Plum

Why plum is rated high

Plum is high FODMAP at an ordinary serve, and sorbitol and fructans are the reason. What makes plum worth knowing about is the ratio: about 5g is low, larger portions are moderate and much larger portions are high, so even a small plum is far past the low serve. Plum carries a lot of sorbitol for its size, and the low amount is a taste rather than a helping. Plum is normally left out during the strict phase and brought back later with a dietitian.

What changes your risk

• Serving size About 5g is low, larger portions are moderate and much larger portions are high. That low serve is a sliver, so there is no realistic plum helping that stays low.
• Drying into prunes Drying removes the water and leaves the sorbitol behind in a much smaller piece, which is exactly why prunes are their own entry and run higher again than fresh plum.
• Stewing, baking and canning Cooking a plum down for a compote or a tart does not destroy its sorbitol or fructans, since heat does not break FODMAPs down. Water soluble FODMAPs can pass into the cooking or canning liquid, but the syrup is usually served with the fruit, and drained plum is not rated here.
• Juicing Plum and prune juice take the sorbitol of several fruits into one glass and leave the fibre behind, so they run higher than the fruit did whole.
• Stacking sorbitol Sorbitol adds up across a meal even when each item is small. Plum alongside apricot, avocado, peach or a sorbitol sweetened gum or mint builds a load that no single item would have created on its own.

Swaps

For a sharp, dark, juicy fruit, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries give you the tartness plum brings to a dessert. Oranges and mandarins work when you want something to eat out of hand, and pineapple or cantaloupe fill the ripe, sweet, spoonable role. In baking, strawberries or blueberries stand in for plum in a cake or crumble, and maple syrup or table sugar handles the sweetness. What will not work is reaching for another stone fruit: peach, nectarine and apricot all share plum's sorbitol, and pear does too, so none of them is a lighter version of the same thing.

How to lower the load

The awkward part of plum is how often it is a background ingredient rather than a whole fruit. Plum jam, Chinese plum sauce, plum chutney and umeboshi style pastes all concentrate the fruit, and mixed fruit salads and dried fruit snack packs often put plum next to apricot and peach, which stacks sorbitol three ways. When you are shopping, check the fruit content on sauces and spreads rather than assuming a spoonful is trivial, and keep a punnet of berries in the fridge so the easy grab is not a plum. If you are cooking for other people, make the fruit component of the dish a separate spoonful on top rather than baking it through, so the version on your plate is one you control.

Common questions

how much plum can i eat on a low fodmap diet

About 5g is low. Larger portions are moderate and much larger portions are high, so a whole plum is well past the low serve.

is plum high in sorbitol

Yes. Sorbitol is one of the two groups involved, alongside fructans, and together they make an ordinary plum high.

are prunes the same as plum for fodmaps

Prunes are dried plums, and drying concentrates the sorbitol into a smaller piece, so prunes run higher rather than lower. They have their own rating.

can i have stewed plums instead of fresh

Stewing does not lower the FODMAP content, because heat does not break sorbitol or fructans down. Some of it can move into the cooking liquid, but drained or stewed plum is not rated here.