What are the dietary taboos for gastritis?

In fact, there are no absolute dietary taboos that apply to all gastritis patients. The core judgment standard is "if you feel uncomfortable after eating, don't touch it again." However, there are several types of foods that can easily aggravate the symptoms of most gastritis patients. Don't try them lightly unless there are special circumstances.

I just met a little girl who works in operations a while ago. She has been suffering from superficial gastritis for more than three months, and the symptoms of stomach pain and acid reflux have basically disappeared. Last week, during the department team building, she showed off three cups of smoothies and half a plate of super spicy braised food. She went to the emergency room in the early morning of the same day with stomachache so bad that she broke out in a cold sweat. After the gastroscopy, the mucosal edema that had subsided recurred, and there were also some sporadic erosions. Don’t think this is an exception. Many people suffer from gastritis over and over again because they are greedy and fall into these pitfalls. For example, ice drinks and fruits just taken out of the refrigerator, fried foods and hot pot ingredients that are still steaming right out of the pot. Foods with extreme temperatures are like pouring boiling water on a wound that has not yet healed and then applying ice cubes to the gastric mucosa with inflammation. The mucosal barrier cannot be repaired properly under repeated stimulation.

Many people say that you should never eat spicy food if you have gastritis. In fact, this is not necessarily true. I had an old patient from my hometown in Sichuan who had mild atrophic gastritis for almost five years. I usually ate some home-made spicy kimchi for every meal, and I never had stomach pain and acid reflux. On the contrary, I heard someone say that I should quit spicy food, so I stopped for more than two months and could not even eat. During the reexamination, due to insufficient nutritional intake, the mucosal condition was worse than before. To put it bluntly, as long as spicy food is within your tolerance range and you don’t feel uncomfortable after eating it, there is no need to quit completely. Instead, you should pay attention to invisible stimuli, such as drinking strong coffee on an empty stomach, high-alcohol liquor, and eating a lot of lemons and hawthorns on an empty stomach. These highly irritating foods will cause a large amount of gastric acid to be secreted in a short period of time. The already fragile gastric mucosa is soaked by gastric acid, which can easily aggravate erosion and ulcers.

Many people think that if you have gastritis, you should drink more porridge to nourish your stomach. This depends on the situation. If you have an ordinary superficial gastritis attack, drinking some warm porridge can indeed reduce the burden on the stomach. However, if you have reflux gastritis, you are prone to acid reflux and belching. Drinking too much porridge will aggravate the reflux. At this time, porridge is a "taboo" for you. There are also foods high in nitrites such as pickles, bacon, and processed meat products, especially for patients with atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia. Long-term consumption will increase the risk of disease, so eat as little as possible.

In fact, if you really think about it, everyone’s list of taboos is different. Someone else’s stomach-nourishing food may be your stomach-damaging minefield. It is better to keep two food diaries at random. If you have stomach pain, acid reflux, or flatulence after eating on any day, just avoid it next time. It will be more effective than searching ten pages of general dietary taboos.