Lychee
Fruits · Tropical
Three lychees, about 30 g, is the smallest amount anyone has measured, and it is rated amber. Seven or eight, 75 g, are rated red. Nothing about this fruit is rated green. A single polyol accounts for all of it: sorbitol, at 0.15 g in three lychees and 0.38 g in seven or eight, with every other group reading zero.
Last updated 4 September 2026Serving sizes for lychee
Three lychees (30 g) are amber; seven or eight (75 g) are red. No green serve has been tested.
Tested serving sizes
| Serving | Amount | Main FODMAP | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 lychees | 30 g | Sorbitol 0.15 g | |
| 7-8 lychees | 75 g | Sorbitol 0.38 g |
Breakdown for 2.8 lychees
Is lychee low FODMAP?
Sorbitol is the whole account here, and it scales with the fruit: two and a half times the portion, two and a half times the polyol. What makes lychee awkward is where the ladder starts. The smallest measured serve is three fruit and it already rates amber, so there is no rung below to stand on, unlike plum, which holds 0.12 g of sorbitol in half a fruit and keeps its green rating there. Peeled lychee flesh weighs only about ten grams a fruit, which means the amber portion amounts to three mouthfuls.
Lychee and IBS: what to know
Amber with nothing green underneath it makes lychee a decision rather than a measurement: either you have a few and watch what happens, or you leave them, and a strict elimination phase settles the matter by excluding amber foods anyway. Lychees also pace themselves badly. Peeling is the only brake on how fast they disappear, and a bowl someone has already shelled removes even that. They show up at the end of a meal out, in bunches at markets for a few weeks a year, and in cocktails and desserts where syrup arrives alongside the fruit.
Gut-friendly ways to eat lychee
Three lychees work as the perfumed thing on top of a dessert rather than as the dessert itself: peeled and halved over coconut yoghurt, or dropped whole into a jug of iced tea for the smell alone. For a bowl you can keep picking at, pineapple is green at a full cup, 140 g, and one mandarin at 75 g is green with almost nothing in it at all. Lychee syrup, lychee liqueur and lychee sorbet each pack more fruit into a mouthful than the fresh serve allows, and none has been tested here.
Frequently asked questions
How many lychees can I eat with IBS?
Three is the amber serve and seven or eight is the red one, so the entire tested range fits in a small bowl. There is no green amount, which means even three is a portion to try deliberately rather than assume. If you are working through a shared plate, shell your own instead of taking from a pile someone else has peeled, because the peeling is what keeps the count honest.
Are tinned lychees in syrup low FODMAP?
They are not covered by these figures, and the syrup makes them a poorer bet rather than a better one. Canning liquid does take some of the sorbitol with it, since the polyol dissolves in water, but tinned lychees are usually served with a ladle of that syrup and no serve has been tested either way. Drain them if you use them, and count the fruit rather than the spoonfuls.
Why do lychees upset my stomach?
Sorbitol is absorbed poorly in the small intestine at the best of times, and lychee brings no other FODMAP group along with it, so the amount is the only variable in play. Three fruit is a small dose and eight is several times it. If sugar-free gum or mints also trouble you, that is the same polyol reaching you by another route, and it is worth testing properly rather than guessing.
Can I eat lychee during a low FODMAP elimination phase?
No. Amber foods are left out during a strict elimination phase, and lychee has no green portion underneath to retreat to, so it sits outside that stage completely. Afterwards it is a reasonable thing to bring back, three fruit at a time and on a day when nothing else on your plate is contributing polyols. A dietitian is the right person to sequence that.
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