gerditarian

June 20, 2017 2:45 PM

My doctor tells me I have GERD, and the list of foods she says I'm supposed to avoid comprises my entire diet. Can you give me some GERD-friendly vegetarian recipes?

I love food. I love cooking. When she said no coffee, tea, carbonated beverages, or alcohol, I was like, eh that's annoying but fine. When she said no spicy food, I thought about the dozen kinds of hot sauce in my cabinet. When she said no citrus, tomato, onions, or garlic, I basically panicked because I am pretty sure that all good-tasting foods contain some combination of those ingredients. When she said no dairy...I am from Wisconsin. There was also some noise about no tempeh or soy generally but by that point my ears had shut down.

I'm having a hard time finding recipes that I would actually want to eat that don't contain any of these foods. Surely I'm not expected to just eat, like, pasta and sweet potatoes for the rest of my life. I am feeling weirdly desperate about this.

So: What can I cook at home? And are there any kinds of takeout I can still eat? (We get Thai or Mexican food about once a week, but presumably those are both out...) When I am out at a bar or coffee shop, do I have non-water options?

* note: I realize there are medications for GERD. She wants to avoid that. I already take a lot of medications. "Ignoring it" is also probably not a great option although it's currently my strategy – she thinks it's making my asthma worse. sigh.

posted by goodbyewaffles to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

YMMV--my allergist told me I had GERD. I tried Prilosec for a while and had even more heartburn, so I stopped taking that. Then I started cutting way back on dairy after finally admitting to myself that I'm lactose intolerant and my GERD symptoms got way better. I try to remember to take a Lactaid now if I'm gonna eat cheese or more than a splash of milk or cream. Maybe you won't have to give up everything you love.
posted by impishoptimist at 2:55 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Jain cooking is vegetarian and eschews garlic and onions (asafoetida stands in for the flavour—it might be a good thing to have on hand for adapting other recipes; you fry a small amount of it in oil at the beginning of cooking to take the stink off) — Manjula's Kitchen is a nice source for recipes and her videos are very charming. You'll have to avoid or omit tomatoes and the occasional bit of lemon juice where they occur and be judicious with spices I guess. Dairy is a feature, but you can get by with whatever analogue you're permitted (if you don't feel like having almond milk or whatever on hand, just soak a handful of cashews and blend with fresh water for a cream substitute. Earth Balance is most butter-like vegan margarine I've tried. Tofu is my usual sub for paneer, but cubed potatoes/sweet potatoes or similar would work most of the time).
posted by wreckingball at 3:05 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm a person with life-long stomach problems (and I take 40mg of Prilosec daily or my stomach and throat are on fire.)

You don't need to take out all of those foods. They're common triggers. You ONLY need to take out the foods that bother YOU specifically.

Do a mini elimination diet. Take out all those recommended foods (and probably dairy, maybe gluten) for a few weeks. Then add ONE thing back per week and track symptoms. Also try cooked/raw. For example I can't have raw onions at all - but small amounts of cooked are fine and I put onion powder on everything I cook.

So first thing is to figure out what actually bothers you before going totally crazy on the diet and worrying about recipes. Then you can figure out what you need to avoid. There are MANY blogs out there about cooking for GERD diets or FODMAP diets. If you eat eggs/tofu you can sub eggs/tofu in for most proteins.
posted by Crystalinne at 3:11 PM on June 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Crystalline that's totally the plan - but I have not been able to feed myself for even one day while avoiding that whole list, much less a few weeks D:
posted by goodbyewaffles at 3:15 PM on June 20, 2017

Check out the Fast Tract Diet- lots of people report great success in reducing or eliminating their reflux without medication. There's a FB group too.
posted by PorcineWithMe at 4:04 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

You don't have to avoid the list if it's not triggering your GERD. Alcohol is another big cause.
posted by ryanbryan at 4:52 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You're gonna be okay. This will eventually feel less overwhelming.

contiguous ask.me from earlier this year

First recommendation: write out the foods you can eat. Write them all out. Then find three meals you can make out of that list. Do that for one day. Figure out three more meals. Do that for one day. It will take time, but you will start to find a rhythm and the foods that used to be your go-to will be replaced by new go-tos. I was paralyzed b/c I was working from recipes I kept seeing online and none.of.them.fit. When I started working from my food list and built recipes from there it got a lot easier.

You'll see my list of no-eat foods. I thought my life was over - clementines and bacon until I died of a citrus flavored heart attack. I am now THRIVING and I never would have thought that possible a few months ago.

You don't have to figure out your menu for forever. You just need to figure it out for tomorrow and that is definitely doable.
posted by ovenmitt at 4:57 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

There's also different forms of the same food that some people can eat, whilst others have to avoid the whole food.

For instance, I have GERD, and I can do espresso and cold brew coffee just fine - I just can't handle drip coffee. With tea, I can handle black just fine, but must avoid green. I do, though, have to avoid all alcohols. It's a lot of trial and error, but you shouldn't have to avoid every single food that's on a GERD-elimination list, permanently.

I also found that Tums stamps down the heartburn for me if I do eat a bad food, and it does flare up.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:21 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Ginger's going to save you here. Lots of ginger stir-fried in hot oil (and maybe a little bit of green onion? that's OK for low-FODMAP diets) will give you the intense aromatic effect that you're used to achieving with garlic and onion.

You can make your own pesto with just about any green vegetable (lately I've been using lettuce and mint) plus any nut (walnuts are cheap), and if you're making your own, it can be vegan, too: just add more salt if you're omitting cheese. Plus, it freezes. Make a huge batch and use it instead of tomato sauce in all your Italian-ish recipes.
posted by yarntheory at 5:28 PM on June 20, 2017

Best answer: Based on what you've said about your restrictions, here are some ideas. I'm making the assumption that only the foods you've named are forbidden so forgive me if I include something that's off the menu - so to speak.

Breakfast:
* granola with almond milk
* muffin with fruit (melon, strawberry, mango, raspberry, blueberry, papaya)
* eggs and toast
* PB&J

Lunch:
* egg salad sandwich
* zucchini with a rice and veggie stuffing - maybe bell peppers, basil, oregano, zucchini innards, pine nuts - maybe even olives and/or raisins
* roasted vegetables (carrots, zucchini, eggplant, beets, fennel, sweet potato, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, ) over greens or couscous)
* pita pocket stuffed with avocado and tahini and maybe some carrots or sprouts

Dinner:
* Sauteed mushrooms with pasta or over toast
* Chickpeas stewed with carrots and sweet potatoes, flavored with ginger and mint

Snacks:
* Nut butter
* hummus
* carrot sticks
* celery sticks
* apples
* nuts
* crackers
posted by bunderful at 6:03 PM on June 20, 2017

I'm the same as you - my entire diet is comprised of non-GERD friendly foods. Turned out alcohol is the culprit (for me) - everything else doesn't flare up my heartburn. Try eliminating things, because once you find your trigger you can go back to eating good, flavorful food.
posted by faineg at 6:53 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It's normal to feel desperate when you're told you have to radically change your diet! I definitely feel your pain. Prior to my diagnosis my favourite recipes involved tomatoes, cheese, lemon, and chili peppers, so like you, my brain shorted out and said WTF AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT NOW?? Hopefully this will be for only a short period of time while you heal and find what your worst triggers are. Like many people said above, everyone's triggers are different.

But I do think it's worthwhile to do an elimination diet to figure them out. While I was in this stage, I basically followed this plan, Dr. Jamie Koufman's "dropping acid" (I know) diet. You start with two weeks of a very low fat, low acid diet and gradually add things back in to see what triggers you. This gives you a chance to heal your esophagus and stomach for two weeks as well.

In addition to all the things you listed, I was also told to avoid alcohol, chocolate, mint, and pretty much all fats, "good" or "bad." It turned out that in addition to the classic triggers of deep fried foods and greasy hamburgers--which I rarely ate anyway--I also could not eat good fats like avocado, nuts (especially nut butters), and cheese, which were staples in my diet. At this point I am able to eat a little bit more fat, which has helped vary my diet a lot, but I still pay for it if I eat an entire avocado.

I was tearing my hair out over what to eat but eventually my partner and I figured out a diet that relied heavily on recipes made with the following ingredients. I ate this diet for about six months (my reflux and gastritis were very bad, even with medication) and did not die of malnutrition or boredom, though it was not exactly exciting, I'll admit that:

PROTEIN:
-eggs (some people find yolks a trigger but thankfully I did not)
-tofu
-cottage cheese
-chickpeas & other beans
-quinoa
-low fat yoghurt
(and in case any non-vegetarians are looking to this thread for ideas, I also ate a lot of skinless chicken breast and fish like salmon, trout and halibut)

CARBS:
-oatmeal, hot grain cereals like Red River
-whole wheat toast/bread
-multigrain crackers
-rice
-potatoes

VEGETABLES:
-brussels sprouts
-broccoli, cauliflower
-sweet potatoes, squash
-asparagus
-carrots
-peas
-zucchini
-beets
-greens (e.g. spinach, kale, gai lan)
-mushrooms (excellent for flavour)

FRUITS:
-watermelon
-apples
-bananas (can be trigger for some people, but was fine for me)
-grapes
-mango
-papaya

HOT DRINKS:
-hot almond milk
-camomile tea (honey was not a trigger for me so I would sweeten things with honey to avoid going batshit insane having to drink one more cup of bland camomile tea)
-"ginger tea" made by simmering slices of ginger root in hot water

I started carrying my own tea bags around because at every meeting or conference I went to, every hot drink on offer had either caffeine (even decaf tea/coffee have caffeine), mint, or lemon.

SPICE/FLAVOURING:

-I became quite fond of za'atar!

Good luck! I know this is overwhelming and panic inducing right now, but you will be OK. Hopefully you will heal quickly and figure out your triggers and will not have to follow the diet for too long--I know the diet I outlined above is probably overkill for you, but I found it to be such a trial and error for me (with some tears of frustration) that I thought I'd just lay it all out for you in case it is at all helpful. I am basically a worst case scenario, and even I was able to find things to eat...and I am getting better, slowly but surely.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:44 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I forgot to add, I also did eat pasta as a carb. And although I'd be careful with this and not eat it all the time, there is a way of making low-acid tomato sauce. It doesn't taste exactly the same as regular tomato sauce, but hey, if you're really yearning for it, it's better than nothing. This is one recipe that we used as inspiration; you may want to experiment with the amount of baking soda you use--you want to add just enough so that it bubbles and neutralizes the acid, but if you add too much it will taste unpalatable. Start with less than the recipe says, and add more as necessary. Also, you may want to substitute ripe, fresh tomatoes for tinned ones as they're supposedly less acidic.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:15 AM on June 21, 2017

I can't eat dairy (or wheat or soy), and it's an adjustment (my diet was primarily cheese-based before I discovered dairy was responsible for my chronic vomiting). In case you have a sweet tooth, I'm going to link a couple dairy-free dessert recipes I like. But if they're not your style, you can totally Google for dairy-free desserts. Paleo works as a search term too, since paleo recipes use eggs but not dairy.

Cheese is difficult to replace - and I personally can't tolerate most highly-processed vegan cheese, for whatever reason. It's possible to make really delicious cultured cashew "cheese" (kind of like cream cheese) at home. Personally, I think it tastes better than any vegan cheeses on the market. If you're interested in that, me-mail me and I'll send you the recipe, and a booklet of other vegan cheese recipes.

Milk itself isn't hard to replace in recipes -- coconut milk works great for a milk fat substitute, and depending on desired fat content you can also use different nut milks or hemp milk.

Lemon-Almond Tea Cake

Dairy-free Lemon Curd

Dairy-free panna cotta
posted by cnidaria at 12:28 PM on June 21, 2017