What Food can you eat in a flare?

[Nica]

I personally have found that mushy comfort foods work for me. Stuff like mashed potatoes (no milk in em) Pasta (no sauce) and as weird as this sounds, homemade chicken and dumplings.

I guess its heavy starch and bland for me.

Then the flare gets too bad and I don't eat

 

[mikeyarmo]

There are flairs I have had where anything (inlcude "safe" liquids like water) could not be tolerated.

I have had success with BRAT:

Bananas
Rice (white)
Applesauce
Toast

Basically though I think any bland/mushy food should be well tolerated. I think this can be the case for many vegetables cooked very well (like mashed carrots) but that can differ by person.

 

[Trev]

mashed spuds are about the only thing i can eat when flaring

 

[IBD]

When I use to flare up before changing my diet, I would go take a nap(or at least try to) but if I had to eat, I would eat plain toast. For some reason, it worked wonders.

 

[crazycanuck]

Sun chips for me? Weird i know but my aunt told me thats what a lot of the kids eat at the crohns camp she volunteers at eat to settle their stomachs. Dunno if its in my head or not but works for me too. Also rice, chicken, bread with butter, pastas, and a lot of red meats for some reason I can usually tolerate when flaring. Other times nothing is safe and might as well eat mcdonalds cause its coming out the way it went in haha.

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

I stick strictly to low-residue foods when I'm flaring. When not flaring, I can eat pasta with tomato sauce, but in a flare the pasta has to be plain or with a little butter and that's it - tomato sauce kills me in a flare. Other flare foods I can eat are plain rice, plain skins-off potatoes (or also with a little butter), hard-boiled eggs, plain white bread or plain flour tortillas, baked chicken. If the flare isn't too bad I can get away with a tuna sandwich (canned tuna, mayo, white bread) and fried rice is usually pretty safe too (white rice, soy sauce, egg).

And for some reason I also can and do eat potato chips - I've been told that my sodium levels are low, most likely due to having a lot of d when I'm flaring, so my body craves salty things like chips in a flare. Pringles are the only chips I've found so far that I can't eat in a flare - for some reason, they seem to tear up my guts, must be the sharp edges? I usually eat Ruffles and those don't cause pain. I'll have to try Sun Chips next time and see if they help.

 

[kildare crohnie]

cud be the msg in the pringles, hmmm dats why ther so tasty

 

[Jessica]

BRAT always works for me. That and mashed potatoes.

Lately just white rice and salad dressing once a day as a meal has been keeping my flare-scare at bay.

 

[partlycloudy]

My routine is to eat as little as possible as the very act of digestion pains me during a flare. Even water hurts. When I do eat though it must be as fiber-less as possible. Fiber kills me.

My go-to food is a small chunk of cheese with a pita pocket. It's quite filling relative to the small amount of food. I'm tolerating cheesecake with my current flare. I suspect because there's no fiber and it's creamy.

 

[peterh88]

Before I changed my diet the only food I could tolerate during a flare was eggs, meat and hard cheese. From all these replies I see one common theme, everyone avoids certain foods when they are flaring. How about eliminating those foods and avoid flares all together?? Could it really be that simple??

Peter:goodluck:

 

[Miss Spencer]

How about eliminating those foods and avoid flares all together?? Could it really be that simple??

Yes, I think it could be that simple

Things like wheat, meat and hard cheese, flare me up. So I have learnt to avoid them.......mostly.

And there is the downfall word: MOSTLY

In a flare I have to stick to water fasting, vegetable juice fasting or things like ripe bananas or blended watermelon. Or cooked mashed plain pumpkin. Simple plain food and liquids.

The best thing for me during a flare is freshly prepared carrot juice, as it settles me right down almost immediately and stops the diarrhoea.

But it is not just food related, it is also lifestyle related for me. I find stress to be a major cause of flares too. I find diet easier to control than stress.

 

[partlycloudy]

I think it could be that simple for me too, but I just gotta eat some veggies every once in awhile. Before Crohn's I was a huge salad eater.

I also tend to tell myself "just this time" it will be okay. It seems I'm a liar and quite gullible in believing the lies I tell myself.

 

[crazycanuck]

I dont seem to exactly flare from food. Seems like stress makes me flare and then while flaring only certain foods I can eat then. When Im not flaring if I eat something I cant have Ill have D for a couple hours or maybe a day and then back to normal.

 

[partlycloudy]

I haven't concluded how much stress contributes to my flares. This flare has been worse than usual and I WAS under a lot of stress right before. I wonder if the stress made it worse.

 

[julesinfrance]

I dont think any particular foods cause me to flare except maybe pasta or if i eat too much! Whilst in a flare though I find sometimes even the act of chewing can start the abdominal pain. I find boiled eggs, toast, soup or a plain tuna sandwich are the foods which give me least aggravation. I do try to eat as much veg as I can when not flaring, particularly now I am on the Remicade and therefore more tolerant. I have been deficient in some vitamins and think it was due to malabsorbtion in the gut , so try to make up for it when i can.