Tzatziki (yogurt-cucumber sauce) courtesy of The Gut-friendly Gourmet

Susan McCrory

Safe to say that if you’re reading these words right now, you have an interest in food that goes beyond where it comes from, how you prepare it and who prepares it, if not you. That is, you actually enjoy eating the food that looks good to you and you do it whenever you can. 

But what if you were totally into how something tastes and knew you just couldn’t, or shouldn’t, eat it? This is the challenge (understatement) faced by people who suffer from Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and other GI conditions. PRK learned about a new blog called The Gut-friendly Gourmet launched in January by Erika, a local gal. It’s dedicated to cooking for Crohn’s disease and motivated a) by Erika’s love of cooking and b) her desire to be proactive about her condition and share that feeling of empowerment.
The following are Erika’s responses to our questions about her blog. She says she’s gotten a lot of feedback from people with gastrointestinal disease, saying that they had no idea what to eat, how to prepare it and how to make it taste good before they found her site. Her hope is to reach readers who struggle to reconcile their love of good food and their body’s limited ability to digest it. A gut check and reality check wrapped up in one.
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PRK: What makes your blog different?

There are several blogs about Crohn’s and colitis. However, most of them are more in the personal-blog vein and chronicle peoples’ day-to-day lives with the disease. In starting my blog, I actually wanted to avoid that model and focus more on something that I could DO to help me feel better on a daily basis, and that even more importantly would give readers something concrete to do to empower themselves against a disease that can be extraordinarily disempowering…Learning how to cook and eat the right foods has made my life so much better that I knew there must be a need for an online resource for others in my position.

PRK: Are all the recipes you post Crohn’s appropriate?

All the recipes are Crohn’s/colitis appropriate–I test them all myself, and anything that disagrees with my system does not make it onto the blog. But I recognize two things: 1) everyone has different foods that work/do not work for them, so what is good for me may not be good for you; and 2) I’m finally getting better (I’ve been quite sick the past few months) so my “gut check” might not be as sensitive as it once was. But I do try to make all the recipes something that I could eat when I’m not feeling well.

PRK: Tell us more about the responses you’ve received since beginning the post

I’ve gotten both comments on the blog and emails from readers. There was one particularly memorable email I got just a few weeks after I launched the blog: “I looked through your page and it is so great to see that you haven’t let your disease keep you down. You are doing great work and I hope you keep on doing it for all those others that are stuck in a rut. I will be trying some of your recipes.” I have gotten a lot of readers by having my friends and family pass on the website to people they know who have Crohn’s or colitis (or other digestive issues). I have also given the URL to several dietitians, who then refer their patients to the blog.

PRK: Do you mostly eat in because of your condition? How do you handle eating out?

Eating out is a challenge, particularly because many restaurant foods are high in fats, which are very hard for me to digest. I have found that Asian noodle restaurants are very good because they are naturally low in fat and the soups are easy to customize. I usually check restaurant menus online ahead of time to make sure that there is something I can eat (plain grilled fish or chicken, a baked potato, rice), and if not I suggest that we try someplace else. But I do entertain a lot more than I used to–partly from necessity, and partly because I like testing out potential recipes for the blog on my friends (and they are happy to be my taste testers).

PRK: Any favorite eateries?

My current favorite noodle joint is Xinh Xinh in Chinatown, and I love the seafood udon soup at Fugakyu in Brookline.