This week brought a lighter load of IBD-relevant content than usual. The one piece that caught my attention wasn’t groundbreaking research or a clinical trial update — it was a practical guide about navigating social eating situations with IBD. Having lived with Crohn’s since 2002, I’ve made plenty of mistakes at BBQs, dinner parties, and family gatherings over the years. Sometimes the most useful content isn’t about the latest biologic or Phase 3 trial results; it’s about the day-to-day reality of managing this condition in social settings.

## Avoiding the biggest BBQ mistake with IBD

This **lifestyle guidance** piece from EatingWell identifies what they call the “#1 mistake” people with IBD make at social events: not planning ahead and communicating with hosts about dietary needs.

The article covers practical strategies I wish I’d known in my early years with Crohn’s. The main recommendations include calling hosts in advance to discuss the menu, offering to bring IBD-friendly dishes to share, eating a small meal beforehand to avoid arriving hungry, and having an exit strategy if symptoms flare. The piece also suggests specific foods to watch out for at BBQs — high-fiber items, spicy marinades, and alcohol — while noting that trigger foods vary between individuals.

What this means for me right now: nothing I haven’t learned through trial and error over 20+ years, but solid advice I would have benefited from hearing earlier. The communication piece resonates particularly strongly — I’ve found that most hosts are accommodating once they understand the situation, but they can’t help if they don’t know.

The main limitation is that the article treats IBD as a monolith when dietary triggers vary significantly between Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, and even more between individuals with the same diagnosis.

[Source: EatingWell](https://www.eatingwell.com/mistake-people-with-ibd-make-at-bbqs-11955527)

## What stood out this week

A quiet week for IBD research and news, which happens. The BBQ piece reminded me how much of living with IBD comes down to practical management strategies that you don’t learn in the gastroenterologist’s office. After two decades with Crohn’s, I’ve developed my own version of most of these tactics — the pre-event meal, the conversation with hosts, the mental inventory of bathroom locations. But I had to figure them out through awkward situations and flare-ups at inconvenient times.

If you’re newer to IBD or still working out your social eating strategies, the EatingWell piece offers a decent starting framework. The specifics will need to be tailored to your particular triggers and comfort level, but the general approach of planning ahead and communicating clearly applies broadly. Sometimes the most practical advice comes from sources outside the medical literature.