I have found it very difficult to do anything but follow a low residue diet, pretty much since Christmas now. I have found it very dull and frustrating as I love food. I love all types of flavours and textures, and when I am not having a flare up I eat an extremely varied diet.
The reason I've been following a low residue diet is because any time I eat any roughage, I find myself in a lot of pain, with a very distended gut. I have been doing this off my own back, and it wasn't until last week that the IBD specialist nurse actually advised I continue with a low residue diet. Now that I know it could be several months or more that I am unable to tolerate many vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, I have been putting a lot of effort into my daily meals. Eating nothing but white bread, white rice, white pasta and chicken very quickly gets rather boring.
So what is a low residue diet? It is anything that passes through the gut without leaving very much residue, and therefore needs little effort with regards to bowel movement. I downloaded a diet sheet from South Devon NHS trust, and this together with a few searches on the web, and my own experience has given me a diet of the following:
Carbohydrate:
Choose:
White Rice
White Flour (bread, pasta, noodles)
Potatoes without skin
Avoid
Brown Rice
Wholemeal bread, pasta, malted bread, granary bread
Potatoes with skin
Protein
All red meat
Chicken
White fish
Cheese
Eggs
Keep processed pork to a minimum
Vegetables (two small portions a day)
Choose: ( peeled and well cooked)
Carrots, Swede, Parsnips
Squash, Courgette, Marrow - without skin or seeds
Broccoli without stalks
Spinach leaves without stalks
Tomato without skin or seeds
Avoid:
Onion, Celery, Garlic
Chilli
Cabbage
Sweetcorn
Pulses - peas, beans, lentils
Fruit
Choose:
Ripe Bananas
Tinned Fruit, except pineapple
All fruit, cooked without skins or seeds
Avoid
Unripe Bananas
Pineapple
Raw fruit with skins and seeds
Out of all of this, the thing I am struggling with most is not being able to use onion, celery or garlic. However, this weekend, with a little effort I have managed to produce some good meals, and I haven't felt that I've missed out when sat around with the rest of the family. My biggest success was my "Low Residue Lasagne" (See below). With this I was able to feed the rest of the family the same thing as myself without worrying as to whether they had received a healthy and balanced diet.
Low Residue Lasagne
Ingredients:
For the Ragu:
8oz Ground Beef
2 8oz tins chopped tomatoes, seived to remove chunky fibres and seeds (or two tins passata)
1 Aubergine, skinned and chopped
4 mushrooms, skinned and chopped
1 courgette, skinned and deseeded
6 sheets white egg lasagne
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Basil
For the white sauce:
1/2 pint milk
1 tablespoon flour
1oz butter
Parmesan cheese to taste
Method:
Sautee the aubergine, courgette and mushrooms for 10 mins, so that they are soft, then add the beef and brown. Pour in the seived tomatoes, and season with herbs and a good amount of freshly milled pepper. Add the tomato puree, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile make the white sauce:
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour, cook for 1min and gradually add the milk, stirring to incorporate it into the flour before each addition. Cook for 1 - 2 minutes until sauce is thick and creamy. Stir in grated parmesan to taste.
Layer up the ragu and lasagne sheets in an ovenproof dish. Pour the white sauce over the top and grate cheese over.
Bake in a hot oven for 45 minutes until the cheese on top has melted and is bubbling and golden brown.
I served this with warm, crusty white rolls from the oven. I gave the rest of the family a portion of sweetcorn which obviously isn't low residue so I didn't serve myself this As I had two portions of low residue vegetables in the Lasagne, I did not have a vegetable side dish.
It was delicious, and the rest of the family obviously thought so too. Best of all, there was no painful cramping or distention in the days that followed!
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