FODMAP
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40 free FODMAP trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
FODMAPs are a group of small sugars that some people absorb poorly, and for many people with irritable bowel syndrome they are the difference between a calm gut and a miserable afternoon. The low-FODMAP diet built around them has become one of the best-known eating plans in digestive health, yet the acronym itself leaves most people guessing. This quiz covers what the letters stand for, which everyday fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy foods and sweeteners sit on the high and low lists, and what actually happens in the gut after a high-FODMAP meal. It also looks at where the diet came from, how its stages work, and the kitchen tricks people use to keep flavor on the plate. It is written for anyone starting the diet, for nutrition students, and for quiz hosts who want a food round with real science in it. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the reasoning as you play. It is a quiz for fun and learning, not medical advice.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sugar-free gum sweetener, restricted on a low-FODMAP diet, is also dangerously poisonous to dogs?
Xylitol
Xylitol makes a dog's body release a flood of insulin, which can crash its blood sugar to life-threatening levels within the hour.
Q 02Researchers at which institution created the low-FODMAP diet and still lab-test foods for a traffic-light phone app?
Monash University
Monash University's team reports that IBS symptoms ease in three out of four people who try the diet, and it now certifies packaged foods as low-FODMAP.
Q 03In the diet acronym FODMAP, which describes poorly absorbed short-chain sugars, what word does the letter F stand for?
Fermentable
Fermentable means gut bacteria can feed on these sugars, and the gas they give off is what stretches a sensitive bowel.
Q 04Garlic's fructans dissolve in water, so which liquid can be infused with garlic flavor and still stay low-FODMAP?
Cooking oil
Cooking oil takes up garlic's flavor but not its fructans, which only move into watery liquids such as a soup or sauce.
Q 05Wheat bread is limited on a low-FODMAP diet because of its fructans, not because of which well-known wheat protein?
Gluten
Gluten is a protein while FODMAPs are sugars, which is why a gluten-free loaf can still be high-FODMAP if onion, pear or honey has been added.
Q 06Which anti-gas pill, whose inventor won the first Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine, uses an enzyme to digest legume sugars?
Beano
Beano contains alpha-galactosidase, an enzyme taken from a fungus that breaks down the chain sugars in beans before gut bacteria can get to them.
Q 07Which cheese is low-FODMAP because long aging leaves it with almost none of the natural sugar found in milk?
Cheddar
Cheddar keeps less than 1.5% of milk's sugar: most drains off with the whey, and bacteria turn the rest into lactic acid as the cheese ripens.
Q 08Which style of bread, traditionally left to prove for over 12 hours, can be low-FODMAP?
Sourdough
Sourdough's long rise gives the microbes time to eat the fructans in the flour, though loaves made from wheat or rye flour can still test high.
Q 09Honey is high-FODMAP because it contains more of which simple sugar than glucose?
Fructose
Fructose is absorbed only about 25 to 50 grams at a sitting even by a healthy gut, and whatever is left over travels on to feed gut bacteria.
Q 10Which sugar alcohol, a FODMAP found naturally in prunes, is thought to give prunes their laxative effect?
Sorbitol
Sorbitol pulls water into the bowel, which is why pharmacies also sell it on its own as an over-the-counter laxative.
Q 11In the acronym FODMAP, the letter P stands for which group, found in stone fruit and sugar-free chewing gum?
Polyols
Polyols are sugar alcohols, and on an ingredient list most of them give themselves away with a name ending in -ol.
Q 12The D in FODMAP stands for disaccharides, which in practice means which sugar found in milk and ice cream?
Lactose
Lactose has to be split by the enzyme lactase before it can be absorbed, and most adults worldwide make less of that enzyme after early childhood.
Q 13Doctors rule out which autoimmune condition before a low-FODMAP diet, since cutting wheat can hide its symptoms?
Celiac disease
Celiac disease can be masked when symptoms ease on the diet, which delays a diagnosis and leaves the real cause untreated.
Q 21Which root, also roasted and ground as a coffee substitute, supplies the inulin added to many high-fiber foods?
Chicory
Chicory root is so rich in the fructan inulin that fiber bars and yogurts boosted with it can be a hidden trigger on a low-FODMAP diet.
Q 22Which North American tuber is so rich in inulin that a 17th-century English botanist condemned it for causing wind?
Sunchoke
Sunchoke, also called Jerusalem artichoke, stores its energy as inulin instead of starch, and human digestive enzymes can't break inulin down.
Q 23Which staple grain, a low-FODMAP swap for wheat, comes from a grass that is unable to make fructans?
Rice
Rice is the notable exception among grasses, many of which store fructans in their stems as protection against freezing.
Q 14FODMAPs slip through the small intestine unabsorbed; in which organ do gut bacteria then turn them into gas?
The colon
The colon is where bacteria use FODMAPs as fuel, and this happens in everyone: people with IBS simply feel the stretch more.
Q 15By which process do unabsorbed FODMAPs, being small molecules, drag extra water into the bowel?
Osmosis
Osmosis pulls water toward the concentrated sugars, and that extra fluid together with gas is the double action that distends the gut.
Q 16Breath tests for poorly absorbed sugars measure which gas, which human cells never make but gut bacteria do?
Hydrogen
Hydrogen in the breath can only have come from bacteria feeding on sugar, though roughly a third of people give off methane instead.
Q 17Because gut bacteria feed on them, many FODMAPs belong to which class of ingredient often added to yogurts?
Prebiotics
Prebiotics are food for microbes already living in the gut, which is why a strict low-FODMAP diet kept up for too long may thin out beneficial species.
Q 18FODMAPs are all short-chain members of which major nutrient family?
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are all but absent from plain meat, fish and eggs, which is why those foods are naturally low in FODMAPs.
Q 19Which pungent Indian spice, sold as a powder, is used on a low-FODMAP diet to stand in for onion?
Asafoetida
Asafoetida is the dried sap of a carrot-family plant, harsh-smelling when raw, that gives off an onion-like aroma once it is fried.
Q 20Which part of a scallion or leek can stay on the plate, because the plant's fructans are packed elsewhere?
The green tops
The green tops are low in fructans, so they are used, along with chives, to bring back the onion flavor the diet takes away.
Q 24Which popular pizza and stir-fry ingredient is high-FODMAP because it is naturally rich in sugar alcohols?
Mushrooms
Mushrooms are among the foods richest in natural sugar alcohols, alongside stone fruits such as cherries, peaches and plums.
Q 25Which vegetable, popular as a low-carb stand-in for pizza crust and mash, is on the high-FODMAP list?
Cauliflower
Cauliflower owes its place on the list to sugar alcohols, the same FODMAP group found in snow peas and stone fruit.
Q 26Lentils and chickpeas are lower in FODMAPs when bought in which form, as their sugars leach into liquid that is drained?
Canned
Canned legumes sit in brine long enough for their water-soluble chain sugars to seep out, so the advice is to discard the brine and rinse them before use.
Q 27Which style of tofu is high in FODMAPs, unlike the firm kind, because its curds are never pressed?
Silken
Silken tofu is unpressed, so it keeps the liquid it sets in, and the FODMAPs in soybeans are the kind that dissolve in water.
Q 28Which lunchbox fruit, restricted in the first phase of a low-FODMAP diet, carries two FODMAP types at once?
Apple
Apple packs both excess fruit sugar and a sugar alcohol, and its juice is on the high-FODMAP list too.
Q 29Which picnic fruit, a botanical relative of the cucumber, is on the high-FODMAP list?
Watermelon
Watermelon has more than twice as much fruit sugar as glucose and contains sugar alcohols too, so a slice delivers more than one FODMAP.
Q 30Which nut, toxic when raw until it is roasted or steamed, joins pistachios on the high-FODMAP list?
Cashews
Cashews and pistachios are the nuts named on the high-FODMAP list, while peanuts, walnuts and macadamias all sit on the low side.