Onions and garlic trouble my husband greatly too. I substitute a similar bulk of green spring onion stems (not the white part) and that doesn’t bother him. And the dishes still taste close to the original.

You might ask your brother to try a little experiment soon and eat something with onion tops to see how he reacts. That’s what DH does.

My oldest daugter is both celiac and lactose intolerant, plus suffers from diverticulitis, so her dietary restrictions are somewhat similar to the low FODMAP requirements, although sugar free gum, mints, onions and garlic don't seem to bother her.

Chicken can be fine, depending on how it's prepared and sauced and the meatballs can easily be adapted. The lasagna could be problematic, due to the gluten in the pasta, although the gluten free pasta now is greatly improved. Of course, then you'd have to figure out the cheese, and the sauce with no onion and garlic. I think I'd make the lasagna with your traditional recipe and your brother could just abstain from that, maybe eat some gluten free pasta with the meatballs.

Sausage might be OK, depending on what's in it, and most vegetables and some fruits are fine.

If there are a dozen of you and only one has food restrictions, I'd stick mostly with the traditional menu and just add or adapt some of the dishes so your brother could eat those. Polenta might be a good addition to your menu, and your brother could have some of that with the low FODMAP meatballs or chicken, or maybe some risotto or other rice dish.

Good luck to you and to your brother, I hope you have a nice family gathering and your brother continues to heal.

Annie

Unfortunately, there isn't much rhyme or reason to knowing which foods are high, low, or tolerable if there's just a bit without the lists. You can exclude all aliums, and all gluten bearing grains, and lactose, but that's the the start of it. I did quite a bit of low FODMAP cooking for a friend who has a lot issues. She doesn't cook.

Monash is the top authority: https://www.monashfodmap.com/about-fodmap-and-ibs/high-and-low-fodmap-foods/

I found this pair of lists at IBS diets the most extensive and useful (it's much more extensive now): https://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/

I made low FODMAP chicken stock with roots an aromatics that were on the okay list. Lasagna with some GF boxed pasta that wasn't great, but was low FODMAP. I used minced turnips in place of onions. Additional pungency can be obtained from parsnips and the green part of fennel (though check that against current lists--some allow the white). The minced turnips worked for adding pungency, but it takes a long time to brown them. I can't remember if I found an acceptable sausage or made my own. I made ricotta from Lactase lactose-free milk, and hard cheeses, like parmesan, are okay.

The good news is that most herbs and spices are okay, so it's not so hard to develop flavor, and meats are generally okay.

As to your traditional lasagna, it's not going to be the same done low FODMAP. If you think your brother would get enough joy from it if you made him a low FODMAP lasagna, it's doable, though the pasta is weird. But it won't be the same.

Your best bet is to think of some dishes that your brother might like that are more interesting and celebratory than the plain piece of chicken and check the ingredients against the lists. It really doesn't take that long. Figure out if there's a good work around for a minor ingredient, or if it will work with turnip instead of onion, for instance. It's possible that there is something that would suit the whole crowd which you could serve alongside the lasagna et al., so no one would know that your brother was being singled out.

For the side dishes, especially the vegetables, you should be able to read down the lists and see what needs tweaking to make it suitable.

I might have written down my tomato sauce recipe. Let me know if you want me to go looking for it.

Good luck!

Because DH limits his gluten intake as well- he can have some but if he has some for, say, four meals out of six his tummy will let him know this wasn’t a good idea - I cut down on products containing gluten unless there simply isn’t a good substitute.

Most GF pasta tastes like a ball of hair, but Barilla’s tastes very close to their regular product IMO. It’s the only GF pasta I’ll buy.

Similarly DH can tolerate small amounts of lactose containing dairy products (here we can get lactose free milk and cheese in the dairy section of most supermarkets) so I substitute those in sauces etc. For lasagna it wouldn’t taste too different if you made the sauce with green onions and omitted the garlic (you could take out a portion of the sauce and then fry off some garlic and add it to the main amount and let it simmer), make all your white sauce with GF flour and LF milk, and assemble a small lasagna for your brother with GF pasta and the garlic and onion free sauce, the GF/LF bechamel and LF cheese as you make your larger lasagna.

DH first start off by avoiding everything on the FODMAP list and then testing the foods he really missed to see which foods he was actually sensitive to (everyone is different) and gradually introducing them into his diet to see if they stayed OK to eat.

Thanks all for your thoughtful and helpful responses. Annie, that's a lot for your daughter to deal with! My nephew has Type 1 diabetes and now has celiac too, which is also no fun! Amylou, I think you hit the nail on the head as far as my brother feels - maybe he wouldn't be quite embarrassed, but might feel bad, and that changing the menu for all unnecessary, even though as you said I'm just trying to be thoughtful. He's been suffering horribly actually since last March, and only finally starting to get some answers now! He just started this diet about a week ago, so not long enough for him to even have a good handle on it himself. I think it's me that wanted to make it more festive for him, and he that doesn't care and just wants to get better. Sometimes I need to hear another voice that is not my own to help me figure things out, so thank you all for that! I'll check out plllog's links when I get a chance and maybe find a good green vegetable to go with chicken and potato and try to present it nicely, and maybe keep the rest of the menu the same. (As an aside, after reading your responses, I think I was actually asking bigger questions in my own head - my dad died a year and a half ago - the big lasagna dinner was his family tradition and could not be altered! Last year we tried to keep everything the same, but of course it wasn't the same and there was a big hole because he wasn't there. So my brother's condition might have triggered me into thinking, should we just change everything now? For him? Because things will always be different now? I'm not a psychologist, but that's what came to my mind after reading all your comments, that the thoughts in my head might be deeper than questions about plain chicken!)

elba, the holidays will always be different. After my Dad died, we tried not to change things, but they were already irrevocably changed. After discussions with the rest of the family, we kept some traditions, added some, got rid of some that no longer meant anything to anyone. It's a process. Good luck, and before you change everything, talk to other family members who may find some things comforting and other things optional.

As for your brother, he might be fine with plain chicken and a baked potato, but I'd just want to add something to that to make it a little less obvious that he's eating differently than the rest of the family and give him an extra choice or two. His health is tantamount, of course, and maybe the rest of the family already knows about his issues. Here everyone knows about Amanda's restrictions, Mother's allergy to lemons and her extreme dislike of mashed potatoes, that my brother eats low fat/low salt after 2 heart attacks and 3 strokes. They know that the pumpkin pie has a gluten free crust and lactose free milk, and that she can't eat the dinner rolls or the dressing. It's all evolved into a traditional meal that works for us all, but it's taken time.

So, I'd still keep the traditional meal unless you talk to other family members and see how they feel about changing and just "amp up" your brother's chicken and baked potato. I can't imagine that anyone is going to complain about what your brother is going to eat, given his health issues.

Annie

Thanks Annie, I will take your advice!

Elba, I've followed a low fodmap diet and I agree, let your brother decide what's healthy for him. When I attempted the diet, I had a strict regime where I added certain foods after noting no reactions or was able to incorporate more foods from a certain list. Since you have no way of knowing where he's at on this journey, I recommend letting him set his own rules. Hey, I often order a plain chicken breast or burger patty because I know that it's safe for me. BTW I still cannot tolerate garlic, onion or most anything in the allium family!

Thanks a lot Compumom, will do. He's at the very beginning, not adding anything back in yet. Too bad for you about the alliums, guess you just focus on what you can eat. So many people with so many food issues that were unheard of when I was a kid!

Elba they just went by different names back then because there wasn't much known about what was going on or how to help these people. They had dyspepsia, or a "ticky tummy", or malaise, or "issues". They were often classed as picky eaters, or people who wouldn't eat in public (because they didn't want the embarrassing subsequent issues) or were just generally "sickly".

As for the menu, I'm going to suggest some kind of soup. Do "soup shooters" in some small glasses or little cardboard cups. You can get the cups online. Will make a great presentation. I have a set of shot glasses, and you can puck up little glasses for a song at the thrift stores, if you don't want to go the cardboard route. I'd avoid plastic with hot foods. Although you could do something like a cold soup in plastic champagne glasses, like a fruit soup or some type of gazpacho, etc.

plllog, I agree, I think some of the "sensitive stomach" and the "grippe" and "dyspepsia" and the "sickly" were actually food allergies or sensitivities and they just weren't well known, or maybe even known at all.

Annie

Yup. That's what I meant. People who have issues with FODMAPs and bad lectins are in many ways indistinguishable from those who have systemic/immunological allergies. Back when no one knew anything about this stuff, they were all just given amorphous, social or philosophical designations, or they died.

Don't know if this will help or even if its already been mentioned but while at the store recently, I saw gluten free pasta. Didn't need pasta so didn't check it out but possibly made with rice or chickpea flour? Also don't remember if it came in different shapes.

Interesting plllog & Annie, thanks.

Instead of pasta in your lasagna, you could try zucchini noodles. Cut the zucchini into planks lengthwise or use a mandolin. Have been doing this for quite some time here and I prefer it to the pasta sheets anymore.

My BF has GERD and IBS, holidays include meats (turkey or beef) butternut squash, roasted veggies (whatever they tolerate) and fresh green salad with fixing separate so everyone can add what they like and can eat. We eat lots of summer squash noodles. I do make a few dishes he can't eat it I know those coming have a particular favorite (green beans with onion and ham). We have homemade cranberry sauce for dessert. It's not traditional but we enjoy each other and that is what counts.

Thanks again everyone. We were thrown for a loop this week with another family member being given a serious diagnosis, so I haven't even looked at plllog's links, which I was totally going to do by now. Thought it was best to just go on "automatic pilot mode" and got all the stuff for regular lasagna, as my brother actually told my mom he hopes I don't change the menu for him. I'll let him season his chicken breast and baked potato however he wants & my mom said he can have green beans, so I'll cook them just for him as well, as I didn't look up low FODMAP veggies yet. He's not having gluten or dairy for now, other than my mom said mozzarella and cheddar cheese, so I'll have those for his apps, as well as the usual assortment of raw veggies with hopes he can have some of them, but I couldn't find a gluten free cracker I knew would be ok - some have garlic powder, others have nuts/seeds and I just don't know about that now. I make different cookies for dessert, he can't have those. I do have cranberry sauce on hand if he can have that. At least I know he doesn't care, it's more me that wants to be accommodating, and by next year it will be much easier as he'll have added things back and I'll know by then what he can have - it won't be so last minute. Thanks all for your kindness and help!

I will be making a few FODMAP meals this holiday season.

If you look into Asian ingredients, it can give you a lot more flexibility.

Although gluten sensitivity is relatively unknown in Asia, in Asian stores, you will find aisles and aisles of non-gluten stuff; Water chestnut flour, chestnut flour, sweet potato flour, water lily flour, green bean flour, tapioca flour, taro flour ----- and oodles of noodles of all kinds --------

dcarch

I'm sorry you're having even more family health troubles, elba1. You probably don't want to take the time to mess with something like this now, but for future refernce, these are actually pretty darned good crackers:

https://www.thepaleomom.com/plantain-crackers-nut-free-egg-free/?cn-reloaded=1

Nothing but plantains and salt. I've made them before and I don't do them regularly because they don't keep at all in a humid place like FL, but if you're up north with dry heat going on right now, they should be nice and crispy. BTW, plantains also make awesome pancakes, just like whole wheat ones.

ed for typo

Dcarch, I think you meant you're making "Low FODMAP" meals, right? The FODMAPs are what you're trying to avoid. :) Thanks for mentioning all those flours. I didn't know there was water chestnut flour. I might want to play with that. :)

HaHa yes LOW FODMAP! My low attention span.

Water chestnut flour, wonderful for deep frying.

dcarch

Oh, that does sound interesting! Thanks!

Thanks for the additional info. My son is allergic to tree nuts & peanuts (which includes legumes except green beans and wax beans) so I couldn't use chestnut flour, but I think he had water chestnuts before we knew about his allergies - they might be a vegetable and not a nut? Mentioning the tapioca flour got me thinking - there is a place nearby that sells gluten free rolls made with cassava flour (which is what I think you make tapioca out of?) and they are nut free too - only a few ingredients. I think there is cheese in them, but I think it is cheddar, which my brother can have. I may go buy some of those and leave it up to him if he wants to try one or not. otherwise my nephew that is celiac would eat at least one when I host that side of the family next Saturday. I have bought them for him before, but didn't think about it for my brother - thanks for triggering my memory!

Water chestnuts are the corm of a water plant. See attached Wikipedia link for a full description. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleocharis_dulcis

Elba, you can't generalize when you're talking about FODMAPs. There are few classes. It's not the gluten in grains that's the problem--it just so happens that common grains that have gluten are also high FODMAP so looking at gluten free products is a start. Unfortunately, cassava is high FODMAP and a no-go. Do just click the links to the food lists. They're very easy to use, especially if your device has a search in the page feature.

Ok, thanks, will do!

I just did, thanks again plllog - I thought it would be a lot more reading to weed through, but the list is right there!