Zucchini is a popular vegetable and refreshes almost every dish with its green color. It can grow up to a meter tall and belongs to the pumpkin family. Everyone knows the benefits of zucchini; even doctors used it to develop many pathologies and found out that the nutritional properties of zucchini contribute to the rapid recovery of a weakened body.
However, the development of gastritis automatically imposes a strict ban on the eating of seemingly familiar and healthy foods. Therefore, patients may be interested in whether it is possible to eat zucchini or not while having gastritis. This simple guide will shed more light on the zucchini gastritis diet.
Can I Eat Zucchini Cooked With Gastritis?
In medical, gastritis is an inflammatory process that affects the gastric mucosa. Unpleasant and painful symptoms accompany it, and it may contribute to developing other more dangerous diseases like stomach ulcers and cancer. The use of various medications performs treatment of gastritis. However, improvements are observed only when the patient additionally adheres to a certain diet, in which the affected mucosa is not irritated, and there is no increased release of gastric juice.
Because cooked zucchini has an approximate pH of 6.0, it is considered mildly acidic and might be eaten in moderation while having gastritis. It’s always advisable to try eating just a little one day and observe how you feel before eating more.
It should be noted that everyone is different, and there might be reasons besides pH that may make this food intolerable, triggering reflux, or beneficial. Gastroenterologists do not just allow eating zucchini in developing gastritis but even recommend including it in the diet.
Other heat treatments make it possible to prepare healthy dishes from zucchini which contributes to the rapid elimination of gastritis. Zucchini allows you to enrich the weakened body with vitamins and minerals. Fortunately, when it enters the stomach, foods that have undergone proper heat treatment do not irritate the mucous membrane and do not provoke increased production of gastric juice.
Useful Properties of Zucchini
Zucchini contains substances such as provitamin A and proteins, nicotinic acid, phosphorus, calcium salts, and titanium, rare in food. Thanks to this, the product is ideal for the diet of diabetics – it removes excess glucose from the body and normalizes sugar levels. An excellent choice would be a vegetable for those who want to lose weight. Its regular use allows you to remove excess moisture and put in order the water-salt balance. These different nutritional contents certainly benefit those of you who consume them. These are the various benefits offered by zucchini fruit.
Smooth digestion
Zucchini is high in water content. This fruit also contains fiber and electrolyte nutrients needed for the digestive system. Water can soften stool, so it is easier for stool to move along the digestive tract as it is passed. In other words, water keeps you from being constipated.
Zucchini also contains soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber feeds the good bacteria in the stomach. Meanwhile, insoluble fiber can increase stool mass and help food move more easily through the intestines.
Helps slow down the aging process
The next benefit, zucchini help slow down the aging process of body cells. This is due to antioxidant compounds that help protect the body from free radical damage.
Please note that exposure to free radicals can be obtained from the external environment, such as pollution or cigarette smoke. When there are too many, free radicals will damage healthy body cells.
To prevent this, you must eat foods containing antioxidants, such as zucchini antioxidants, which will work as free radical neutralizers.
Help maintain blood sugar levels
High blood sugar levels are closely related to the risk of diabetes. One of the triggers is a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fiber.
Eating zucchini adds to your fiber intake. Fiber can help stabilize blood sugar and prevent spikes in blood sugar after meals. Fiber keeps you full longer, so you don’t overeat. Following a low-carb and high-fiber diet can also help improve insulin sensitivity, which helps keep your blood sugar levels at normal levels.
Maintain eye health
The antioxidants zeaxanthin, and lutein, are useful in maintaining and improving eye health by fighting free radicals and reducing the risk of age-related eye diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Eating foods high in both, including zucchini, keeps your vision clear, reducing the risk of cataracts or clouding of the lens.
How to Cook Zucchini Properly?
First of all, proper preparation of squash food for patients with gastritis implies excluding the frying procedure in vegetable fats. Use only young vegetables and fresh and unspoiled fruits. It is recommended to leave the skin on. When cooking, other vegetables that are useful for gastritis become additional ingredients. Zucchini can stew, boil, steam, and bake in the oven based on their casseroles and puddings.
Diet squash dishes are distinguished by a soft, delicate texture, not distinguished by the coarseness of the fibrous mass and a large amount of fiber. Such dishes are easily tolerated by the inflamed mucosa without discomfort, pain, or burning.
Given that the gastritis stage in each patient is different, it is important to consult a supervising specialist before starting to use zucchini. The doctor will advise how it is better to cook a vegetable in a particular case, what to add to the dish and explain the number of servings consumed and the total mass of the dish.
Simple Recipes for Dishes With Zucchini Gastritis
As a first course, you can offer to prepare a pureed soup, which will be zucchini addition to them; you will need to take a bunch of parsley, a couple of potatoes, and 50 grams of leeks. All vegetables are first chopped into cubes, stewed in butter (by no means vegetable oil), and then passed through a blender to obtain a thick mass. It is mixed with chicken or vegetable broth and brought to a boil. For serving, you can add wheat croutons to the puree.
We need zucchini or green bell peppers and tomatoes, onions, and eggplants for the second course. We again cut all the vegetables into cubes and lightly fry them in butter until a golden crust appears. After that, pour the resulting mass with a small amount of water (you can take meat or vegetable broth) and simmer for 40-50 minutes.
Such a stew can be used as an independent dish (in this case, potatoes can be added to the list of vegetables) or consumed with a side dish used as buckwheat, rice, or other porridge, spaghetti other pasta. If you like to know more about what to eat with gastritis take a look to 1 week gastritis diet
Conclusion
In addition to helping relieve constipation, improve hemorrhoids, and contribute to cardiovascular health, zucchinis, with their moderate fiber content, are also good to eat if you have gastritis. Typically, high amounts of fiber upset the stomach lining and worsen gastritis symptoms. Still, foods with a moderate content of fiber like zucchinis are good to eat for gastritis in limited amounts.
