Want to Know What You Can Eat???

Recently we did a survey for the End Diverticulitis Reference (see right hand side). In this survey we asked people to rate foods on how much of a problem they caused. Specifically when they were feeling OK, that is they have Diverticulosis (as opposed to Diverticulitis) If you wish to get clarification on the differences please click here. Basically Diverticulosis is where you have the pouches, and Diverticulitis is where the pouches are inflamed (usually you are in pain).

So these are the foods that most people said they had no trouble with, they could eat without concern.

If your not in pain, and are not on any medication for Diverticulitis (ie antibiotics), then have a serious look at these foods and food groups.

The thing to also remember is that when you are not in pain (no flare up). Your diet should be high in fiber. While these foods are not necessarily high in fiber, they are rated as low risk by our survey respondents for causing a flare up. I would look to include these in you diet as a base to work from, we discuss lots more in the complete End Diverticulitis reference. Just remember that even though most people said they were fine, you will need to make sure yourself. So don't over indulge on any one of these to start with. Using these foods as a base to work from will allow you to make up a diet that is high in variety, and adding lots of the high fiber food groups will make the diet high in fiber as well.

This is a bit of an odd list, the survey was by no means complete covering every type of food. What we tried to do was cover a lot of good common foods, and a wide variety of foods. These will give you a good idea of the types of foods to start with.

Low Risk Foods

• 1. Chicken
• 2. Skinless Potatoes
• 3. Carrots
• 4. Fish
• 5. Banana's
• 6. Skinless apples
• 7. Peaches
• 8. Tea, iced or hot
• 9. Salty foods
• 10. Eggs

You will notice that a lot of these are quite low in fiber, and the meats have no fiber (they do have a lot of other valuable vitamins and minerals, so you don't have to exclude them all together if you don't want).

There are however a few comments I would like to make. If you can leave the skin on the apples and potatoes you increase the fiber substantially. So maybe try skinless and then gradually add the skin in. If you feel problems coming on then play it safe and leave them out. As you can see, the foods are all quite basic and common. Things like peaches are there, so consider apricots, and other stone fruit. If you are unsure leave the skin off the first time, and then try with the skin on. It is an easy way to reduce some of the potential risk in trying a new food. However where possible try and eat the skin, as the skin contains most of the fiber.

Also Basil rated a mention as no problems, so I would also be inclined to try other herbs (that's herbs not spices) to help add flavor. Initially avoid the seeds of herbs and spices, it may not be a problem for you but we are trying to get a list of the foods that you have no problems at all with. Gradually add some of the seeds back into your diet from herbs if you like and see how they react with your Diverticuli. If you feel the onset of Diverticulitis, then back off them again and leave them alone.

One Really great tip is to keep a food diary, it is a pain to start with, but in the long term a food diary gives you a much better understanding of YOUR problem foods. Click here for the food diary pages.