​Meal for half a month after gastrectomy

Patients who have undergone gastrectomy should still not be careless. Do not think that they can eat whatever they want after the operation, nor do they think that they cannot eat anything after the operation. This is incorrect. Patients who have undergone gastrectomy need to pay special attention to their diet. Here we will introduce how to customize the menu for half a month after gastrectomy. Patients can follow the following principles to gradually recover their health.

1. Understand the nutritional principles of diet: provide a high-calorie, high-protein, high-vitamin, moderate fat, and easy-to-digest diet with not too much sugar to promote physical recovery and wound healing. Take a step-by-step approach to gradually meet nutritional needs.

2. Eat small and frequent meals: Increase the frequency of meals to ensure the body's nutrient intake. You can eat 5-6 meals a day. After surgery, start taking liquid food. For example, for various broths (chicken, fish, beef, etc.), the amount per meal can be gradually increased from 40 ml to 100-200 ml. The time for liquid food should be shortened as much as possible, and it is better to swallow semi-liquid food without chewing. You can use various broths to make egg drop soup, steamed egg custard, or rice noodle paste. Then gradually adapt to increasing the amount until it is tolerable, and increase the food content such as thick porridge, minced meat porridge, small noodles, thin noodles and eggs, etc., and try to make it mushy, neither thin nor dry.

3. Separate dry and liquid food: Liquid food stays in the stomach for a very short time, so you can eat liquid food first and then dry food, so that the food enters the stomach slowly and goes down. Drink less soup and beverages, especially limit water intake after meals.

4. Avoid all irritating, crude fiber and gas-producing foods: such as coarse grains, high-fiber and gas-producing vegetables, such as radishes, leeks, onions, etc.

5. Limit the amount of monosaccharides: Excessive sugar can cause a large amount of intestinal fluid secretion, resulting in reactive hypoglycemia. The intake of sugars should be limited at each meal. It is best to mix monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides to prolong the absorption time. Monosaccharides and disaccharides should not be consumed alone to prevent the occurrence of "dumping syndrome".

6. Overcome the fear of eating: Patients after subtotal gastrectomy should be guided and encouraged to start eating soft and easily digestible food, and gradually increase the amount of food to allow the gastrointestinal tract to gradually adapt and thus transition to a normal diet.