M
Mitchy
Guest
Have just been put onto a low fibre diet after being on an elemental diet for a couple of weeks. Does anyone have any tips to make food more interesting.
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soupdragon69
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Hi Mitchy,
Have been wondering how you were getting on with the elemental or whether any of our comments helped as you didnt say much since your post on that topic..
The low residue diet is very much pick and mix and it depends on whether they have given you a specific order in which you introduce it or have given you very basic diet as a baseline. The diet I went on initially was called the LOFFLEX and was designed by my own gastro team.
The best thing I did was to try and keep as much flavour as possible in my food so I steamed and grilled most stuff. Its fussy initially too as you end up cutting stalks off veggies and peeling lots of things but you do get used to it and find you do feel the benefit of it all.
I also found I couldnt stand salt added to my food either after the elemental drinks - guess it shows how much our palates can really adapt eh?
Hope you are doing ok and elemental hasnt been too sore on you.
Have been wondering how you were getting on with the elemental or whether any of our comments helped as you didnt say much since your post on that topic..
The low residue diet is very much pick and mix and it depends on whether they have given you a specific order in which you introduce it or have given you very basic diet as a baseline. The diet I went on initially was called the LOFFLEX and was designed by my own gastro team.
The best thing I did was to try and keep as much flavour as possible in my food so I steamed and grilled most stuff. Its fussy initially too as you end up cutting stalks off veggies and peeling lots of things but you do get used to it and find you do feel the benefit of it all.
I also found I couldnt stand salt added to my food either after the elemental drinks - guess it shows how much our palates can really adapt eh?
Hope you are doing ok and elemental hasnt been too sore on you.
Kev
Senior Member
You haven't lived till you've dined on boiled, skinless, boneless chicken. Tasted like envelope adhesive. Then I got in the habit of grilling it for a few minutes with some low fat, mild BBQ sauce. Believe me, that little additive was a total lifesaver. Plain, low fat, low lactose yoghurt isn't a thrill either, but I added in some unsweetened organic applesauce over a low fat, oatmeal muffin, & voila! Something that passes as a 'desert'. 
M
Mitchy
Guest
thanks for the tips. The elemental diet, or to be more precise the polymeric diet (not sure of the difference) didn't fare too well, as was meant to be drinking between 6-7 bottles a day. Anyway, managed 3, but on taking the 4th, threw up every time, thus the quick move to the low residue diet which I was started on yesterday. tasting food for the first time in 3 weeks was weird, and am finding it hard when going to the supermarket, as have to look at everything twice to see if I am able to take it. If it helps then at least it will be worth it, as the pain I have been experiencing is something I could do without, as could we all!!!! The annoying thing was that the polymeric diet seemed to help!!! So have been told to keep the drinks for times when I feel that I haven't had enough calories during the day.
soupdragon69
ele mental leprechaun
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Yes thats what I do and am currently using my elemental more again. I know what you mean about eating again. You practically dream of it when you cant eat and then when you can even the aspect of physically chewing and swallowing food is weird.
Keep to basic foods Mitchy and use herbs and very small amounts of mild spices (if you are allowed them yet and can tolerate them) to flavour things. That way you know exactly what you are putting into yourself.
The other aspect is you might feel very bloated or stuffed because of the food travelling through your system again so eat really slowly, chew it well and keep your mouth closed so you dont entrain more air than you need to!
Keep us posted - would like to know how you are doing ok?
Keep to basic foods Mitchy and use herbs and very small amounts of mild spices (if you are allowed them yet and can tolerate them) to flavour things. That way you know exactly what you are putting into yourself.
The other aspect is you might feel very bloated or stuffed because of the food travelling through your system again so eat really slowly, chew it well and keep your mouth closed so you dont entrain more air than you need to!
Keep us posted - would like to know how you are doing ok?
K
kpratte
Guest
Your palette will adept some.. They usually toss me on the low residue diet right after a flare. At first I'm like food, glorious food! Then I get over it and it gets kinda boring, but I lose my craving for sweets after a few days and don't mind the other food as much.
- Ken
- Ken
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For me, boneless and skinless chicken breast and potatoes (boiled, baked or mashed, with no skins) are my best friends during a flare and I need to eat lower fiber/residue foods. A few seasonings that are not bad to use are ground ginger, lemon juice or ground lemon peel, a little white wine, a bit of olive oil, ground basil (or fresh if you can chop it real fine to avoid problems in your guts), ground turmeric, fine ground fennel seed and fine ground rosemary. Ginger's a big digestive aid, as are the rest of those in one form or another. I also use honey in my cooking, but I can get the good stuff that's real good for you (not the far too refined stuff in the little bears in the grocery stores) from my Dad who has several hives in Ohio and West Virginia. Paprika is a flavor enhancer and shouldn't cause you any problems, but go easy on it at first, just in case. I've also lately been using apple cider vinegar because of the various health benefits.
They actually have a smoked paprika out there that I've been wanting to try. It's a little more expensive than normal paprika, but I've heard it tastes great. If you want more flavor go pick up some of the flavored olive oils they have on the market to cook with, just don't go overboard on the oil and it should be kind to your guts. I've heard that black pepper can irritate the bowels, but red or "rose" peppercorns are not pepper and don't have the same stimulating effects, so if you can invest in a pepper grinder or an electric "burr" grinder (the kind you grind coffee with) you can powder some and use it in place of black pepper. It tastes kinda like black pepper, but without the heat of black pepper. You could even use a burr grinder to grind your own "safe" spice blends to use on your food (and make 'em salt free too). I add onion powder (not onion salt) in my spice blends too. Best thing is to make sure any spice you use is powdered and not in little pieces. And the biggest thing to remember is if anything bothers your bowels, don't use it. Keep a food journal if you gotta.
I do a lot of grilling with my gas grill on low and slow heat and for some added flavor I keep a plank of hickory, cherry, oak, mesquite, or some other flavorful wood on the grill grate. Adds a lot of flavor to your chicken or fish without adding any spices at all. You just have to check it occasionally to make sure it's just smoking and not catching fire.
There's a number of websites that have a list of low fiber low residue foods you can use. I tend to eat a lot of pasta during these times (not aldente), and ofttimes egg noodles especially, but pasta really doesn't bother my insides and if I'm not eating well to begin with carbs aren't necessarily a bad thing. I can also tolerate small doses of hamburger, but it has to be chopped up as small as I can get it in the pan to help with digestion. And I'm a chewer, with Crohn's you kinda have to be, biggest problem people have with digestion is wolfing down food without chewing enough. Takes longer to eat, but it's better that than getting something stuck that I didn't chew properly. I eat a lot of soup as part of a low fiber low residue diet and if you can do so, make your own. Buy a whole chicken, debone it, make your own chicken stock (I like stock better than broth for the unctuousness or mouth feel of it). If you can't debone a chicken get a good cookbook that tells you how to do it. One of the biggest things you can do for yourself and your Crohn's is to take food prep into your own hands. Look up some good chicken soup recipes and go to town. No canned/jarred soup is better than the homemade kind.
Now, far as cutting out hamburger completely, try ground turkey or ground chicken. I love ground turkey in pasta sauce as a change from hamburger and you can season it up a little and it'll actually absorb flavors better than hamburger does. I've even made turkey meatballs before. Turkey digests better than red meat anyway.
I eat fish too, but there are differences in fish and some are a little tougher to digest than others. Salmon is loaded with Omega 3 and is not bad on the digestibility scale if it's not overcooked and dry. I like tilapia fillets myself for various reasons. One thing people tend to do is overcook fish (or any meat really), which makes it tougher and thereby harder to chew and digest. Best thing to do is to get the fish to around 150-155 degrees and take it off the pan or grill and let the internal heat carry over to 160. An internal temperature of 160 kills all types of food bourne bacteria, so the food scientists say. Though generally, with many fish, when it flakes up with a fork it's done. Salmon turns pink and flakes when you pull some up with a fork (and sometimes 160 degrees makes it a little dry). White fish like catfish or tilapia turns opaque white and flakes with a fork. (I know, this is a pretty silly thing to explain, but there are folks out there that end up turning fish into a piece of shoe leather by overcooking it). Keep in mind here that some folks still have issues eating fish during a flare up so be cautious. I've been thinking of making salmon patties like you would make crab cakes, without big pieces of vegetables in 'em, of course, as a nice change of pace.
To keep your fruits and vegetables intake up you can either make juice or get some V8 juice cocktail. I buy the one that says antioxidant and warm it up in the microwave and drink it like soup. I can't really stomach it cold; just tastes kinda blegh cold. I've cooked with V8 too and it makes a decent tomato base for a vegetable soup or minestrone.
Anyway, one of the biggest things to remember with this disease, and something I can't stress enough, is that all of our bodies are different and what some may be able to tolerate, others may have major issues with. Use caution with anything you try and stop using anything that you end up having problems with.
I've been tossing around in my head the idea of starting to type up some of the meals I make when I'm having some intestinal issues. Even when I'm feeling good I still kinda watch what I eat, lest problems arise.
Sorry, I get a little long winded when it comes to food.
They actually have a smoked paprika out there that I've been wanting to try. It's a little more expensive than normal paprika, but I've heard it tastes great. If you want more flavor go pick up some of the flavored olive oils they have on the market to cook with, just don't go overboard on the oil and it should be kind to your guts. I've heard that black pepper can irritate the bowels, but red or "rose" peppercorns are not pepper and don't have the same stimulating effects, so if you can invest in a pepper grinder or an electric "burr" grinder (the kind you grind coffee with) you can powder some and use it in place of black pepper. It tastes kinda like black pepper, but without the heat of black pepper. You could even use a burr grinder to grind your own "safe" spice blends to use on your food (and make 'em salt free too). I add onion powder (not onion salt) in my spice blends too. Best thing is to make sure any spice you use is powdered and not in little pieces. And the biggest thing to remember is if anything bothers your bowels, don't use it. Keep a food journal if you gotta.
I do a lot of grilling with my gas grill on low and slow heat and for some added flavor I keep a plank of hickory, cherry, oak, mesquite, or some other flavorful wood on the grill grate. Adds a lot of flavor to your chicken or fish without adding any spices at all. You just have to check it occasionally to make sure it's just smoking and not catching fire.
There's a number of websites that have a list of low fiber low residue foods you can use. I tend to eat a lot of pasta during these times (not aldente), and ofttimes egg noodles especially, but pasta really doesn't bother my insides and if I'm not eating well to begin with carbs aren't necessarily a bad thing. I can also tolerate small doses of hamburger, but it has to be chopped up as small as I can get it in the pan to help with digestion. And I'm a chewer, with Crohn's you kinda have to be, biggest problem people have with digestion is wolfing down food without chewing enough. Takes longer to eat, but it's better that than getting something stuck that I didn't chew properly. I eat a lot of soup as part of a low fiber low residue diet and if you can do so, make your own. Buy a whole chicken, debone it, make your own chicken stock (I like stock better than broth for the unctuousness or mouth feel of it). If you can't debone a chicken get a good cookbook that tells you how to do it. One of the biggest things you can do for yourself and your Crohn's is to take food prep into your own hands. Look up some good chicken soup recipes and go to town. No canned/jarred soup is better than the homemade kind.
Now, far as cutting out hamburger completely, try ground turkey or ground chicken. I love ground turkey in pasta sauce as a change from hamburger and you can season it up a little and it'll actually absorb flavors better than hamburger does. I've even made turkey meatballs before. Turkey digests better than red meat anyway.
I eat fish too, but there are differences in fish and some are a little tougher to digest than others. Salmon is loaded with Omega 3 and is not bad on the digestibility scale if it's not overcooked and dry. I like tilapia fillets myself for various reasons. One thing people tend to do is overcook fish (or any meat really), which makes it tougher and thereby harder to chew and digest. Best thing to do is to get the fish to around 150-155 degrees and take it off the pan or grill and let the internal heat carry over to 160. An internal temperature of 160 kills all types of food bourne bacteria, so the food scientists say. Though generally, with many fish, when it flakes up with a fork it's done. Salmon turns pink and flakes when you pull some up with a fork (and sometimes 160 degrees makes it a little dry). White fish like catfish or tilapia turns opaque white and flakes with a fork. (I know, this is a pretty silly thing to explain, but there are folks out there that end up turning fish into a piece of shoe leather by overcooking it). Keep in mind here that some folks still have issues eating fish during a flare up so be cautious. I've been thinking of making salmon patties like you would make crab cakes, without big pieces of vegetables in 'em, of course, as a nice change of pace.
To keep your fruits and vegetables intake up you can either make juice or get some V8 juice cocktail. I buy the one that says antioxidant and warm it up in the microwave and drink it like soup. I can't really stomach it cold; just tastes kinda blegh cold. I've cooked with V8 too and it makes a decent tomato base for a vegetable soup or minestrone.
Anyway, one of the biggest things to remember with this disease, and something I can't stress enough, is that all of our bodies are different and what some may be able to tolerate, others may have major issues with. Use caution with anything you try and stop using anything that you end up having problems with.
I've been tossing around in my head the idea of starting to type up some of the meals I make when I'm having some intestinal issues. Even when I'm feeling good I still kinda watch what I eat, lest problems arise.
Sorry, I get a little long winded when it comes to food.
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Wow, good, informative post Dan. It makes me hungry just reading it. I don't know what my diet is going to be exactly once I reach some form of normalcy following this resection, but before, it was pretty close to what you are doing. Except that I have a strong aversion to fish because my first hospitalization, when I found out I had Crohn's, was after a baked catfish dinner. Somehow I don't think it was cooked all the way. But that's just from the memory of the event and has nothing to do with fish as something okay to eat.
I also found grilled, or baked, chicken to be a good staple along with pastas and mashed potatoes. For sandwich meat, the fresh stuff from the deli was much better for me than the packaged.
Yet, when I was flaring, or as the abscess/fistula developed, everything set me off and I could only really tolerate one meal a day.
I also found grilled, or baked, chicken to be a good staple along with pastas and mashed potatoes. For sandwich meat, the fresh stuff from the deli was much better for me than the packaged.
Yet, when I was flaring, or as the abscess/fistula developed, everything set me off and I could only really tolerate one meal a day.
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Know what you mean about foods you don't eat because of the circumstance that had you in the hospital, but not necessarily bad for you. I still don't eat fresh red onions even when feeling good because of the memory of the surgeon saying he found an undigested chunk of red onion in me when my bowel perforated. Makes me think before swallowing too.
I daresay, when I'm real bad I end up eating soup and then when my bowels settle back down I slip into soup and crackers and mashed potatoes and a little bread, then back to chicken and such.
I daresay, when I'm real bad I end up eating soup and then when my bowels settle back down I slip into soup and crackers and mashed potatoes and a little bread, then back to chicken and such.
Kev
Senior Member
Heres a craazy thought, just off the top of my head (underutilized space). I had jokingly suggested a Crohnie Calander on another thread, but kidding aside, what are the chances we members could contribute some of our home grown recipes, have a publisher/editor put them together into a cookbook, have that offered in the bookstore, or other similar places, and put the (heres hoping) profits into this forum and into CCFA or the like? Am I totally delusional? I think a cookbook/recipe collection assembled from us folks with the disease would probably be better accepted by other crohnies Versus a compilation from a dietician or nutritionist who really never has to eat the stuff they come up with on a day after day after day basis, right?
soupdragon69
ele mental leprechaun
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Go Kev Go Kev!!
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