Ways To Avoid The Foods That Cause Heartburn

A top priority with people who suffer from frequent bouts of heartburn is to find ways to keep it from happening again. Many of them merely suffer from the effects of eating the wrong foods which means that if they would avoid the foods that trigger heartburn, they could cut way down on the incidence of attacks. However, what foods are the culprits that cause heartburn in the most people? Without knowing what to stay away from, you aren’t going to be able to keep heartburn from happening. That’s why this article is going to outline the foods that are most often to blame for causing heartburn.

It can be hard to believe that some of the guilty foods are actually those you’ve always been taught are good for you. For example, you can probably remember your mother from babyhood admonishing you to drink your orange juice. However, oranges, orange juice, and grapefruit are all acidic, and all can bring on heartburn. After all, heartburn is also known as acid reflux and is caused when excess stomach acid backs up into the esophagus. The worst time to consume any of these citrus fruits is when your stomach is otherwise empty, so if you feel a need to eat them, make sure you do so as part of a full meal.

Another very acidic food to avoid is tomatoes. Once again, they’re filled with acid and can bring on heartburn. In addition, some people who experience heartburn have problems eating onions and garlic and need to eliminate them from their diets as much as possible. To find out if these are risky foods for you, keep a food journal, and mark in it your episodes of heartburn. Over time you should begin to see patterns that will help you narrow down the foods you need to avoid.

Not surprisingly, very hot, spicy foods are on the list of foods that cause heartburn. This doesn’t mean, however, that you need to completely eliminate them from your diet. Try to determine which foods are causing you the most problems, and then come up with a milder version of that same food. For example, you could exchange hot sauce in a recipe for a milder sauce without giving up the basic flavors of the dish.

One no-no that may surprise you is peppermint. Most people believe that peppermint is soothing to the stomach when it’s actually a major cause of heartburn. Although it doesn’t spark an overflow of stomach acid like some foods do, it does relax the sphincter muscle between the stomach and the esophagus which allows the acid to come back up into the esophagus where it causes heartburn. So skipping that after dinner mint may actually relieve your heartburn problem.

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