The GP-Friendly Rainbow
The typical gastroparesis-friendly diet is focused more on calories than on nutrition. While adequate caloric intake is certainly important, it’s not just the energy our bodies need. It’s also the nutrients: the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, fat, and more. A diet based mostly on low-fat, low-fiber, white foods is likely to offer little in the way of these vital nutrients.
In my opinion, lack of proper nutrition is a significant issue for those with gastroparesis. It’s likely the reason a lot of us end with more and more symptoms and additional diagnoses. What’s more, proper digestion relies on many of the nutrients that a gastroparesis-friendly diet tends to lack.
One easy way to increase nutrition in a GP-friendly diet is to add more color, specifically colorful fruits and vegetables. The benefit of this is two-fold. First, different color produce contains different nutrients, so eating across the rainbow will help to cover your nutritional bases. The other benefit is that you’ll naturally eat less of the less nutrient-dense GP-friendly foods.
Aim to eat produce from all colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue/purple. While this may seem challenging in the context of a gastroparesis-friendly diet, it can be done, especially if you include fresh juices, smoothies, soups, and/or purees. You don’t have to eat every color of the rainbow everyday. Any additional color is beneficial. If your diet is currently pretty “white,” simply try to add one or two colors over the course of a week.
The handout below lists GP-friendly fruits and veggies of every color, as well as recommended ways to prepare them.