Spices and oligosaccharides: 69 foods rated

Same reason as the FODMAP level: garlic is among the densest fructan sources in the kitchen. The chains are water-soluble and not oil-soluble, which is the whole basis of infused oil - fry the clove, lift it out, and the oligosaccharides leave with it. Muir measured the fructans in 60 vegetables and put these five at the top — garlic, artichoke, shallot, leek bulb and onion — across a range of 1.2 to 17.4 g per 100 g fresh weight for the group. The paper does not rank them against one another.

• Muir J.G. et al., J Agric Food Chem 55 (2007) 6619–27 and 57 (2009) 554–65, fructans and short-chain carbohydrates measured in Australian vegetables and fruit

Same reason as the FODMAP level: dehydration removed the water and left the fructans, so a teaspoon of powder carries what several cloves would. Drying is done warm rather than hot, below the temperature at which the chains start to break, which is why the powder concentrates rather than destroys.

Same reason as the FODMAP level: the garlic fraction of garlic salt still carries fructans, diluted by the salt but not removed by it. Salt does nothing to a carbohydrate chain.

Licorice root stores fructans, as roots that overwinter tend to. The confectionery made from it is mostly sugar and starch, so the level applies to the root and the extract rather than to every sweet bearing the name.

Same reason as the FODMAP level: concentrated onion fructans, and a label that often does not name them. "Spices" and "natural flavouring" can both mean onion powder, and neither word appears on any elimination list.

The chilli itself is not the problem: commercial cayenne and chilli seasonings are routinely cut with garlic and onion powder, and they are where the oligosaccharide comes from, which is what the level reflects. Pure ground chilli from a single-ingredient jar is a different answer.

Chilli powder in the American sense is a blend, not a spice: chilli, cumin, oregano, and garlic and onion powder. The oligosaccharides come from the last two, and the proportion is never on the label.

Curry powder is a blend, and most commercial blends include garlic and onion powder among the spices. Turmeric, coriander, cumin and fenugreek carry no oligosaccharide - it is the two alliums, again, in a jar that names neither prominently.

Fenugreek is a legume seed used as a spice, and on this axis it answers like a legume. It is the only one of Prichard's five significant sources to carry both classes: 1.11 grams of fructans and 1.27 grams of galacto-oligosaccharides per hundred. It is used as a spice, by the teaspoon, and sprouted fenugreek eaten as a leaf is a different quantity.

• Prichard R et al., Int J Food Sci Nutr 67 (2016) 383-390, FODMAP content of foods commonly consumed by ethnic minority groups

Capers are flower buds preserved in brine, and buds are not storage organs. The brining removes what little oligosaccharide was there, and they are eaten a few at a time.

Garam masala is cardamom, cinnamon, clove, cumin and pepper - aromatic spices rather than alliums, and used a teaspoon at a time. It is one of the safer blends for oligosaccharides, unlike curry powder, which usually includes garlic.

Mustard is seed, vinegar and salt, and mustard seed carries no fructan worth counting. What would change the answer is a flavoured mustard - honey, or the garlic in an aioli-style jar.

Ras el hanout is a spice blend, and spices are seeds, barks and dried flowers used in pinches. The oligosaccharide would come from the alliums, so the variable is whether a given blend includes garlic or onion powder, which some do and the traditional versions do not.