Discussion Board

If I'm cooking apples for the elimination diet, should I cook them all the way down to applesauce or don't they need to be broken down that much? And other fruits too- cook them til they are completely broken down (like soupy) or is that not necessary?

Hey again Leslie - I didn't make apple sauce out of them when I cooked my fruit, but I heated them until they were soft instead of totally crisp (apples), but less for berries and cherries.

Don;t know what other people did, though, and I am pretty sure grilling is not good because it forms acrylimides(sp?), which are pro-inflammatory.

I'm currently following the elimination diet myself. I cook my fruit until soft, but not mushy. My understanding is that you just want to breakdown the proteins in the food a bit so they aren't so inflammatory.
On a side note, I've been using http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to monitor the Inflammation Factors of my food since starting the Elimination Diet. Then I came across the iPad app IF Tracker and started using it. I don't know how helpful either will be in the long run, but its more data for me (God! I am such a nerd!)
Kate

My understanding of the McDougall elimination diet is in line with others above. The purpose of cooking everything at first is to truly make the diet an elimination diet, that is, eliminate all the usual suspects. Cooking even the fruit is a precautionary step.

In all the years I have been using and discussing the elimination diet, I have never met anyone who reported that cooking the fruit made any significant difference -- as along as you are careful to cook and eat generally "safe" fruits allowed on the diet.

Suggestion: Because the elimination diet is difficult enough to follow even without cooking fruit, you might consider making your first step "back" be to stop cooking fruits that are allowed on the elimination diet. That will make the long, long process of following the elimination diet a little simpler.

Thanks everyone. That's all very helpful. I like that nutritiondata tool. Haven't figured out how to pull up a list of the most anti-inflammatory foods but I'll look again.