Every fifth adult in our country is registered with a gastroenterologist. This is largely due to chronic diseases of the liver and pancreas. Cholecystitis, hepatitis, hepatosis, cholestasis, pancreatitis, pancreatic necrosis - all these serious chronic diseases most often occur due to malnutrition and alcohol abuse. Treatment should be carried out similarly - without adjusting the menu, it is impossible to achieve remission. A diet for a sick liver and pancreas is the basis of the patient's recovery and well-being.
The basic principles of nutrition
Any gastroenterologist will confirm that proper nutrition is very important for any chronic diseases. The medical diet "Table No. 5" was created just for people with problem liver. Many patients believe that you need to eat properly only during the period of exacerbation and when they are in pain. This opinion is erroneous - if the diagnosis is already known, then the lifestyle should change once and for all according to the state of health. Diet for liver and pancreas disease plays a very important role.
The energy value of the daily diet corresponds to 2000-2500 kcal. With its decrease, the patient will experience weakness, asthenia, anorexia, loss of vitality. If it is exceeded, obesity can occur and the load on the gastrointestinal tract will increase.
A diet for pancreatic and liver disease involves minimizing harmful fats in combination with simple carbohydrates. Fried foods, fatty cakes, purchased biscuits, fried potatoes and fast food - all these “goodies” should now be left in the past once and for all.
Menu for seven days with a sick liver
Here is a sample diet describing recipes for a pancreas and liver diet:
- Monday. Breakfast - oatmeal in the water with dried fruits. You can sweeten with a teaspoon of sugar and add a drop of olive oil. A snack is not a sour apple or one banana. For lunch you can eat vegetable soup, cabbage soup, chicken pilaf (with a minimum of added oil). Snack - a pack of fat-free cottage cheese. For dinner, you can eat dried fruits, fish or chicken fillet, grilled or cooked in a double boiler.
- Tuesday. For breakfast - protein omelet (yolk undesirable to eat) with herbs or vegetables. Snack - 50 grams of your favorite nuts. Lunch - oven-baked potatoes with herbs and turkey poultry. For dinner - a briquette of fat-free cottage cheese.
- Wednesday. Breakfast - oatmeal on the water with dried fruits, banana. Can be replaced with muesli. Lunch - braised turkey with buckwheat porridge. For dinner, you can make a smoothie of kefir and the patient’s favorite fruit.
- Thursday. A glass of ryazhenka, rye bread or home-made crackers. A snack is not a sour apple or one banana. Lunch - oven-baked potatoes with herbs and turkey poultry. For dinner, you can eat dried fruits, fish or chicken fillet, grilled or cooked in a double boiler.
- Friday. For breakfast - buckwheat porridge with milk and a spoonful of sugar. Lunch - oven-baked potatoes with herbs and turkey poultry. For dinner you can treat yourself to home-made lean cookies or low-fat ice cream.
- Saturday. Breakfast - pearl barley or corn porridge with your favorite dried fruit. For lunch, you can eat vegetable soup, lean borsch, chicken pilaf (with a minimum of added oil). Snack - 50 grams of nuts, a glass of fermented baked milk. For dinner, you can please yourself with grilled fish of low-fat varieties.
- Sunday. For breakfast - protein omelet with chicken or vegetables. Lunch - pilaf with lean meat, vegetable salad seasoned with olive oil. For dinner - fish or chicken fillet, grilled or cooked in a double boiler.

Menu for pancreatic diseases
A similar menu for the week can be practiced for people with chronic pancreatitis. They can afford to focus on proteins: without restriction, you can eat lean meat (chicken, turkey, rabbit, venison), cooked with a minimum of oil. Never fry! Cooking, steaming, grilling, stewing should be preferred. Products - whether vegetables or meat - should be mashed or chopped as small as possible.
Of fruits, sour apples and berries should be limited - in many patients, they provoke pain. Fresh bakery products should be discarded. The maximum that can be made from flour is home-made crackers from whole grain bread.
Lean borscht recipe for liver diseases
You will need the following ingredients:
- young cabbage - 0.5 kg;
- 1 medium-sized carrot;
- 1 onion;
- 2 large potatoes;
- a tablespoon of tomato paste;
- a teaspoon of salt.
These ingredients must be finely chopped. Boil two liters of water in a saucepan. Lenten borsch is cooked without adding meat. Boil all the ingredients until cooked, add tomato paste five minutes before switching off.
Smoothie Recipe for Patients with Sick Liver and Pancreas
You will need the following ingredients:
- 2 cups skim milk;
- 1 ripe banana;
- a handful of your favorite ripe berries (e.g. strawberries);
- a teaspoon of sweetener.
Immerse all the ingredients in a blender bowl and beat until a cocktail of low density. It turns out a fragrant and healthy dessert. It can be consumed for breakfast, dinner or as a snack.
Diet for the acute phase of pancreatitis: a sample menu
If the acute phase of the disease occurs, the patient will have to devote several days to almost complete starvation. You can drink only a few glasses of pure water or a couple of glasses of fermented baked milk per day. At the end of fasting, it is necessary to switch to carbohydrate nutrition (mashed potato soups, mashed cereals on water, carrot and potato mashed potatoes, jelly from natural juices, jelly).
As the state eases, the menu takes on a more diverse look. Food should get on the table in a warm form four to five times a day, in small portions. It is allowed to use butter. It can be added to ready meals. This recovery period should last about two weeks.
Sample menu:
- Breakfast: oatmeal or buckwheat mashed porridge on the water, egg omelette with greens and a cup of tea.
- Second breakfast: a briquette of low-fat cottage cheese and a glass of fermented baked milk.
- Lunch: mashed vegetables and chicken soup, kefir smoothie with fruits.
- Snack: oven-baked apples with cinnamon.
- Dinner: boiled fish souffle and a cup of tea.
- At night: a decoction based on rose hips.
Alcoholic drinks with a diseased liver and pancreas
Of particular note is the use of alcoholic beverages. The diet menu for the liver and pancreas strictly eliminates the presence of any ethanol-containing fluids in the diet. Lovers of beer and wine will have to give up their addictions even on holidays.
Ethanol has a detrimental effect on liver cells. It is because of its action that irreversible degenerative processes in this organ are often triggered. In chronic alcoholism, everyone absolutely has chronic pancreatitis and problems with the pancreas. Many of them have toxic hepatitis. If you want to have a healthy liver and pancreas, give up drinking alcohol.
How smoking affects the liver
Not as much as alcohol, but also negatively affects the pancreas and liver.
After prolonged processing, nicotine turns into cotinine. This substance is unique. You can find it only in the body of an avid smoker. In high concentrations, it is toxic to the liver.
In order for the metabolism to proceed normally, the enzyme P450 is required. It is synthesized by the pancreas. Cotinin is necessary for processing drugs in the body. For smokers, this whole enzyme goes into nicotine processing. Thus, the enzyme may simply not be enough for the processing of medicinal substances.
What foods should be excluded once and for all with cholecystitis
The patient's nutrition should contain nutrients that contribute to the dilution of bile and reduce inflammatory processes. For the patient, a diet for the liver and pancreas "Table No. 5" is ideal. An example of a menu for the week is painted a little higher.
And these products will have to be abandoned in order to avoid relapse of the disease:
- fatty meat (lamb, pork, poultry, fish, liver, kidneys);
- legumes;
- fresh baked goods;
- radish fruits, spinach, sorrel leaves;
- canned and pickled foods;
- buns, chocolate products;
- adding spices, vinegar and sauces to food is prohibited;
- caviar, smoked sausages;
- horseradish and mustard, mayonnaise, any spicy and fatty sauces;
- sparkling water, strong coffee and tea.
Hepatitis Nutrition Rules
Diet for hepatitis should provide sparing conditions for the liver, normalize the functionality of the organ and biliary tract.
It is important to regulate fat and cholesterol metabolism, the function of glycogen accumulation in the liver. In some cases (depending on the individual course of the disease) it is possible to restore liver function completely.
Nutrition for hepatitis of various etiologies, according to the table of medical tables according to Pevzner, corresponds to table No. 5.
Fatty and fried foods should be discarded. Salmon fish, mushrooms, preservation, fast food, factory sweets, carbonated and alcoholic beverages should be completely excluded from the diet. Bakery products should also be forgotten. When cooking, give preference to stewing, baking, steaming.
Nutrition for cirrhosis
This is a serious incurable liver disease. To prolong remission and delay death, the use of a therapeutic diet should be a priority for the patient. In addition to proper nutrition, he should receive competent drug therapy and be constantly observed by a hepatologist and gastroenterologist. A diet for the liver and pancreas is quite loyal to a violation of certain rules, but with such a serious disease as cirrhosis, there can be no talk of any concessions. In the literal sense of the word, the life of the patient depends on the strict observance of the rules of nutrition.
The nutritional rules for cirrhotic disease approximately correspond to the general diet for liver and pancreas diseases. It must be observed as strictly as possible, any deviations can provoke an exacerbation and death of the remaining liver cells.
What foods should be excluded once and for all with pancreatitis
Chronic pancreatitis can cause severe pain, loss of consciousness, severe weakness and asthenia. So that the patient can lead an acceptable lifestyle, he will have to once and for all exclude the following products from his diet:
- fried in batter and smoked fish;
- confectionery and pastries with fatty butter creams, margarine;
- horseradish and mustard, mayonnaise, any spicy and fatty sauces;
- mushrooms;
- sour apples, berries - not more than 50 grams at a time (you should monitor whether they cause an exacerbation);
- sparkling water, strong coffee and tea;
- any alcoholic drinks.
If you follow a diet for the liver and pancreas (recipes and a sample menu for the week are presented above), you can achieve a stable remission. The pain with pancreatitis will recede for a long time, and in some cases, maybe even forever.
What desserts can I eat with a diseased liver and pancreas?
Every person from time to time wants to please himself with delicious food. But what if the diet menus for the liver and pancreas strictly exclude goodies that were previously loved by the patient? You can try the following safe and delicious desserts:
- smoothie of fruits, berries, low-fat kefir and sweetener;
- low-fat ice cream (sold in the departments of medical nutrition);
- home-made jelly candies;
- home-made lean cookies (without the addition of margarine and confectionery fat);
- soufflé from bananas and apples (ripe fruit is ground in a blender and cooled in the refrigerator);
- oven-baked sweet apples sprinkled with cinnamon and vanilla.