Pancreatitis Diet: Learn to Love Fish

Once you have completed your initial food diary consisting of vegan foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes, rice and so forth) and have been on the diet and supplements (vit C, grape seed extract and curcumin) for 6 months and no longer have symptoms of pancreatitis (hopefully this is your outcome) then you can begin to consider beginning to upgrade your diet with the necessary protein for sustaining weight and muscle mass. Foods such as white fleshed fish (pollock, halibut, red snapper, bass etc...), chicken and turky.

Fish is much preferred over poultry simply because it offers tons of protein and a huge assortment of beneficial nutrients. For example: 1/2 of a fillet - 159 grams - of halibut will provide over 40 grams of protein, 1064 mgs of omega 3 fatty acids, 916 mgs of potassium, assorted B vitamins including the necessary B-12 (36%) that enables you to build good blood. It will also supply over 100% of your dailt selenium, 10% of your calcium and 43% of your magnesium.

Sardines, mackeral, salmon, trout (fresh wild or wild canned is best) will do even better in the the omega 3 fatty acid department but are oily fish and may cause problems so it is best to use caution and start with small amounts. Pollock, halibut and red snapper (white meat fish) tend to work better in regards to the pancreas.

Poaching or baking your fish or frying without oil is of course the way to cook your fish. If you are quite well (no abdominal tenderness or symptoms) you may be able to use a small amount of safflower oil in frying your fish. How to do this is to dump a small amount of oil into the pan and wipe the pan with a paper towel, this coats the pan but sucks up excess oil. However, you may want to simply use a good quality non-stick pan instead because it is safer for we who have pancreatitis.

Combine your fish with a nice baked potato and some fresh asparagus and you have one, fine, healthy low fat meal (about 5 grams of fat most of which is good fat). Pollock offers ZERO saturated fat, halibut 1 gram of saturated fat, snapper has about 1 gram of sat fat, fresh water bass has about 1 gram of sat fat per fillet (62 grams).

Compare fish to chicken and it's a no brainer. Fish actually offers LESS FAT and MORE NUTRITION. 64 grams of ready to cook chicken offers only 16 grams of protein VS 40+ for fish, no omega 3 fatty acids and only about 2% of your requirement of B-12. Chicken/turkey doesn't offer the other nutrients in the sizable proportions that fish does either. But ...

Chicken and turkey do offer a change of fair and you can use both chicken and turkey to create chili, meat loaf, burgers etc ... so there is a benefit derived from chicken and turkey. But ...

Fish is KING.