Do's and Don'ts

My poor mom, like so many other people who suffer from a digestive disorder, is faced with a list a mile long of stuff she can not eat. Actually it is a few lists...a list of foods that can cause pain.  A list of foods that can cause constipation. A list that can cause loose stools.  A list of foods that make your poop stink.  As if poop can't stink. 

I have been scouring cookbooks in search of recipes that exclude the foods on my mothers shit list.  The thing is that my mother's disease, Crohn's disease, unlike other digestive disorders, does not have a specific diet.  It is a diet of trial and error.  If a food makes your stomach feel like it is being impaled on a hot poker, then it is one you should avoid. 

It has been tough trying to create a meal around what a person can not eat.  So I have decided to take her don't lists and create a do list.  I am going to make a master list of foods that are safe for her to eat, and from it find recipes that will fit.  Vichyssoise, which I made for her last night, is a keeper.

It is so easy to focus on the negative when you are sick.  You feel terrible physically, and your brain often follows.  But the old adage, mind over matter, is so true.  If you train your brain not to focus on the bad, and instead think of the positive you are more likely to get well.  

Science confirms it as fact.  

Spirit sings it as a song.  

There is an old Irish adage, "Laughter is brightest where food is best."  Nourishment for the tummy and soul for ostomy patients...I see a cookbook in the making!