EAT WITHOUT FEAR
These handy recipes can help cut fat to boost your gallbladder health
Juliet Sullivan vividly recalls the moment when she had her first gallbladder attack.
“I was sitting on the beach one day, and about half-an-hour after eating lunch, a sudden and excruciating pain ripped through my chest and stomach,” she says. “Once I was sure I wasn’t having a heart attack, I put it down to indigestion, and didn’t think any more of it.”
That is, until a few days later when the agonizing experience occurred again. And, then again.
“The third time, I ended up at emergency, but the doctors were baffled,” she recalls.
“The fourth time, I had a round of tests including a CT scan, which is where they discovered my collection of stones.”
Gallstones are hard, pebble-like particles typically made of cholesterol or bilirubin, that develop in the gallbladder, according to Sullivan.
“They can range in size from a grain of sand to a golf ball.
“Gallbladder disease is an incredibly common problem in western cultures. But there seems to be a lack of awareness and understanding generally about (it),” Sullivan says. “I myself had never heard of gallstones before I was diagnosed.
“Some people can have gallstones without ever knowing they have them.”
Triggers for gallstone attacks can differ from person to person, Sullivan explains. Hers were brought on after digesting fat, regardless of whether it was a “healthy” fat or a “bad” fat.
“Fat doesn’t necessarily cause gallstones to form, but it certainly is the enemy once you have them,” she says. “In my case, it was olive oil and almonds.”
Following the diagnosis, Sullivan jokingly remembers feeling “very sorry” for herself.
“At the time it was very difficult,” says the British-born author who now lives in the Lower Mainland. “The only way for me to avoid the agonizing pain of a gallstones attack was to eat very little fat, and so my diet changed overnight.”
The diagnosis and new reality of her diet forced Sullivan to learn a lot about gallstones and gallstone-friendly food, very quickly.
“After my doctor told me to cut fat from my diet, I started researching how to eat without using fat, and realized there were very few cookbooks available in this genre, mainly because it is not healthy to cut fat from your diet,” she says.
“But there were also very few books about gallstones either.”
So, she decided to create one of her own. “I have been flirting with writing a memoir-type book for years, as memoir is my writing style, and so I incorporated a few chapters of ‘my story’ into the book, to add a context, and also to show the funny side of gallstones,” she says.
“There isn’t one, of course, but I tried anyway,” she says of the book, which she originally self-published before the title was picked up by a publisher for its second edition.
By a process of trial and error, Sullivan came up with a collection of recipes that met the criteria for cooking and eating with gallstones in mind.
The recipes are given a star rating to identify the approximate fat content of each dish — three stars for “ultralow fat” (about less than three grams of fat per serving); two stars for “low fat” (about less than five grams of fat per serving); and a single star for “lowish fat” (about five grams of fat per serving plus the protein).
“Being British, I grew up on my grandma’s shepherd’s pies and apple pies. Lots of pies, actually, which does go some way to explaining how I ended up with gallstones,” she says good-humouredly. “(But) I love food, and I was not prepared to live on dry toast and apple-cider vinegar for six months while I waited for my operation to remove my gallbladder. So I set about creating recipes that mirrored the kind of food I love, without some of the offending ingredients.”
The book, The Gallstone-friendly Diet: Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Gallstones (And How to Keep on Their Good Side), includes a variety of dishes including breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides and dessert options.
When asked to pick a personal favourite, Sullivan pointed toward recipes that show just how close she was able to keep her dietary restriction-abiding dishes to her food heritage roots, albeit with a few thoughtful (and, in some cases, inventive) modifications.
“So that I didn’t feel too harddone-by, I created homely recipes such as veggie shepherd’s pie using lentils and sweet potato, and it is delicious. It is easily as delicious as the meat version. And it uses no fat. It is a healthy comfort food,” she says. “The apple pie is another story, because you can’t have an apple pie without the pie part. I just retrained myself how to think about desserts and treats.
“In this case, once you ditch the pastry, it is actually quite surprising how tasty a baked apple can be, especially if you throw a bit of zero-fat yogurt on top.”
Sullivan hopes that readers — whether those who are simply curious about discovering healthy alternatives to their favourite dishes or those who are suffering from gallstones themselves — better understand the impact that a proper diet can have on their health, and earn a greater understanding (and maybe a healthy dose of fear) of what exactly gallstones are, who can develop them and, most importantly, how to avoid them.
“There is a common belief that the only people susceptible to gallstones are female, fair, fat and over 40,” she says.
“Whilst there is some evidence that all of these factors can play a part, the fact is that anyone can develop gallstones, even children. Cutting back on refined carbs and increasing fibre intake has been suggested to be the best way to avoid forming gallstones.
“Because, believe me, if you can avoid forming gallstones, you really should.
“They are evil.”