Garlic
The flavour of garlic, so essential to so many kinds of cooking comes from a variety of compounds containing sulfur in the plant. It has been said that in evolutionary terms these compounds were developed as a defence mechanism. When the flesh of the plant is broken, the sulfur containing species are broken down by enzymes to produce an array of volatile smelly gases - hence the crying when one chops onion or garlic. In a cruel twist of fate for the plant, these molecules also combine and evolve upon heating to produce a depth of flavour that makes garlic widely applied for all kinds of cuisine.
One of the most shocking initial discoveries about the fodmap diet was that garlic was out. Pretty much 90 % of everything I cook starts with frying off garlic. So it’s a huge relief to find out that actually it’s the flesh of the garlic, not the flavour molecules that cause the hassle. So if you can just extract the flavour and leave behind the flesh then everything’s fine.
Garlic oil
Happily garlic extraction is easy. The flavour in garlic comes from a bunch of different molecules, most of which are sulfur containing. The most prevalent, and that responsible for the ‘hot’ flavour of garlic is allicin, shown below. These molecules are lipophilic, which simply means they prefer to be in an oily surrounding than a watery one.
So, what’s more oliy than garlic flesh? Oil, obviously. That means that with a little bit of heat to encourage the process it’s easy to extract those good flavours into an oil, which can then be used to start the cooking process 90 % of the time! See our simple garlic oil post.
Another big saviour here is wild garlic - that’ll be subject of a post very soon. But basically it seems to us that these delicious abundant green leaves with their garlic flavour are fodmap okay.
Wild garlic
One great seasonal alternative is wild garlic. See our post below.