April 1, 2021
Pureed soups are a great way to reap the nutritional benefits of vegetables without irritating your GI tract.
Darren Muir/Stocksy
For most people, the general advice on nutrition is pretty straightforward: Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. For people with ulcerative colitis, however, the advice isn’t so simple. The high-fiber content found in nutrient-rich produce can create digestion problems for people with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like ulcerative colitis, especially during a flare (when inflammation is present). And certain foods can even worsen symptoms like cramping and diarrhea.
The idea that everyone should eat lots of produce is “targeted toward a general population . that does not need to know where a restroom is in all situations,” says Beth Saltz, RD, a dietitian and chef based in Los Angeles whose husband has Crohn’s disease, another type of IBD. Laura Manning, MPH, RD, a clinical nutrition coordinator in gastroenterology at Mount Si