Gallbladder diet - fat free

I recently had too prepare fat free foods for my partner, as he was planning for a cholescystectomy (gallbladder removal). He had experienced three very severe episodes of pancreatitis as well, so we decided to remove as much sugar as possible, other than sugars found naturally in food. I decided to do the new eating style with him, to make it easier and too support him.

At first, even as a nutritionist, I wondered what on earth I was going to do to keep up with variety and flavour.

I decided to get some items in which would boost flavour, act as digestive support, and rotate my main meals around these. I also cooked extra so that lunch was generally a smaller version of dinner, so I was certain my partner didnt stray away from the plan (he doesn't cook).

I bought a good quality non-stick frying pan and roasting tin, so I could still do a 'friend egg' without the oil, and I could roast chicken or fish etc, by adding cherry tomatoes to the roasting tin, which would burst to add liquid to the tray and flavour too any sauces.  

Some great products which replaced fatty foods were:

  • Lemon juice used instead of olive oil.
  • Fat free quark to replace cream, cream cheese and act as a sauce base.
  • Lemon grass, fennel seeds, ginger and turmeric to add flavour and introduce their gallbladder supporting qualities.
  • Lime zest and black pepper for flavour.

One meal which I cooked was Thai curry using quark, lemon grass and coriandar for the sauce and you really couldn't taste the difference from this version and a fatty version.

We often associate fat and oils with flavour, crispiness and colour, but by using other ingredients, I managed to adjust existing recipes by tweaking the ingredients.

As a nutritionist, I do feel that this eating style has reinforced how easy it can be making changes. You can still cook, but my only concern was the lack of essential fatty acids in this style of eating. We added 1000 mg capsule of omega three, six and nine to his regimen, as this meant we could monitor his gallbladder activity.Gallbladder dumping can mean very severe urgent bowels, so by removing the oils from the food and adding them in a controlled way, we could control and avoid this as much as possible.

I hope this article gives a little inspiration to readers who have gallbladder problems and may be pre-operative and worried about the changes.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Nutritionist Resource are reviewed by our editorial team.

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Faversham ME13 & Folkestone CT19
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Written by Victoria Shorland, Nutritionist, Allergy Testing, Phlebotomist, Faversham, Kent
Faversham ME13 & Folkestone CT19

Victoria runs The Therapy Clinic from Faversham and Hythe Kent, and also works with Spire Hospitals. The clinic offers integrated services:

Food intolerance testing available with instant results.
Specialist IBS/IBD clinic.
Candida/FODMAP clinic.
Consultant nutritionist clinic.
Hypnotherapy clinic.
Reiki clinic
Cancer tailored massage clinic.

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