Worried About Dining Out? What to Eat if You Have Acid Reflux By Kirsten Whittaker At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Knowing what to eat if you have acid reflux at restaurants can be a very challenging experience. However, as long as you are dedicated to watching what you eat, you will most certainly be able to get through this challenge and enjoy eating out with your family and friends. The hard part can be accepting that you are suffering from acid reflux as an ongoing condition and you will need to practice a bit of discipline if you want to avoid unpleasant symptoms. This discipline will involve changes to both your diet and your overall lifestyle.

This won’t rule out eating in restaurants, but it will mean that you’ll need to be selective of the dishes you choose, as the foods you eat have an enormous impact on the occurrence and degree of the acid reflux symptoms you feel.

Once your doctor has diagnosed you with acid reflux, you will likely be provided with dietary suggestions to follow in order to keep your symptoms in check. At first, this can make eating out quite the daunting experience, since you’ll have been watching every ingredient that has gone into your meals. However, with time, you’ll get to know what to eat if you have acid reflux from the types of foods offered at your favorite restaurants and learn which ones fit in with your GERD-friendly diet.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t try new places or that you can’t simply head somewhere spontaneously. After all, you’re not always in charge of the restaurants where you’ll be eating. From client meetings to birthday and anniversary celebrations, there are many times when you simply find yourself at restaurants whose menus you’re unfamiliar with. In this case, if possible, go to the website for the restaurant or call ahead and find out what is on the menu. If you can’t, don’t hesitate to ask about ingredients that go into a certain dish that looks as though it has potential for your diet and palate.

Use the following tips to get you started with what to eat if you have acid reflux:

1 – Instead of ordering a full meal that will tempt you to overindulge at one sitting, try having a salad without the dressing or a simple soup. It’s easy to eat too much when you’re conversing with others and the portions are as large as they usually are at restaurants.

2 – Avoid cream dressings when you’re eating a salad. Salads with lots of (non acidic) vegetables are a terrific choice, but you’ll only negate the benefits if you choose a heavy cream-based dressing. Instead, try a light dressing.

3 – Red meats and greasy foods should be avoided altogether, as they cause a great deal of acid to be formed in the stomach and take longer to digest so they remain in the stomach longer than other foods. Instead, choose lean poultry and grilled or steamed foods.

4 – Dairy can give GERD sufferers a very hard time. Instead, try soy-based equivalents. Soy has come a long way over the last few years and you may find soy milks, cheese, and ice creams pleasantly surprising.

5 – Although it’s best not to drink wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages at all, if you want to have a drink limit your consumption to small amounts and have a glass of water on hand too.

Though this may seem like a lot of rules for what to eat if you have acid reflux, as you build good habits, you’ll discover that it’s not as challenging as you once thought and that there are many appealing alternatives to your old favorites.

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