One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) has been sick lately, and is under orders from the doctor to get things moving. Unfortunately, Friend’s condition means Friend isn’t all that hungry, so I’m making an effort to tempt the palate of said friend.
My plan right now is to riff off a bread recipe I have for prune & chocolate bread, which is amazing. I figured I could plug those ingredients into a bran muffin recipe and it would be golden. (The logic behind this is that raisins in bran muffins are delicious, and chocolate on raisins is delicious, and the bread recipe is delicious, so cramming them all together must be delicious. Right?) My other idea was carrot muffins, which I have a vague memory of eating before.
The only food limitations Friend has is that Vitamin K is forbidden. So no spinach or broccoli or green tea in these muffins, folks. Oh, and apparently the graham cracker crust on cheesecake doesn’t count as a source of fiber either.
My one caveat is that Metamucil is not welcome. Friend is not middle-aged. Friend just wants to poop through the power of muffins. So I’m not stirring high-fiber products secretly into Friend’s soup.
Recipes? Suggestions? Stories to share?
Edit: The reasoning behind the demand for muffins is that they’re not very intimidating in size and they’re vaguely cupcake-like, which means they’re a treat, not a prescription. I’m fighting a psychological and physical war here, guys.
Sugar alcohols tend to cause stomach upset and diarrhea in a lot of people. If you used that in place of sugar, it might speed things up. You could also make a maltitol and butter glaze (sort of like powder sugar and butter) for the muffin tops.
The following recipe is almost certainly unhelpful, as it sounds like you need a bran muffin recipe that does not call for a mix. But it’s a simple, tasty, and reasonably low calorie recipe, and it came to mind immediately upon reading your OP.
CHOCOLATE BROWNIE MUFFINS
3 cups All Bran cereal
Soak in 2½ cups water to soften (around 20 minutes)
1 Tbs baking powder
1 box low fat brownie mix
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Soak cereal in water for 5 minutes. Add baking powder and brownie mix. Stir with a spoon until moist. The mixture will seem very dry at first, but keep stirring it will become moist. Spray your muffin tins with nonstick spray. Place 1/4 Cup batter into each tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Serves: 18 (NOTE: divide into 24 muffins & each is only 1 WWP)
Per Serving: 133 Calories; 3g Fat (14.6% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 31g Carbohydrate; 5g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 224mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Other Carbohydrates. WWP: 2
I haven’t had good experience cooking with sugar alcohols and can’t abide the results when I do. I’ve been a diabetic for a while, so I’ve done my fair share of sugar substitution. I’d rather not make my friend more uncomfortable than Friend already is, too. I think it’s too risky for this situation, but I do appreciate the creative thinking, DeadlyAccurate.
Eureka, that looks dead easy and a nice base for experimentation.
The prunes that have things like orange, lemon, or cherry “essence” added taste pretty much exactly like candy and are excellent for snacking on. No intimidation whatsoever, since it’s like nibbling on tasty little treats. As I’m rather fond of orange chocolate, I’d imagine that the orange flavored prunes would be divine with chocolate bran muffins.
Focusing on plant foods (though obviously not any of the forbidden ones!) and less processed stuff should help, especially if you’re not going to go the chemical route. Besides prunes, bananas can be a fairly good source of fiber, too, and they might blend nicely with prunes and chocolate. If you’re worried about making the muffins too gooey, you could just use bananas to replace the eggs, which works well.
I’d second getting plenty of water and working some fat into the diet. It’ll help “grease the wheels”, so to speak, and otherwise it’ll just put your friend in pain.
Regarding the fat thing: homemade soup is currently playing a large role in Friend’s diet, so she’s getting some fat from that. I’ll grab her some yogurt when I run to the store when it opens.
Has anyone tried that yogurt with the added fiber in it? Is it called Activia or something like that? Good, bad, indifferent?
I think Activia just has bacterial cultures that are somehow mildly more robust than in other yogurts. I know my niece’s doctor recommended it for “recolonizing” her intestines after she’d been seriously ill when she was two. I’m not sure how much it aided in her recovery, but she did recover nicely and is now obsessed with the stuff for life.
So, I’d say yogurt would be a fine choice in general if your friend can eat it. Possibly with some sort of bran cereal or high-fiber granola on top, like a mini-parfait?
It gives me visions of an anthropomorphic muffin (nattily attired a la a Central American dictator) threatening my friend to either poo or get off the pot, so to speak.
Lots of water. Lots of water is key. Most people are chronically slightly dehydrated. This is especially true of constipated people. Dehydration will lock up your intestines. Make her drink more than she think she needs (although not to the point of water toxicity, which probably not going to be a problem anyway.)
<shrug> Middle age doesn’t really have anything to do with lack of fiber in one’s diet. I once had a college roommate who took Metamucil for his fiber intake because he hated vegetables so much.
Has your friend considered Benefiber? It’s 100% soluble fiber, so it dissolves well and ends up being inoffensive. It works well in Gatorade.
I haven’t made these in a while, but I used to make a fairly decent bran muffin based on the recipe on the All-Bran box. I simmered miscellaneous dried fruit in OJ to soften it a bit, and used that to replace some of the liquid called for in the muffin recipe. It’s not chocolate, but they were pretty tasty (hint: I’ve found I must use fresh baking powder, not the old can that’s been in the cupboard for a year, or the results could be used as weapons and pose a health danger if dropped on one’s foot :eek: )
There are also prescription products that can be added to beverages in case OTC remedies / food don’t help. My son uses one (Miralax) that mixes into his juice; another variety uses lactulose (an indigestible sugar), which of course just tastes sweet and works well in juice or whatever also. Both wind up being palatable.