How To Eat Vegetables?

[gaceff]

Hello.

It took me about a year of severe gluten-free diet: meat, cheese and rice, mostly, to get on my feet and regain some weight, after many months of digestive troubles.

Now I do feel a progress, but I really can't eat any veggetables at all!

What is to do? Living with meat and rice an entire life is unthinkable.

But every fruit or veggetable, carrots, apples, even boiled or baked, even in small quantities induce me terrible symptoms: extreme fatigue, cramps, diarheea.

Please advise.

Also, what particular enzymes should an enzyme product contain so that it helps me?

[seeking-wholeness]

gaceff,

Wow! That's a long time to be without vegetables. No wonder your body can't digest them right now! I'm not a dietitian or a nutritionist, but here's what I would do in your place. This might sound weird, but I would try starting out with baby food fruits and vegetables (the PLAIN ones with NO additives). Otherwise, I would boil some fruits and vegetables (one kind at a time) until they are very soft, then drain them and strain them through a sieve to remove most of the fiber. I would thin the mixture with water if I thought it needed it, and I would start by eating just a couple of spoonfuls--just like I would introduce a baby to solid food--and gradually increase the amount as my body could tolerate it. I would choose carrots, winter squash or pumpkin, peas, green beans, apples, and pears for starters, then mix plums, apricots, or blueberries in with the apples or pears for variety.

If you start slowly and gently, your body should get the idea fairly quickly and start producing the proper enzymes again, but you might want to take a supplement at first to help it out. The most important enzymes would probably be the carbohydrases: amylase, glucoamylase, invertase, and malt diastase. Cellulase is probably a good idea as well, to help digest fiber and reduce gas.

I hope you find my input helpful, and I wish you luck as you reintroduce fruits and vegetables into your diet!

[kejohe]

Starting out slowly, like you would start a baby on solids is the right way to go. And also, stay with one fruit or vegetable for a few days, then introduce another, but never more than one at a time.

Also, you might stay away from stone fruits (peaches, nectarines etc) supposedly they are much tougher to digest. At least until you built up a tolerance.

I hope you feel better soon and can begin to slowly add fruit and veggies back in to your diet. Good Luck.

[gaceff]

Thanks very much for the specific enzyme list.

How comes that I can eat meat and cheese, but not veggetables?

Isn't meat supposed to be the toughest to diggest?

I eliminated veggies from my diet months ago because I was feeling sick when eating them. I must point out that I was able to eat plenty vegetables and fruits some years ago, until Celiac dis occured.

[gf4life]

gaceff,

I'm in the same boat as you right now. I can not eat any kind of fruit or vegetable without having horrible symptoms of severe fatigue, gas, bloating, and lower abdominal pain. I've actually been more constipated though, and less diarrhea. It used to swing form one or the other. I have pretty much tried one soft cooked veggie after another, trying to find one I can eat. All of them are not digesting well. I am getting some digestive enzymes on Friday, when I can get to the healthfood store! But I like the idea of the baby foods. They might be easier to handle.

I am also on a primarily meat and rice diet. But I can't have cheese, so I am getting really sick of the food. I am bloated everyday, probably since I keep trying the different veggies and occasionally a fruit. The fruits seem to bother me more, but the veggies, too.

I was able to eat all kinds with no problems before being gluten-free and after, until I had to go back on gluten for a biopsy, and I think I severely damaged myself for two month taking in too much gluten for my body to handle. ( My normal gluten diet was relatively low in gluten, and I suspect that caused my false negative results on a regular diet, so I went overboard on the gluten challenge. ) Even during that time on gluten, I found I was avoiding fruits and veggies, and now I can't handle them at all. I hope the enzymes do the trick. And I hope you feel better soon.

God bless,

Mariann

[gaceff]

Dear Mariann,

I am sorry to disappoint you about the "Baby food" products: they made me feel even worse than the natural fruits, simply boiled.

In a way, this was to be expected, since these baby foods do contain many things (they are "enriched").

So if you are to keep trying with veggies and fruits, I advise you to stick with natural carrots and apples that you boil them a long time.

However, I must tell you that even these make me feel bad in about a week of eating them, forcing me to stop for some weeks before I can attempt to eat them again.

Your (our) best bet remains the enzymes products.

And let's hope our boat keeps sailing.

[LindaB]

I also cannot eat vegetables except for squash and cauliflower which are soft and easier to digest. I do drink orange juice with no problem and eat canned pears and as far as fresh fruits the only ones I can tolerate are bananas and cantaloupe so far. I have been on this diet for a year. Meat is another problem except for chicken and fish which don't seem to give me much problem and once in awhile I eat pork chops. Getting enough protein is hard since I cannot have dairy so cheese is out and also nuts do not agree either, even peanut butter.

Linda B.