Foods to Eat for Diarrhea

Transcript

There are certain distinct food choices that you can make in order to improve diarrhea when experiencing those symptoms. First is to limit your fiber intake. And a low-fiber intake constitutes less than 13 grams of fiber per day. So how do we do this? Well, we can decrease the fiber by eating products with white flour that don’t have any additional fiber, reading food labels is very helpful in this regard. In addition you should be eating smaller portions or less fruit in general. Limit high fiber fruits. These include unpeeled apples, blackberries, blueberries, dates, pears, and instead try fruits with less than 1.5 grams of fiber in half a cup. And some examples of this include honeydew melon, mango, grapes for instance, those are just a few examples. Fiber is also found in vegetables, so it’s very helpful to reduce the amount of vegetables that you are eating. And the way that you eat them is actually very important. Cooking vegetables are better tolerated, as well as making them into smoothies in which they are pre-digested in order to help the body digest them better. And there are certain vegetables as well that have high amounts of gas. So if that’s also a big problem with diarrhea, it’s important to avoid those. Those include things like cabbage, brussels sprouts, things of those nature, broccoli for instance. Finally we do mention that caffeine is a culprit, that adds to increased number of stools. To reduce caffeine, I suggest that patients drink herbal teas in order to soothe their stomach, as well as just increase their water consumption, drinking at least 8 to 10 cups of water a day is extremely helpful. And if electrolytes are being lost, it is also important to add electrolyte substitutes, including things like pedialite. Pedialite is preferred to items such as Gatorade because it actually has less sugar content, which is another trigger for diarrheal symptoms. Lactose, found in many dairy products, is also difficult to digest in this setting, and drinking agents that are lactose-free is very helpful. Yogurts have less lactose, and also have probiotics, which can actually be really helpful in the setting of diarrhea. Hopefully these suggestions will improve your ability to choose foods that may be helpful in overcoming some of these symptoms.