Topic: Fiberless Meals

[Kevin Williams]

Haven't started a thread in a while, hmm.

Anyway, I have Crohn's Disease and have to avoid Fiber almost completely. Which means I have to stay away from almost all vegetables and many fruits with skins (unless I skin them first).

My gastroenterologist told me that some cooked vegetables might be okay, but I've had stomach pains with most that I've tried. I suppose I could get by mostly on Meat, Fruit, Eggs, etc. but feel like I'm missing some nutritious components by not being able to eat vegetables.

Also, kind of ironically my girlfriend is a vegetarian so it can be pretty hard to make meals together.

Having a plate of some turkey, fruit, and cheese is great and all but it never fills me up and I miss some vegetables. Is meat, fruit, and cheese enough for a meal or should I look for something to supplement them?

I do have a juicer and have had mild success drinking juiced vegetables but the taste of juiced vegetables is awful to me.

[Steven Low]

Put it into fitday to see the nutrient contents to see if you're missing anything.

Fruits themselves have enough fiber even without the skin,... so I'm not sure why you say the vegetable fiber bothers you that much?

[Kevin Williams]

Well it depends on the fruit and vegetable. I think it depends a lot of how well it digests too. Like lettuce is a super nogo because it gets caught up in my intestines. Berries I seem to have no trouble with at all. Fiber bars, nuts, lettuce, spinach, beans, etc. are the types of things that really destroy my stomach.

And I'll check fitday, thanks.

[Steven Low]

Hmmm. That's odd. Berries are really good though so keep eating those.

I mean you don't NEED vegetables, but they do provide a lot of nutrients. May have to use a multivitamin if you can't get all of them through the diet you're eating otherwise but that's about it.

[KC Parsons]

When you eat fiber, if you're experiencing a lot of gastrointenstinal dicomfort in a gassy, bloated kind of way, it's because bacteria essentially break down fermentable fiber and a byproduct of that is the gas you feel. Factor in any excess inflammation from the Crohn's and I could imagine you would not be having a very good day

So if you're experiencing that certain fruits/vegetables don't bother you as much, it's probably either 1) overall content of fiber is lower, 2) the fiber is infermentable or mainly infermentable and you don't have the same level of gas being produced, or 3) the inflammatory response is lower due to the rest of the composition of the food.

What that comes down to is simply sticking with the ones that don't bother you.

Like Steve says, vegetables aren't NECESSARY so I'd say just keep going with the approach you're using and make sure you cover your bases with a multivitamin.

[Kevin Williams]

Awesome, thanks guys. Sounds like I need to pick up some more multivitamins along with my fish oil.

[Chris Salvato]

From my understanding - Crohn's patients can do with fiber most times, but just not a lot - is that the case with you or does ANY fiber bog you down?  Or is it just the fiber in processed foods, which is most of the time processed from wood chips and not plants humans normally eat?

Anyway, there easiest way you can remove the fiber from your fruits and veg is probably juicing, and passing all juices through a fine mesh sieve would remove most of the fiber.

[Kevin Williams]

From my understanding - Crohn's patients can do with fiber most times, but just not a lot - is that the case with you or does ANY fiber bog you down?  Or is it just the fiber in processed foods, which is most of the time processed from wood chips and not plants humans normally eat?

Anyway, there easiest way you can remove the fiber from your fruits and veg is probably juicing, and passing all juices through a fine mesh sieve would remove most of the fiber.

One of my biggest problems is plain organic lettuce, spinach, etc. and not just processed fiber. Maybe it depends on bad the Crohn's is. But anything more than a few grams of fiber can end up with me in the hospital, heh.

Juicing is what I've done a bit of, need to find better tasting recipes with vegetables though ;P

[Kevin Williams]

Bumping up this topic since it's mine.

I've now found that pretty much no full fruits are going to work. Apples/oranges and such cause pain as well.

Berries and melons seem to work fine.

The problem is filling myself up. I'm trying to avoid empty carbs so I'm avoiding pretty much all bread. Also trying to avoid potatoes unless there's a good enough reason that I should eat them.

I can juice some fruit and have that as a drink with some chicken, a homemade burger, etc. but without veggies/potatoes/fruit/etc I'm just not getting full. Right now I'm just eating sunflower seeds for hours after eating so I don't feel like I'm starving.

Surely there must be something I can have as a side with my meat? A plate of chicken and some cheese just doesn't fill me up...

[Steven Low]

Try eating some good fats.

Coconut milk is a good one

Avocado possibly?

Sweet potatoes are a bit different than potatoes so they might work?

Does white rice work?

[Kevin Williams]

Try eating some good fats.

Coconut milk is a good one

I always disliked coconut milk, but haven't tried it in years. Maybe I can stomach it now, will try at least :3

Avocado possibly?

I absolutely cannot handle Avocado though. Not because of fiber, I just can't stomach the taste, ick.

Sweet potatoes are a bit different than potatoes so they might work?

I've never actually tried sweet potatoes. I love potatoes, but it feels like pure carbs when I eat one, slathered in butter.

Does white rice work?

White rice would probably work. I just didn't think there was any nutrition in it

[Steven Low]

There isn;'t nutrition in white rice really... it would just be carbs if you need them to maintain weight and whatnot.

Sweet potatoes are awesomely nutritious...

[Kevin Williams]

What about baked (russet/non-sweet) potatoes with butter compared against white rice? Would white rice be the better filler?

I'll pick up some sweet potatoes today and see how they are

I guess I'll add that I'm not really concerned about losing/gaining weight as I'm 5'9" and about 163lbs - I think that's pretty average.

[Steven Low]

Sweet potatoes are way better than both white potatoes and rice

[Kevin Williams]

I picked up some sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and white rice today.

I dislike yams a decent bit, so I'm skeptical on the sweet potatoes, but we'll see.

[Steven Low]

You can put Cinnamon and/or butter on the sweet potatoes and it makes it a lot better, so if you don't like the straight up taste you can try those three combos

[Ryan Sannar]

Or bacon fat.

[Steven Low]

Or bacon fat.

Bacon and its derivatives go with anything so I mean that goes without saying

[Kevin Williams]

Ick, I hate the texture of bacon. Don't really care for the taste either, lol.

[Ryan Sannar]

I'll let it go because its a personal preference, but sir, you are missing out on bacon. Straight saturated fat from just about any natural source will work as well.