Mr Neville is having a bout of constipation, and I’m looking for some high-fiber recipes to make for him. Anybody got any good ones?
They can’t include celery or cucumbers, since he doesn’t like those. We try not to eat desserts, so savory recipes only, please. I’m not a fan of fruit in savory dishes. I’m watching my salt, but that just means using reduced-sodium soy sauce, using Mrs Dash instead of salt at the table, and avoiding egregiously, obviously-full-of-salt foods. We keep kosher, but we’re pretty good at adapting non-kosher recipes to be kosher.
We like Mediterranean (Greek, Middle Eastern, Italian, etc), East Asian, Indian, and Latin foods. Spicy is not a problem, in fact, he generally doesn’t like bland foods.
Prunes. Prunes will help get things moving smoothly. Yeah, they’re sweet, not savory, but they are tasty and will usually produce results in a few hours. There’s also Metamucil.
Other than that, I suggest beans. Between the low sodium and the kosher, you’ll probably want to avoid the ham hock or bacon. However, my mother used to enjoy the vegetarian bacon flavored bits. At any rate, dice up an onion and cook it with the beans. Usually I add a stalk or two of celery, but if he doesn’t like it, you can leave it out. The onions are essential, though. Also, most people put some sort of hot sauce in their beans, like Tabasco or similar.
I eat beans every day and there’s no substitute. I have to say, though, even though I eat a lot of fiber daily, lentils really do a number on me. If your man is careful not to eat too many, there’s a lot of fiber in those and the French smaller lentils are particularly tender and flavorful. Easy to make a soup, or just eat with rice and any combination of spices you care to concoct.
I’ve been getting into cooking with quinoa lately. It’s a VERY nutritious grain, with plenty of fiber. Easy to use – it’s faster than rice, and you can sub it in for rice in anything. Makes a great pilaf.
For black beans, I like to saute up some onion, garlic, and bell peppers, then mix in salsa and black beans. I usually serve it over brown rice. I’m sure this would work for pintos too, though.
It’s easy to make what’s basically a bean dip from canned beans – try 1 can of black beans, 1 can of refried beans, garlic powder, chiles or hot sauce, acid like lime juice or red wine vinegar, a bit of olive oil. I eat this regularly with tostadas or just with a spoon – fairly nutritious and definitely tasty.
I also like chickpeas with rice, spinach, maybe some green peas, and a spice mixture like chana marsala – it can be all cooked in one pot at the same time, and chickpeas have plenty of fiber in them.
Good old hummus is another paste/dip type thing that’s easy to make and can be eaten straight with a spoon, or over rice, or with pita.
Mash up the pinto beans with a little bit of olive oil and some Mexican seasoning powder, heat, put on warm corn tortillas with or without shredded cheese. The corn and beans form a complete protein.
How kosher do you tend to eat? Because if you brown some hamburger, drain it, and fix a packet of taco or burrito seasoning with it, you can layer beans, the taco or burrito seasoned meat, corn tortillas (or tortilla chips), and cheese. Plus salsa if you want it. But the cheese is pretty much essential for this dish. If you want to eliminate the meat, go with beans, tortillas, cheese, and salsa, possibly some sour cream too.
There are two dishes in my repertoire with outstanding colon-cleansing properties. One is chili, the other is apple crisp with almond-meal topping. Since you don’t want to hear about the dessert…
Chili
1 lb ground beef
2 cans beans of your choice
3 fresh bell peppers, diced
2 dried ancho chilis, cut up in small pieces
2 fresh jalapenos
1 large or 2 regular cans diced tomatoes
1 can rotel
about 2 cups diced onions
2-3 cloves garlic
1 t each ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder, cumin (for starters)
salt and lime juice to taste
Mix all in crock pot and cook on low all day.
Note: when I actually make this, some proportion of the vegetables is replaced with a jar of Alton Brown’s salsa. Same difference.
Other bean dishes that we enjoy but that don’t have notable effects on our digestion…
Burrito Filling (for burritos, on top of salad*, etc)
Sautee the following:
2 onions
2 cloves garlic
1 pound chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces
2 cans black beans
Cooked equivalent of one cup dry brown rice
1 t each ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder, cumin
Salt to taste
= lettuce and tomatoes, fiber!
Scratch Vegetarian Curry
Sautee together then simmer with lid on:
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 inch piece ginger, grated
1 small head cauliflower
2 cans chickpeas
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 fresh jalapeno
1 t each sweet curry powder, hot curry powder, cumin
Eat with rice and plain yogurt.
Lentil-Spinach Soup
Simmer together:
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 onion
2 cups lentils
1 box frozen spinach
t each parsley, rosemary, thyme
Lots of black pepper
6 cups water
Don’t salt (to taste of course) till lentils are cooked
A bowl of oatmeal every day for breakfast has magical properties.
So does a side dish of asparagus.
Epicurious has a way to search for low-fat stuff, much of which is also high fiber. There’s a barley/lentil soup with swiss chard that’s yummy and a favorite of ours.
I know you said savory only, but we’ve made not-too-sweet bran muffins using Kellogg’s All Bran, adding in dried fruit + a little juice in place of some of the liquid the recipe calls for.
It’s OK to skip the meat entirely, if you don’t want to mix meat and dairy. I just happen to like the meat so much that I always include it. You can certainly try using textured vegetable protein if that would comply with the rules (I’m not really all that up on what’s kosher and what’s not).
Make a standard crumble topping, but replace the oats with almond meal and top the whole thing generously with slivered almonds . Very tasty and very… um… indigestible.
A couple more things…he needs to drink a lot of water. Not coffee or tea or soda, WATER. When everything breaks loose, he’s going to want a softer stool. And he needs to exercise. Either walk, or take all the clothes off of the treadmill/exercise bike/stair stepper, and go to it. His intestinal muscles will move the waste on their own, but they probably need some help. Walking (or whatever) will help move the waste along the GI tract, and will help ensure that when things break loose, he can eliminate all of the waste at once.
I, er, misread this at first, and had this image of you advising him to strip nekkid for the treadmill session just in case that got things moving IMMEDIATELY.
Ground flax seed (I grind my own in a coffee grinder, but you can get it milled for you)
Wheat bran
Protein powder
Unsweetened dried coconut
With some variations I use this as the basis for several recipes.
To make muffins I take three cups of the above mixture to which I add:
5. 3 eggs
6. 1 tablespoon baking powder
7. 3 tablespoons olive oil
8. 1/2 teaspoon salt substitute (It’s not to avoid the salt so much, as for the potassium. I’m light in potasssium in my diet. You can use regular salt, no problem.)
9. Enough water to make it batter, usually around a cup and a half to 2 cups.
Bake at 350 deg F for 35 minutes or so. It makes 6 huge muffins. Each one has 12 grams of fiber and a ton of omega three and omega 6 fatty acids.
While in my opinion they are healthy food, they are not by any stretch of the imagination low calorie. They have 360 calories of which 66% come from fats, depending on what kind of protein powder you use. I usually use the lowest carbohydrate protein. They’re good fats though.
You can add splenda if you want to make a sweet muffin. I’ll add some and a half cup of frozen blueberries, or chopped walnuts, or whatever. If you want different flavors you can use unsweetened DaVinci or Torani syrup in place of some of the water, or add some cocoa powder and extra sweetener.
