these, you should have other conditions ruled out by your GP or gastroenterologist before making dietary changes. Ideally, you would then see a dietitian to help you, however, we know this is not feasible for everyone.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc99ff;\"><strong>To test if you\u2019re sensitive to garlic and onion, try the 3R method<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>R-emoving them for 4 weeks<br \/>\nR-ecord your symptoms<br \/>\nR-eintroduce them regardless of the result to assess your tolerance. Start with small amounts, slowly increasing and monitoring your symptoms.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc99ff;\"><strong>Tips<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stock cubes, sauces, mixed herbs and savoury items often have small levels of garlic or onion added \u2013 check the ingredients list!<\/li>\n<li>Use alternative herbs\/spices to flavour your meals or garlic infused oil<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re sensitive, aim to include small amounts still to build up your tolerance: complete exclusion can increase your sensitivity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc99ff;\"><strong>Take home<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Garlic and onion have prebiotic benefits in your diet, and should be included to your own personal tolerance level, so friend or foe?! We say friend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2018s becoming more and more common for us to see clients who have already excluded or trialled a removal of garlic and onion to aid their gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. So what&#8217;s the science and should we be avoiding them? Garlic and onion both contain Fructans, a type of fermentable carbohydrate which is also a prebiotic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-or-nutrition","category-myth-busting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Onion &amp; garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It&#039;s becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Onion &amp; garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#039;s becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Gut Health Doctor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-19T08:17:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-01T08:54:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shirley Clinic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shirley Clinic\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe\",\"name\":\"Onion & garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-19T08:17:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-01T08:54:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ae103084a790026b64e164c8916c48c6\"},\"description\":\"It's becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":1200,\"caption\":\"A Gut Health Clinic graphic reading 'Onion & garlic: friend or foe?'\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Onion &#038; garlic: friend or foe?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Gut Health Doctor\",\"description\":\"Transform your gut, transform your life\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ae103084a790026b64e164c8916c48c6\",\"name\":\"Shirley Clinic\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed0bacfe4bac7b93b8f8a90e47e1520b6b2ac3debc49e9450237110298823c03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed0bacfe4bac7b93b8f8a90e47e1520b6b2ac3debc49e9450237110298823c03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Shirley Clinic\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Onion & garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor","description":"It's becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Onion & garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor","og_description":"It's becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","og_site_name":"The Gut Health Doctor","article_published_time":"2021-08-19T08:17:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-03-01T08:54:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":1200,"url":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Shirley Clinic","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shirley Clinic","Estimated reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","url":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe","name":"Onion & garlic: friend or foe? | The Gut Health Doctor","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png","datePublished":"2021-08-19T08:17:39+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-01T08:54:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ae103084a790026b64e164c8916c48c6"},"description":"It's becoming common to see clients at The Gut Health Clinic who are avoiding onion and garlic. Is this accurate or necessary on our diets?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screenshot-2021-08-19-at-09.11.50.png","width":1200,"height":1200,"caption":"A Gut Health Clinic graphic reading 'Onion & garlic: friend or foe?'"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/onion-garlic-friend-or-foe#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Onion &#038; garlic: friend or foe?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/","name":"The Gut Health Doctor","description":"Transform your gut, transform your life","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ae103084a790026b64e164c8916c48c6","name":"Shirley Clinic","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed0bacfe4bac7b93b8f8a90e47e1520b6b2ac3debc49e9450237110298823c03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed0bacfe4bac7b93b8f8a90e47e1520b6b2ac3debc49e9450237110298823c03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Shirley Clinic"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguthealthdoctor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}