Diet Foods for Pancreatitis & Gallstones

by Jill Corleone, RD

About 40 percent of pancreatitis cases are related to gallstones, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. The gallstones cause inflammation in the pancreas as they pass through the bile duct. Gallstones are small pebbles formed in the gallbladder. In the hospital, a person with gallstone-related pancreatitis may not be allowed to eat. Once discharged to home, you will be advised to follow a low-fat diet.

Bread and Grains

Total fat intake for pancreatitis and gallstones is usually limited to 20 percent of total calorie intake, according to the Jackson/Seigelbaum Gastroenterology group. Most breads and grains are naturally low in fat and are healthy diet food choices for people with pancreatitis and gallstones. You will need four or more servings of breads and grains a day. Choices include whole-wheat bread and bread products, plain pasta, plain rice, whole-grain cereals, saltine crackers, soda crackers, oatmeal, rice cakes, air-popped popcorn, low-fat muffins, pancakes made without added fat and french toast made with skim milk and egg substitute.

Fruits and Vegetables

People with pancreatitis and gallstones should be able to tolerate most fruits and vegetables, as long as they are not prepared with high-fat sauces. You will need about five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Healthy fruit choices include all fresh, canned, frozen and dried fruits. Healthy vegetable choices include all fresh, frozen and canned varieties without any added sauces.

Dairy Foods

Dairy foods can be a source of fat in the diet. The pancreas releases enzymes that help you to digest fat in foods. When the pancreas is inflamed, fat is not digested, leading to malabsorption and diarrhea. Low-fat and fat-free dairy foods for pancreatitis and gallstones include skim milk, 1 percent fat milk, nonfat yogurt, fat-free cheese, low-fat cottage cheese, part-skim mozzarella cheese and part-skim ricotta cheese. You can have two or more servings of low-fat and fat-free dairy foods a day with pancreatitis and gallstones.

Meat and Meat Alternatives

Meat can also be a source of fat in the diet. Low-fat choices include skinless poultry, veal, beef sirloin and tenderloin, pork tenderloin and chops, fresh or frozen fish, canned fish packed in water, eggs prepared without added fat and 95 percent fat luncheon meats. Low-fat meat alternatives include tofu and legumes. Aim for 5 to 6 oz. of meat and meat alternatives a day.

Sweets and Desserts

You can have low-fat sweets and desserts with pancreatitis and gallstones. Healthy choices include sherbet, gelatin, low-fat ice cream and frozen yogurt, vanilla wafer cookies, angel food cake, graham crackers, jelly beans, marshmallows and fat-free cakes and cookies. These foods contain little nutritional value, and intake should be limited to a few times a week.

Avoiding Certain Foods May Help

Fatty Foods

High-fat foods may trigger or exacerbate pancreatitis symptoms. For this reason, the Mayo Clinic recommends a low-fat diet, limited in high-fat foods. Avoid saturated fat and trans fats in particular, since they increase your risk for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease. Common fatty foods include beef, beef fat, poultry fat, butter, whole milk, cream, high-fat cheeses and ice cream, fried foods and processed foods, such as potato chips, tortilla chips, pastries, sausage and pepperoni. When ordering food at restaurants, ask that creamy sauces and dressings be omitted or served on the side, so that you can better control your portions. Though healthy fats, such as those found in nuts, seeds, avocados and plant-based oils, support wellness, keep your portion sizes modest. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a low-fat diet should contain no more than 20 percent fat. In other words, limit your fat intake to no more than 1 to 2 tsp. of oil, peanut butter or salad dressing at each meal.

Refined Flour

To produce refined flour, food processing plants remove nutritious parts of whole grains and grind what remains down into a fine powder. The result is a long-lasting, affordable substance used in a broad range of foods. Unfortunately, refined flour contains "empty calories," meaning it provides calories and virtually no nutrients. The University of Maryland Medical Center suggests replacing refined flour products, such as enriched breads, pasta, cereals, rice and crackers, with whole-grain equivalents for improved wellness and reduced pancreatitis symptoms. Since refined flour-based foods have a greater impact on blood sugar levels than whole grains, you may find that your energy levels, blood sugar balance and appetite control improve. When purchasing breads, cereals and pasta, check food packaging and avoid those that list enriched white or wheat flour, white flour, baking flour, semolina flour or bread flour as a primary ingredient.

Refined Sugar

Refined sugar is similar to refined flour in that it is a processed form or derivative of a natural plant and is virtually devoid of nutrients. Examples of refined sugar include cane or table sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, malt syrup and sucrose. While natural sugars, found in fruits, vegetables and dairy products, are considered acceptable parts of a healthy diet, refined sugars should be consumed on a limited basis. Consuming whole, natural foods in place of sugary sweets allows for greater nutrient intake and can enhance your overall wellness. To cut back on refined sugar, drink water, herbal teas or low-fat milk in place of soft drinks and reduce the amount of sugar you add to coffee, tea, cereals and baked goods. Common foods rich in refined sugar include candy, jelly, jam, pancake syrup and commercially prepared cookies, cakes, doughnuts, muffins, sweet breads and caramel rolls.

Personal Notes:

Over two hundred thousand people are diagnosed with Pancreatitis each year in North America.

When diagnosed with Pancreatitis, you must stay on a liquid / fat free diet for the first week.

This consists of lots of filtered or distilled water and foods that have 0% fat and 0% saturated fats.

Tomato soup, chicken broth, apple sauce, and bananas are great picks.

Stay hydrated. At least 8 glasses of filtered or distilled water a day.

The Pancreas needs time to rest and heal properly.

You will get better.

Extract

The exciting thing to remember is that our bodies completely regenerate every 7 years if they have the vitamins and minerals they need. Our blood stream renews itself every 90 days! The key is the blood’s pH level. Certain vitamins and minerals can only be absorbed if your pH is high enough.

Our body’s terrain, or our pH level(acid/base or alkaline level) is a critical thing to understand and balance if we are to have good health and overcome dis-ease.

In Robert and Shelley Young’s book, The pH miracle, they state,”Over acidification of body fluids and tissues underlies all disease.” They go on to state that it is only when the body is acidic that the body is vulnerable to germs….in healthy base/alkaline balance, germs can’t get a foothold.

So, when our body is in an acidic condition, so much so that our body can’t handle all the acidity fast enough, our body has to get rid of the acid in our blood somehow. Our body then forms acid crystals and stores them in our body tissues. The acid is also dumped right back into the bloodstream and the body has to try to process it out of the body again.

Our bodies should normally go from an acid condition at night to more alkaline during the day as we eat more alkalizing foods. (fruit and vegetables) “In general, ideal urine pH should cycle from a low of 5.5 to a high of 7.0 with an average of 6.4 (healthy vegetarians would cycle higher)”. How you Rot &Rust, Steve Denk.

In my first post, I explained that all ill health is caused by toxemia, a toxic condition of our bodies. This would occur after a certain period of an over-acid environment in our bodies.

Medical doctors don’t address our body’s toxic conditions and how to cleanse them or even how they get toxic in the first place. Doctors are taught in universities that are funded by drug companies that teach doctors how to prescribe medications. Drugs just treat symptoms, they do not address the root of the systemic problem, the terrain of our body is the bottom line of our health. Our body’s terrain, or our PH level(acid/base or alkaline level) must be kept in balance.

Your diet is critical in balancing your pH level and so is your thinking!

There are several additional things that we need to do for our health:

1. Water- distilled water is hungry water that leaches inorganic minerals out of the body, drink about 8 or more glasses a day

2. Food-eat fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds (Word of Wisdom) When you are ill you would cut out dairy, meat, and all refined foods. Refer to books like: The McDougal Diet, Eat to Live,Original Fast Foods, The pH Miracle,and The Golden Seven Plus One.

3. Cleanse the Colon-fasting and colonics and herbs help cleanse the old fecal matter that has accumulated

4. Parasites-eliminate through herbal preparations

5. Detoxify-move Lymph and breathe deeply-mini-trampoline rebounding,”don’t exercise, lymphacize.” The lymph is only moved by exercise or ingesting garlic.

6. Sunshine- vitamin D is absorbed from the sun. We are beings of light and we need light

7. Cleanse the the Kidney/liver channel with herbs

8. Get proper nutrients- We use Clark’s mineral water and Aloe Vera and Body Balance and Km (a potassium/mineral supplement and oxygenates your body)

9. Think good thoughts- EFT(emotional freedom technique) and check out the book, Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, for ideas about which illnesses are expressed by certain thoughts.( They have one in my library, your librarian can order one to come in from another library to your library)

10. Get adequate rest

Now specifically to address pancreatitis;

Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas.”Our pancreas has two primary functions: to produce digestive enzymes that break down proteins, fat and carbohydrates in the small intestine; and to release the hormones glucogen and insulin, which regulate blood sugar levels. The pancreas can become inflamed if digestive enzymes build up inside it and begin to attack it.” Prescription for Nutritional Healing, by Phyllis and James Balch. The Balchs go on to explain that in 80 % of the cases that acute pancreatitis is due to excessive alcohol use or gallstones. It can also be caused by medications or even in rare cases an injury.

Helps:

• Take Apple Cider Vinegar- In Paul Bragg’s book , Apple Cider Vinegar, he explains how a couple of teaspoons of this natural vinegar with a “mother” in it that you obtain at a health food store along with 2 teaspoons of raw honey and 10 ounces of distilled water taken three times a day an hour before meals can balance your pH and restore healthy digestion. You could also take a good digestive enzyme.

• Fresh Vegetable juicing, carrot, apple, beet, and a green (such as swiss chard, cucumber, or blend spinach into freshly juiced juice) drinking raw vegetable juice is the fastest way to regain health and detoxify (Dr. N. Walker’s, Raw Vegetable Juices and Dr. Christopher’s 3 day cleanse) Make sure you are on a healthy diet free from all refined foods and meat and dairy until you are well.

• Use the anti-biotic formula listed on this blog (click here) in case there is infection somewhere in the body. It has been noted to kill infection anywhere in the body. Only take for 10 days at a time and then wait 2 weeks before taking again.

• Take the herbs plantain(among other things,it works to rid the body of poisons, or excess body fluids such as mucus) marshmallow(works on the digestive tract and is very soothing for any sore or inflamed parts of the body) and gymnema sylvestre(also called the diabetic herb or sugar destroyer,it helps to balance hormones and your blood sugar. It helps to regenerate the pancreas.

• Go on the three day apple juice cleanse for the gallbladder. Recipe is on this blog (click here). This will dissolve gallstones without having to have surgery.

• Take white willow for inflammation and pain and also the herbs, hops, scullcap and valerian(a combination at the health food store for pain)

• Go to a class given by James and Colleen Simmons, authors of, Original Fast Foods, that is given monthly to learn proper diet and how essential it is for your health.(at least purchase their book) They live in Alpine, Utah.

Article Source (click here)