Maintain A Healthy Bowel?

[sewfunky]

I've been gluten free for about 3 weeks now and my question to people more experience with the diet is: how do I maintain a healthy bowel? I'm not getting enough fiber in my diet now that I've gone gluten-free. Thanks for your thoughts.

[spunky]

I was starting to actually have difficulty with constipation for the past couple of weeks. I started adding ground flax seeds to stuff like yogurt, cereal, or anything like that. I add 3 Tablespoons of ground flax meal and drink a whole glass of water with it. Tastes awful but really works.

Totally cleared up the problem...now I go once each morning, comfortably.

[Jestgar]

Vegetables, fruit, brown rice, corn (popcorn!), if you start making your own breads add higher fiber flours to them. I put flax seed meal in everything I make (I actually like it )

[jazminecat]

I take a supplement called Blue Heron, which has psyllium and flax and slippery elm - it's a tremendous help healing the entire digestive tract. I purchased it at my naturopath, and now I buy it online.

[allison]

Citrucel is gluten free....

[kbabe1968]

Drink lots and lots and lots of water! LOL

Eat a lot of fruits & veggies too.

[bluejeangirl]

For example you can have...

Have fruit every morning and try to vary it. I buy apples, pears, oranges the most and I buy frozen blueberries, cherries and raspberries. I have about a cup of one of these in the morning and sometimes as a snack in the afternoon. Have a bowl of cereal or gluten-free toast.

Have a salad for lunch with a protein portion or a sandwich. Or have soup with veggies in it.

Have two servings of veggies with your evening meal. One starchy like beans, rice or potato and nonstarchy like spinach, green beans, zuchinni, asparagus, salad greens. Have your protein with it.

Actually breads always constipated me. It was too much fiber and carbs and it didn't move along well. Vegetable fiber is much easier to assimulate and makes IMO the best stools to pass.

There are days you'll have pasta meals or pizza but I eat above most of the time.

Gail

[moonlight]

yes, vegetables and fruits help, also brown rice..

[CMCM]

I'm also leaning towards the C problem these days now that I'm being totally strict about no gluten. I LOVE flax seeds, so I guess I'll try to be very consistent taking them. I learned about goldn flax seeds once thru Dr. Christiane Northrup....I've tried several brands but the one I originally got from Dr. Northrup's site a couple of years ago is by far the best....Pizzey's brand, I get them online, and dedicate a small cheap coffee grinder to just the seeds and grind right when I'm going to have them. From Dr. Northrup I learned about taking around 28oz water and mix in 1/4 c. pure cranberry juice to make what she calls "cran water"....nice tasting stuff with just a hint of cranberry taste, and since it's so diluted it's not bitter or strong. Anyhow, I use this (about a cup of it) and mix in the ground flax and I think it tastes quite nice....You can mostly drink it, but I use a spoon to get the last bit of it. It's a very pleasant way to eat the flax, and for my taste, the golden flax is MUCH MUCH nicer than the dark stuff I see in the stores. The seeds keep a long long time (months and months) and there's no rancidity problem if you grind just what you plan to eat each time. This is also a great source of lignans and Omega 3's.

[Nancym]

Well, this will be weird sounding advice but... chewing gum. I just read that they're giving people who have IBD chewing gum because they found there's a growth factor in saliva that heals the intestines. So a great way to increase saliva is to chew gum!