IC Disease

Shrimp is one of my favorite foods but the seasonings often used on shrimp are a big no no for Interstitial Cystitis patients.  Here is an IC friendly recipe for Shrimp & Broccoli Alfredo.

• 1 pound shrimp
• 1 package fettucine
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup butter
• 8 oz. package of cream cheese
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1-10 oz. package frozen broccoli florets
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• dash of black pepper

Saute shrimp and garlic in butter in skillet. Remove and keep warm. In the same skillet, combine the cream cheese, milk and Parmesan cheese. Cook until cheeses are melted. Place broccoli in saucepan with 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 6-8 minutes.
Stir broccoli, shrimp, salt, and pepper into cheese.

It won’t be long and the holidays will be here and it will be time to serve our family and friends the hams and turkeys we so carefully prepare.  Ham has always been one of my favorite choices at holiday meals but once IC hit I had to watch out for the cloves and nutmeg used in the sauce or ham glaze.  Here is a recipe I found that is IC friendly and you can still enjoy the ham!

• Boar’s Head Deluxe Ham cut into 1/2″ slices.  This ham is preservative free and is usually found in grocery store delis.
• Honey or maple syrup
• Brown Sugar

Place slices in a baking dish and pour honey or maple syrup over them. Sprinkle liberally with brown sugar. Cover with aluminum foil. Heat oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 15 minutes until hot and syrupy.  Each slice will serve 1 person.

Out of all of the food groups, fruit is the category that is most limited to Interstitial Cystitis patients.  This is because of the citric acid that is found in many fruits.  Here is a great recipe for mock applesauce you can make that uses pears.  Good luck with this one - I hope it is a good recipe for you!

Mock Applesauce (Pear Sauce)

• 8-10 large ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced into small chunks
• ½ cup water
• 11/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½-1 1/4 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you want the final taste to become-the sugar can be added as the recipe cooks to adjust for sweetness

Combine all ingredients in a large, heavy bottomed pot and cover. Simmer over low heat for at least an hour, stirring frequently.

You want a very soft texture so it’s perfectly fine to let this simmer for several hours or alternatively cook it in a slow cooker for 6-8 hours. Once prepared mock applesauce will keep covered in the fridge up to one week, or frozen in a freezer proof container for 3 months. Delicious warm, at room temperature or cold.  This recipe makes about 2 cups worth of pear sauce, depending on the size of your pears.

IC Disease patients may find that they have additional symptoms that are brought on by food allergies.  Common food allergies found among those with IC Disease include allergies to wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn.  IC patients may also find that they are lactose intolerant and have milk allergies.  This can cause severe symptoms. 

While a yeast syndrome has not been “medically proven” and there is a lot of controversy over the issue, there are many IC patients who have found relief from food allergies by removing these ingredients from their diets:

• Yeast
• Sugar
• Cheeses
• Molds
• Alcohol
• Fermented foods

You should always check with your physician if you believe that you have food allergies or before you change your diet.

Here is another great recipe in the IC Friendly Recipe series for this site!  As always, if you try one of these recipes please comment and let me know how you like them!

Blueberry Salad Dressing

• 1 quart of pure organic blueberry juice - watch out for citric acid preservatives (a big no-no for IC Disease patients)
• 3 tablespoons of organic cornstarch
• 1/8 cup of regular sugar
• 1/8 cup of brown sugar
• 1 cup olive oil

Combine the blueberry juice and cornstarch in a pot over a low heat. Stir until the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Turn up the heat a little and add the sugar, stir constantly to avoid lumps. Heat until the mixture thickened and is reduced in volume by about 1/3. It should be the constancy of a thin jam. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool, but not cold. Pour the blueberry mixture into a one quart bottle and add the olive oil. Shake well.

If you’re not sensitive to small amounts of soy, you can add ½ teaspoon of lethicin as an emulsifier (prevents the blueberry mixture and the oil from separating so much).

I found another great IC Disease friendly recipe that is a great pasta side dish - Fettuccine Alfredo.  If you try this recipe, let me know what you think!  

IC Friendly Fettuccine Alfredo

• 12 ounces fettuccine
• 1 cup evaporated skim milk
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1 1/2 cups grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons fresh chives, snipped

1.  Cook pasta according to package directions. 

2.  In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, half and half, and butter over medium heat only until the butter is melted and the mixture is hot.

3.  Gradually stir in 1 1/4 cups of the Parmesan cheese. Cook and stir just until the cheese is melted.

4.  Drain pasta and add to the cheese mixture.  Toss pasta until well coated.

5.  Put pasta on plates to serve and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese & chives. 

This recipe makes 6 servings.

If you have IC but you like sweets, this great IC friendly recipes for Crunchy White Chocolate Drops will curb your sweet tooth without acting up your IC symptoms.  Talk about having the best of both worlds!  This recipe is great for the whole family to eat - not just for IC kids and patients.

This recipe is for a large group of people so feel free to half the recipe to suit you and your family’s needs.  If you try this recipe, let me know what you think! 

Crunchy White Chocolate Drops

• 3 cups of pretzel sticks (broken into small pieces)
• 900 grams white chocolate (make sure you use a good quality of white chocolate)
• 3 cups of Rice Krispies cereal
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds

1. Melt the chocolate either by using a double boiler over medium heat or in the microwave. Be careful if you microwave the chocolate -the bowl will be very hot when you remove it.

2. In a large mixing bowl, add chocolate and all other ingredients listed above. Stir well.

3. Form small walnut-shaped balls out of the mixture. Place balls on wax paper or parchment paper. If you are making the whole recipe, make sure you have a big table prepared to place all of the drops.

4. Allow the drops to cool and harden. Place in a lined airtight container. They don’t need to be refrigerated and you can keep them for up to two weeks.

Options:

If you don’t want to make balls, you can pour the mixture into cake pans and let harden then cut like you would fudge.

Recipe makes about 90 drops.

If you are looking for foods to eat that won’t aggravate your IC Disease, keep reading this blog so that you can find IC friendly recipes to try!  I hope you enjoy the first recipe in this series.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

• 1lb ground beef
• 2 small grated carrots
• 1 small bell pepper diced
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• garlic salt to taste
• cabbage leaves
• salt
• 1 cup instant rice
• 1/2 can beef broth soup

1. Place olive oil in pan, brown ground beef. Take off stove.

2. Place cabbage leaves in a pot of boiling water. Cover with the lid. Cook until tender and manageable. Take off stove.

3. Add grated carrots, bell pepper, rice, garlic powder and salt to beef mixture. Mix well.

4. Add some of the beef broth. Take cabbage leaves and add a small amount of mixture to the middle of the leaf. roll it up and lay it into a pan. When, you have completed all the rolls, add a little of the beef broth to the bottom of the pan.

5. Cover with tin foil and bake at 350 degrees until the carrots and bell pepper are tender. Rice will fluff up.

 (This is an actual picture of what marshmallow root looks like)

I had mentioned last weekend on my IC Elimination Diet: Hot Drinks post about drinking marshmallow root tea to help heal the bladder and relieve IC symptoms.  Catherine M. Simone, author of the book To Wake In Tears, introduced the use of marshmallow root tea to IC patients everywhere. 

How soon the bladder is healed by drinking marshmallow root tea depends on several situations:

• What shape the bladder is in, how bad IC symptoms are,  Hunner’s ulcers, etc.
• If the IC patient is taking several different synthetic medications.  If this is the case, it will take a lot longer for the marshmallow root to heal the bladder lining.
• If the IC patient is drinking the tea but not doing much else to heal and re-balance the rest of their body.  Smoking, medications, hormonal imbalances, and Candida (yeast overgrowth) can make it hard for the body to get rid of the toxins. 

If there are a lot of outside factors as mentioned above, the IC patient may think their bladder is healing because there will be a soothing effect from drinking the tea.  The healing process will take much longer.

How well marshmallow root tea and how fasts it starts to soothe and heal depends on the individual.  There are people who have said that they feel the soothing effects immediately upon drinking the tea while others report it takes months for them to notice a the difference.  The key is to not give up too soon.  Catherine Simone says that she has only heard from a handful of people who thought they may be allergic to marshmallow root.  She says:

If you are allergic to marshmallow root, most likely it will upset your stomach a bit. It should not cause you additional burning in the bladder. If you feel that it does, it might be that the gentle flush it provides is pushing toxins through your system. It would be the toxins that are causing the burning, not the herb. Marshmallow root is not an astringent herb. It is a soother only and should not cause burning. It is very similar to aloe vera in that it is high in mucilage and its main role is to soothe and heal. You can test to see if you are allergic by putting a little bit of the root on your tongue and letting it sit there for a minute or two. If you don’t feel sick to your stomach, you’re probably not allergic. Of course you can also get muscle tested with NAET to check as well. In all these years since my first book came out, I’ve rarely heard of a person allergic to marshmallow root. But of course, it IS possible. We can be allergic to ANYTHING.

Catherine says you don’t have to drink marshmallow root tea every day for the rest of your life like we do with Elmiron. She recommends that the worse your bladder is the more you should drink. But if you are having a good day and are not experiencing pain or burning you can cut back significantly.  One day you may need to drink several cups while the next day one cup may do the trick.

You cannot overdose on marshmallow root. It is one of the most mellow herbs out there. It is safe for babies and pregnant women, that’s how mellow it is. It has been around since bible times and is actually mentioned in the bible as a food that they used to eat. So you don’t have to be concerned about drinking too much of it.

Catherine notes that it is important for people to realize that marshmallow root tea alone will not heal the bladder. There needs to be a whole body treatment process going on in order for the bladder to heal. Marshmallow root helps to calm irritation and soothe. It also helps to nourish the tissues.

You can buy marshmallow root herb in bulk form at your local health food store. There is a pill but buying the actual herb and making it into a tea is the best method and the most beneficial.

One hot drink that is hard for many IC patients to give up is their morning routine of drinking coffee. For some patients, drinking coffee (and carbonated soda) is an all-day thing. For those people it is even harder. Most hot teas even need to be cut out at first. Until your bladder heals, here are some suggestions from the IC Network on what you can drink if you’re craving something hot.

• First start off with hot water or hot milk with honey and sugar.
• Go to the local Starbucks and ask for hot milk with vanilla flavoring.
• The first teas to try once the bladder starts healing are chamomile and peppermint - both are bowel and bladder friendly.
• If these teas are tolerated well, try roasted carob tea. Celestial Seasonings makes several which are fairly IC friendly, including Gingerbread Spice, Almond Sunset, English Toffee and Vanilla Hazelnut.

• If your bladder is tolerating the roasted carob teas, you could then try the herbal coffees (Pero or Cafix). These are an acquired taste but quite a few patients like them. If your bladder doesn’t react to the herbal coffees, then try the LOW ACID regular coffees made by Euromild or Puroast.

If you are having an IC flare, the IC Network recommends going back to basics and just drinking water (not tap!) and milk.

This is not from the IC Network but from personal experience: When my bladder is acting up I drink marshmallow root tea. I read about it in a book I had purchased on IC - To Wake In Tears by Catherine Simone. I also have a sister-in-law who has Interstitial Cystitis and she drinks a lot of marshmallow root tea. It definitely provides some relief. I have to add sugar to mine in order to get it down but my SIL drinks it plain. You can purchase marshmallow root tea at your local health food store.