Seeking recipes for very restricted diet

April 14, 2018 2:03 AM

This is almost like a puzzle. A friend has severe food restrictions - they don't fall into any previous diet that I've seen - and I seek help making recipes for her. Like me, she has psoriasis. Some of her restrictions have to do with eating to prevent skin reactions.

Any and all thoughts welcome! If it's useful: She's in Toronto, she's maybe 50, she's not responsible for feeding anyone but herself, she's an academic, she's not got much money, she's an optimistic person,

Her list:

Beef, chicken (VERY fresh); some pork (NO ham or other aged or processed [incl. tinned] meat, e.g., sausage) (NO FISH – except within a half hour of being caught.)

Dairy: Milk
Cheese – only certain ricotta or mozzarella (without certain chemicals; I’d have to check which ones, but I can find this cheese)

Fruit: apples, blueberries, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, figs. Peaches in season, occasional plum or pear. (NO dried fruit)

Veggies: Acorn/butternut squash (other squash too, but I’ve never cooked others). Asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, occasional celery & cucumber, kale, zucchini. (Supposedly also these, but they actually do make me itch: onions of all kinds, garlic, leeks, bell peppers, beets) (Veggies that have been around a while start to get iffy.)

Potato (sparingly; the psoriasis doesn’t like it), white rice (occasionally); quinoa or rice pasta (the quinoa pasta here has been a LIFESAVER: https://www.gogoquinoa.com/product-category/pasta/)

Herbal teas, except any made from forbidden foods .Apple juice.

Olive oil, butter, coconut. Apple cider vinegar (no other type of vinegar)
Corn starch, potato starch, baking powder, baking soda. They say spelt flour, but it does make me itch, so I use it extremely sparingly)
Honey, stevia
Salt (no pepper). All herbs. Turmeric, apparently (but NO cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, curry, cloves, nutmeg)

NO: fermented or pickled foods, tea or coffee, chocolate (I cheat occasionally), caffeine, nuts & seeds (though I seem to manage chia seeds all right). NO ALCOHOL (but I didn't drink much anyway, and it would be forbidden due to the liver disease whatever the case)

posted by goofyfoot to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

I really like roasted cauliflower with turmeric and fennel seed. I also like some sweet paprika in there but I bet that's not allowed what with it being a pepper. Cut into big florets and toss with olive oil, salt and spices to evenly coat. Spread it out into a pan so it's only one layer and roast it low and slow until it's begun to caramelize and is tender all the way through. This is good at basically any temperature so I'll often make a big batch of it, have a small portion hot from the oven with dinner and then snack on the rest from the fridge over the next couple days.
posted by Mizu at 3:03 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Taking a look at your ingredients I would suggest looking at Vietnamese cookery books if, and this is a big if, she can handle the use of fish sauce, which is only liquefied fish and salt. The best on the market are Red Boat and MegaChef. Take a look at the recipe index at Viet World Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen to see if any of those recipes will work.
posted by jadepearl at 3:39 AM on April 14, 2018

This set of restrictions looks similar (though not identical to) the foods that work for candida diets, so that might be a helpful jumping-off point for your search? The non-recipe parts of this book wouldn't be helpful at all, but the cookbook section has a lot of recipes -- generally pretty affordable ones too! -- that I think would work and are tasty as well.

David Lynch's Quinoa is also delicious and would also work (maybe leave out the bouillon cube, it's not needed anyhow). Is also great, possibly better, with zucchini subbed for broccoli.

Pasta salads made with quinoa pasta and roasted veg (brussels sprouts are especially good, or chopped roasted asparagus) are nice cold for lunch. And stuffed acorn squash is always wonderful and so adaptable! You can put almost any combination of approved veg and protein in there.

This 'creamy' butternut vegan pasta recipe would also work with a few minor adaptions.
posted by halation at 3:52 AM on April 14, 2018

oh also, zucchini sliced in thin half-moons and sauteed in plenty of olive oil, then tossed with linguine, fresh basil on top, is a wonderful summer meal.
posted by halation at 3:55 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

It looks a lot like a diet I was on where I had to avoid monosodium glutamate, which lives in the wild in dry fermented products like some cheeses, soy sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, dried fruit etc. etc.
I found a lot to eat in the northern Italian traditions, and in classical French (home) cooking (you can use a tablespoon of vinegar in place of the glass of wine those recipes often use). Some Vietnamese food is good too, but otherwise almost no Asian food and never at a restaurant, only home made from scratch. Absolutely no processed food and no food from cheap restaurants where they potentially use processed food. BTW fish sauce is a no, it's fermented.
Some people who can't have black pepper can have white because it isn't fermented, your friend may want to check that.
Some comfort: after sticking to my diet for about 15 years, I grew out of the issues, but in the meantime my taste had changed, and though I really enjoy having Asian food and cheese and drinking wine again, I still like my fresh and clean meals a lot. I have come to see the whole thing as a blessing, since I feel much more in control of what I eat than I would have if it hadn't happened, and I've certainly become a better cook.
posted by mumimor at 7:39 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would go for stir-frys: chicken, carrot, celery, bok choy; or pork, brussell sprouts, carrot with some fresh herbs. You could put either stir fry with a side of rice and melon slices if you are making a complete meal pack. She mentions that she can each coconut oil, could she also eat coconut milk? If so, saute acorn squash (or potimarron/kuri/kabocha) and cauliflower with coconut oil and tumeric (and any other spices like cumin or coriender she can eat), add coconut milk to desired liquidity, simmer until you reach the desired texture.

Roasted veg like Mizu said is one of the easiest ways to get great veg. I haven't used the fennel combination of seasonings mentioned, but roast a tray of chopped cauliflower or broccoli florets well tossed with olive oil and salt. You really want to get the olive oil into the florets, so don't be afraid to use your hands there. Or use one of those misto sprayers. You could use these as a veg side for several different meals but honestly I can eat a tray of cauliflower for basically an entire meal.

Looks like kale is really the only fresh salady veg she can eat, so a simple kale salad would be good. I've made this one a lot (you'd have to ignore a few of the ingredients and sub cider vinegar for the wine vinegar) but I bet it'd still be good. There are also kale and apple salads but I outsource kale salads to a friend who will actually massage the kale until it's soft as bibb lettuce.

Good on you for feeding a friend. I once made a huge meal (think like four dishes with lots of leftovers) for a friend on a special pre-surgery diet and misread the food list, making a meal of only the prohibited foods. The next day I made an opposite meal for her and ate the first foods myself.
posted by perrouno at 8:02 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Are the restrictions coming from a medical professional, or is this a trial-and-error thing, or is this from some woo-ery source?

There are treatments for psoriasis - many revolve around vitamin D (either UV exposure to stimulate endogenous production, oral supplementation, or topical application).

Personally, I had an initial bad outbreak that I broke through suntanning. I may get a splotch or two in the middle of winter if I forget to take my vitamin D for a while (orally, 2000-3000IU per day) but that goes away after consistently being "back on the (vitamin D) pill" for a week or so.
posted by porpoise at 11:20 AM on April 14, 2018

Virtually everything mentioned can be roasted in the oven in almost any combination. E.g. this.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:09 PM on April 14, 2018

Response by poster: That you all! It's a hard list to work from, isn't it? And re porpoise's question - my understanding of my friend's needs is that she developed it via trial and error. She's the kind of person that might consider woo if it was useful to her situation, but from a critical viewpoint.

Some people who can't have black pepper can have white because it isn't fermented.

I had no idea! As a fellow psoriasis-er, whose dietary restrictions aren't near as circumscribed as my friend's, am making note of that.
posted by goofyfoot at 5:40 PM on April 15, 2018

black pepper can have white because it isn't fermented

is completey useless woo

What is the difference between Black and White Pepper?


kind of person that might consider woo if it was useful

Woo is defined as being useless.

If her chosen diet isn't particularly nutritionally deficient, no harm done, I guess. Other than not pursuing evidence-based potentially effective treatments and continuing to experience quality of life issues - exasperated by ineffectual further impacts to her quality of life.
posted by porpoise at 7:50 PM on April 15, 2018

I know that every time anyone mentions sensitivity to MSG, there will be a chorus screaming woo. I have been diagnosed by doctors after many, many years of trials. I do not have the symptoms of Chinese restaurant syndrome, but rashes and asthma. It is very rare to be allergic/sensitive to MSG, but it does exist, and if you are allergic to it, you will react to it in all of its natural occurrences, which is shitty.
(I am not a chemist and It may well be some organic compound that is a product of MSG + food, but the effect is there).
posted by mumimor at 12:27 AM on April 16, 2018