Part 2: Cooking for the Perso... Video Transcript

Participants

Leslie J. Bonci M.P.H., R., Bettina Gregory , Ricky Safer

Summary

What's the connection between food and inflammatory bowel disease? And what can you do at meal time to help prevent flare-ups and promote healing? For answers, step into the kitchen via this Webcast brought to you by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

Webcast Transcript

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Hello, I'm Bettina Gregory. Welcome to our webcast on nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease. This program is sponsored by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. In this segment of our three-part series, we'll take a look at what you can do in the kitchen to help reduce symptoms and promote healing for people with inflammatory bowel disease.

Joining us is Leslie Bonci, a nutritionist at the University of Pittsburgh. And here to share some recipes is Ricky Safer. Now, Ricky has a son with ulcerative colitis. Ricky and Leslie have been working with the CCFA on a collection of recipes for patients with IBD. We'll also try to answer some of your questions sent to us via our website.

Leslie, let's get started. Many people believe that there are certain foods that cause inflammatory bowel disease. Is that true?

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: The good news is, there aren't any foods that cause inflammatory bowel disease. However, sometimes the foods that people eat or the eating habits that people have can make their symptoms worse. If people eat too quickly, if people eat too much, if they just eat certain types of foods and not others, that can actually make them not feel well.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Okay, well, let's move on to the foods that actually aggravate IBD.

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: Well, the first things we're going to look at are dairy products, because a lot of times when people are diagnosed with IBD, they're told, "I can't have any dairy foods at all." And the major reason that dairy products can be a problem is if somebody has lactose intolerance. Lactose is the sugar that's found in dairy foods, and it's added to other foods, and if it doesn't digest well, if it doesn't break down well, people can have a lot of symptoms with it.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Okay. Are there substitutes?

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: There are some substitutes, but first of all, if people even want to use dairy products themselves, they need to know that perhaps cutting back on the amount, not having a full glass of milk, not eating a whole block of cheese, making little changes, having little bits at a time can really help.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Okay, well, on the milk, how much should people have?

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: Well, for instance, this is a full glass of milk. This is an eight-ounce glass. And if somebody indeed has lactose intolerance, they might want to pour only one quarter of that glass, just a little bit to start with.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: All right. Say when.

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: That's it.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: That's it?

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: No, that doesn't look like a glass of milk. However, if somebody hasn't been having dairy products, they don't want to aggravate their symptoms. They don't want to have too much at one time, so they start with just a little bit.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Okay.

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: The other thing is that even looking at foods such as cheese, a lot of people eat cheese, but the issue is, how much cheese?

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: How much.

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: What are we talking about? Very thin, very thin slice.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: About here?

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: That's it. About an eighth of an inch slice.

BETTINA GREGORY, Psy.D.: Okay. So this is really quite tiny.

LESLIE J. BONCI, M.P.H.: That is a piece of cheese, and this would be the only thing that somebody might have at that meal that has lactose in it, or just a little bit of milk at a meal.