Plum

Why plum is rated high

Plum is high FODMAP at 1 fruit (66g), the only serving in the tested data, and Sorbitol is the sole reason. What makes plum worth knowing about is the ratio: the tested fruit is not a large one, and it is already high, so plum carries a lot of sorbitol for its size. Because there is no lower rung on the ladder, no tested plum serving comes in low or moderate, and a smaller helping has never been measured. Plum is normally left out during the strict phase and brought back later with a dietitian.

What changes your risk

• Serving size One rung, 1 fruit (66g), and it is already high. Nothing below that has been tested, so there is no lower plum serving anyone can honestly offer.
• 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, 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 no drained serving has been tested.
• 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, blackberry, 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, grapes come closest, and 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 and blackberry do 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 grapes or 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

No low amount has been tested. The only tested serving, 1 fruit (66g), is already high, so there is no portion of plum the data supports as low.

is plum high in sorbitol

Yes. Sorbitol is the only subgroup involved, and it is enough on its own to make 1 fruit (66g) 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 tested serving.

can i have stewed plums instead of fresh

Stewing does not lower the FODMAP content, because heat does not break sorbitol down. Some of it can move into the cooking liquid, but no drained or stewed serving has been tested.