Everyone has gastritis! How to keep your stomach healthy

The best foods for digestion

You have trillions of bacteria in your gut that help absorb food, and yogurt includes some of these healthy bacteria.

Yogurt contains bacteria that renew the normal microflora in the intestinal tract.

If you are going to eat meat, choose chicken, fish and other lean meats - they will be much easier to digest than a juicy steak.

Regular meat tends to be fattier. Your stomach can process lean meat, fish or chicken much better than other types of meat.

Don't be lazy to chew

People always underestimate the process of chewing food. But it is in the oral cavity that the main preparation of food for the further process of digestion occurs. Apart from the mouth, no other organs of the gastrointestinal tract have teeth. Therefore, if you allow large, poorly chewed pieces of food into your body, this creates additional stress on the mucous membranes of the digestive organs. The risk of mechanical injury increases, and then ulcers are not far away.

But why are we lazy to chew? There can be a lot of reasons. Some people are simply lazy, some are distracted by other things, others have been accustomed to swallowing huge pieces like a crocodile since childhood.

You need to chew as long as possible. Do not swallow the food bolus until it turns into a liquid paste, well mixed with saliva. Only in this state is food maximally prepared for further stages of digestion. The longer you chew, the easier it will be for the rest of the gastrointestinal tract to do their job.

Daily Tips for Healthy Digestion

The list of foods that are hard on the stomach can be very long. However, follow these simple tips to better digest the food you eat.

• Eat less food.
• Relax while you eat.
• Prepare your food wisely: remember that meat takes longer to digest than other foods cooked with it. Legumes and cruciferous vegetables must be cooked until fully cooked. Don't overeat.
• Chew your food slowly and completely. Digestion begins in the mouth, where the first digestive enzymes are released. Eat foods high in fiber, but add it gradually so your gastrointestinal tract can get used to each serving increase.
• Limit the amount of fat in your diet.
• Make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day to help food move through your digestive tract.
• If you suffer from heartburn, you should drink fluids between meals, not during meals.
• Get enough sleep.

Seek advice from a doctor or registered dietitian if symptoms persist for a long time.

Why has there been such a boom in healthy eating in the world in recent years? Because people realized that the thesis “we are what we eat” is true: with the help of food you can achieve beauty, health and longevity. Food that is easy on the stomach is quickly digested, does not cause a feeling of heaviness in the stomach and does not lead to an exacerbation of many chronic diseases. In this article you will find a list of the most useful foods for the human body, as well as recipes for simple dishes that can be eaten even by gastroenterologist patients.

Other methods to improve peristalsis

Before applying the above measures, a consultation with a gastroenterologist should be carried out with the appointment of FGDS, colonoscopy and irrigoscopy to identify organic lesions.

Exercise and physical education

• I.P. - lying on his back. You need to slightly bend your knees and imitate riding a bicycle. Can be done several times a day for a few minutes.
• I.P. - lying on his back. You need to pull your legs towards your stomach with your hands, and then return to the starting position. Repeats several times.
• I.P. - lying on his back. The essence of this method is to raise both legs and try to throw them behind your head. It is necessary to repeat 15-20 times.
• I.P. - kneeling, palms resting on the floor, spine straight. It is necessary to lift first the left and then the right leg in a bent state. The exercise should be repeated 10 times for each lower limb.
• I.P. - kneeling, palms resting on the floor, spine straight. You need to take a deep breath, and as you exhale, bend your back down, relax your stomach, and stand in this position for a while. Then you need to return to the original position, while exhaling, pull in your stomach and bend your back as a cat would do (“house”). The exercise is done 25-30 times.
• I.P. – standing, arms along the body. During a deep exhalation, you need to pull in and out your stomach. Repeat this complex at least 5 times.
• I.P. - standing, hands resting on the sides. We walk in place, raising our knees high.

Self-massage also has a good effect, when a person, lying on his back, gently massages his stomach in a clockwise direction. The massage should be soft, gentle, without much effort.

Drug therapy

To improve intestinal motility, prokinetics (Motilium, Ganaton) can be prescribed. If there are no contraindications, use laxatives (Duphalac, Prelax).

Often prescribed by gastroenterologists, Mucofalk is a herbal medicine made from flax seeds. It is a natural drug, so it can be used during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

In continuation of the topic, be sure to read:

1. Fiber in human nutrition: benefits, content in foods and dietary supplements
2. What are ballast substances and why do people need them?
3. What foods cause constipation?
4. Peristalsis: concept, norm and pathology
5. Methods for improving intestinal motility: nutrition, exercise and medications
6. Drugs to improve intestinal motility
7. More about intestinal atony: causes, symptoms and treatment
8. Intestinal paresis: manifestations and methods of treating pathology (medicines, surgery, diet)
9. Measures to prevent constipation: diet and other factors
10. Methods for improving intestinal motility: drugs, diet and exercise

We recommend reading:
Intestinal dyskinesia: types, causes, symptoms and treatment methods

Who needs to eat right

For some people, food replaces familiar pleasures. It is a hobby, entertainment and adventure at the same time. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are addicted to fast food, as if on a drug. Sugar, monosodium glutamate, beer - all these goodies are very harmful to health.

For girls, the motivation to choose food that is easy on the stomach is their figure. You can stay slim only by eating right. For young people, the motivation is to gain muscle mass, to pump up muscles. This is impossible without careful attention to your own nutrition. Therefore, the younger generation is increasingly aware of their taste preferences and focuses on food that is easy on the stomach.

Another undeniable advantage of such food is that it costs much less than fast food. Eating food that is easy on the stomach is not only healthy, but it can also save you enough money for an annual trip abroad. Often this factor is decisive in a person’s choice of diet.

Think about separate meals

You should not fanatically follow scientific theories about separate nutrition. But mixing dozens of different types of products in one sitting is not the best solution. Carbohydrate foods require one type of enzyme for their processing, protein foods require others. Fat slows down the absorption of both proteins and carbohydrates.

Therefore, it would be advisable to eat foods belonging to the same compatibility group at one meal. Product compatibility tables can be found on the Internet.

The easiest food for the stomach

Very often a person changes his diet after receiving diagnoses such as gastritis, peptic ulcer, cholecystitis, etc. The only way to not feel pain is to change your diet once and for all.

The nutrition of any person (and even more so if he suffers from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract), as a rule, should be aimed at reducing the production of hydrochloric acid and gastric secretions. To do this, the following rules must be observed:

• remove spices from the diet as much as possible, you can only use salt and sometimes black pepper, as well as herbs, horseradish, garlic;
• completely stop drinking any alcoholic beverages;
• once and for all exclude spicy and fried foods, as well as fast food from the diet;
• do not drink water immediately after eating;
• reduce the consumption of black tea and coffee to a minimum;
• eat in small portions and have snacks as often as possible;
• do not allow the development of a strong feeling of hunger and do not take breaks between meals longer than three hours;
• You should never skip breakfast.

List of foods that are easy on the stomach:

• vegetables, fruits, berries;
• boiled chicken and quail eggs;
• fermented milk products with fat content not exceeding 5 percent;
• vegetable broths and soups based on them;
• fish (not salmon species);
• buckwheat, rice, oatmeal porridge with water;
• from spices - herbs, garlic, black pepper, curry, turmeric, coriander (in small quantities).

Don't eat too often

The most optimal break between meals should be from 2 to 4 hours. The time depends on the type of food you consumed. For example, water and vegetable juices are eliminated from the stomach within 15 minutes. Fatty meat, richly seasoned with spices, can stay there for up to 5 hours. Tables indicating the digestion time of certain products can be found on the Internet.

If you eat too often, nothing good will come of it. The digestive system does not have time to prepare for new portions of food. Newly received food is mixed in the stomach with “old” food that has not yet had time to be digested. The digestion process becomes almost continuous.

All this overloads our stomach, wearing it out prematurely.

Train yourself to eat three meals a day. Try not to snack between meals. Short-term abstinence from food, fasting and therapeutic fasting will be very useful.

List of prohibited products

You should once and for all stop eating the following foods:

• canned food (both meat and vegetables);
• kebab and fried meat;
• fast food;
• sweet pastries;
• baked goods made from white flour;
• cakes, pastries, ice cream;
• factory-made sweets with trans fats;
• rich bone broths and first courses made from them;
• carbonated sweet drinks;
• alcoholic drinks of any strength;
• mayonnaise, ketchup, factory sauces;
• pizza and homemade pies with yeast or unleavened dough;
• pancakes, pancakes, sandwiches.

Even the usual glasses of coffee in the morning are a difficult test for the digestive system. They usually contain artificial cream and a lot of sugar, which causes a surge in insulin and unnecessary activation of the pancreas and liver.

What is a smoothie and why has it conquered the whole world?

After poisoning, intoxication, people with gastrointestinal diseases, and girls losing weight, all nutritionists strongly recommend eating smoothies. Here are two popular recipes for easy food for the stomach:

• Take one ripe banana and a handful of any berries (you can do without them), put them in a blender, add a glass of low-fat kefir, grind until smooth - your banana smoothie is ready.
• Take 100 grams of ripe strawberries, 50 grams of ice cream, 150 ml of low-fat kefir, blend everything in a blender - the creamy strawberry smoothie is ready.

These recipes are ideal as dessert. This is an easy food for the stomach at night, which is easily digestible and does not cause pain or the accumulation of excess fat.

Berries for the stomach: benefit or harm

Some berries can irritate the gastric mucosa and provoke pain due to gastritis and peptic ulcers. All berries should be washed thoroughly before eating.

Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and watermelons are allowed for consumption. Cranberries and rowan berries should be discarded. You can make compotes, fruit drinks, jams from the berries, add them to smoothies and main courses. It should be noted that some of them can cause an allergic reaction - nausea, urticaria, and itchy skin may appear. You should not eat more than one hundred grams of any berries per day.

The easiest vegetables for the stomach and dishes made from them

What food is light and satisfying for the stomach? These are vegetable stews, broths, soups. It is difficult to overestimate their benefits for the body. Vegetables that are allowed for consumption:

• potato;
• beet;
• cucumbers;
• cabbage of any variety;
• carrot.

You should use radishes, tomatoes, and lettuce leaves with caution - they can provoke an exacerbation of gastritis and peptic ulcers. If you pour boiling water over them before eating, it will be easier for the organs of the gastrointestinal tract to cope with their digestion.

Give up bad habits

I think it would be unnecessary to talk about the dangers of smoking and drinking alcohol for the stomach. Yes, these are extremely bad habits that are very difficult to eradicate. Unfortunately, the government and the state as a whole are not interested in completely ridding people of these scourges. Huge corporations prosper and make billions from people's weaknesses, causing irreparable harm to their health in the long run.

If a person is smart enough and interested in maintaining his own health, then he will definitely find ways to get rid of bad habits.

Meat and offal: harm or benefit

What food is the easiest for the stomach? This is dietary meat. Among people without medical education there are unfounded rumors about the dangers of meat and offal. In fact, vegetarianism and veganism can benefit very few people in our country. You need to eat meat for endurance, the ability to resist cold, and build muscle mass.

Turkey and chicken fillets are digested very quickly (if they have been stewed). Of course, you shouldn't fry it. But stewing with vegetables and herbs is a great idea! This simple and satisfying dish can be consumed both after poisoning, during the recovery period after surgery, or simply for weight loss.

Take your time while eating

The frantic pace of modern life makes this advice almost impossible to implement. But if you want to maintain your own health and protect yourself from ulcers, then be sure to allocate enough time for food.

On average, this should take at least 20 minutes. If you have a fairly heavy lunch with fried meat and a huge amount of mashed potatoes, then the specified time should be at least doubled.

If you don’t have time to eat in a quiet environment, then it’s better to move your lunch or breakfast to a more convenient time. This will be much better for your stomach than instantly swallowing food.

Fermented milk products for the stomach

Milk, cottage cheese, kefir, cheese are all excellent sources of protein, amino acids and calcium. Under no circumstances should you refuse them! Preference should be given to products with a low fat content, no more than 5 percent. This will help the stomach digest them faster. But full-fat milk, cheese, and cottage cheese can remain rotting in the stomach cavity for several hours, which subsequently causes bloating, cramps, and problems with bowel movements.

Butter is the most problematic product in this category. You should either completely stop using it or reduce it to 10 grams per day (for example, add it to porridge).

What drinks are considered easy on the stomach?

Many patients and people losing weight forget about the importance of drinks. They are no less important than solid food. Even if the diet is prepared perfectly, but the person drinks prohibited liquids, such a diet will be of no use.

1. You should once and for all stop drinking alcoholic beverages, since they are not only harmful to the mucous membrane of the esophagus and stomach, but are also the most common cause of severe liver pathologies - cirrhosis and toxic hepatitis.
2. Sweet carbonated drinks have a negative effect on the walls of the esophagus and stomach. If you drink Coca-Cola and similar drinks every day, in a couple of years you are almost guaranteed to get a peptic ulcer.
3. You should also limit black tea and coffee, which have an extremely negative effect on the stomach when drunk on an empty stomach. They also contain caffeine, which is an officially recognized psychostimulant.
4. Packaged juices from the store, despite aggressive marketing, do more harm than good. Most of them contain a huge amount of sugar, which is a carbohydrate shock to the body. If you really want to drink fruit, berry or vegetable juice, it is better to buy a juicer and make it yourself.

Don't overeat

Overeating is another bad habit we acquired from childhood. For many, overeating is a normal condition, which they do not consider a pathology. But excess saturation causes much more harm to the body than just the unpleasant sensations of a full stomach.

Train yourself to get up from the table slightly hungry. Satiety will definitely come a little later. The fact is that the saturation “sensors” in our stomach react late. This was very convenient for people in primitive times. Then it was very difficult to find food and there was a need to store it for future use. Now there is plenty of food everywhere, but our body has not yet had time to adapt to the new conditions. A single volume of food should not exceed one liter. And the more fat, meat protein and sugar it contains, the less its volume should be. Regular overload of the stomach will not lead to anything good.

List of desserts that are easy on the stomach

People who are losing weight and gastroenterologist patients often have the mistaken opinion that they will never try anything sweet or tasty again. It's a delusion. Here is a list of healthy desserts:

1. Recipes for fruit and berry smoothies (two of them were described above) can perfectly replace any dessert. Flavorful and easy on the stomach, the food is a thick liquid. To prepare a smoothie you will need a blender, five minutes of free time and imagination.
2. A green apple baked in the oven with cinnamon has a refined, slightly sour taste. It is perfectly absorbed, saturates the body with iron, and does not cause pain during gastritis.
3. Low-fat cottage cheese with berries - you can simply mix with a spoon, or you can crush in a blender until smooth. The resulting berry-curd soufflé can replace both breakfast and dinner. It pleases with its wonderful aroma, sweet taste and at the same time minimal calorie content and high digestibility.