SICKLE CELL AND FIBRE

Sickle Cell and Fibre foods

If you suffer from Sickle Cell or know someone who does, encourage them or make sure that you eat food filled with fibre, as such foods have a positive impact on one’s health and well being.  Fibre helps to move food along the digestive system and enables the digestive system to work at its best.  Fibre helps to regulate bowel function and this is necessary as sometimes, the tablets that we take, makes it difficult to go to the toilet.  It also keeps all manner of stomach problems at bay, such as: IBS, constipation, bowel cancer and haemorrhoids.  As you eat more food enriched with fibre, do make sure you drink plenty of water.   Fibre comes from food that come from plants and not fish, meat.  

Examples of food with fibre are: the list below is not exhaustive…

Any food with wheat, oat (brown rice, bran cereals, corn bran) are rich in fibre;

most beans are high in fibre (adzuki, black, lentils, kidney, white);

any berry family (strawberry, gooseberry, blackberry, currants) are also rich in fibre;

wholegrain foods ( popcorn, rye flour, millet, quinoa, wheat flour – a lot of these you can find in varieties of bread, rice, spaghetti, cereal, crackers etc) are also high in fibre;

all peas are also rich in fibre; all greens ( collard, spinach, kale) are high in fibre;

nuts ( almonds, cashew, peanuts, walnuts) are high in fibre; all seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, flaxseed, sesame) are rich in fibre;

vegetables (cabbage – red or green, cauliflower, broccoli,  Brussels sprouts) are rich in fibre;

potatoes, especially sweet potatoes are high in fibre;

fruits (banana, avocado, coconut, orange, guava, raisins, peaches) are high in fibre;

okra is rich in fibre.

All these food rich in fibre also possess protective agents in them, such as antioxidants.

So help yourself by eating better and having a more crisis free life.