Besides creating a meal plan for people with hepatitis B, you need to know how to prepare, select, and use food safely to minimize potential risks from food, which can directly threaten the health of patients every day.
Food preparation methods
Limit frying/baking: Cooking food at high temperatures by frying/baking/stir-frying produces heterocyclic amine compounds, which increase the risk of colorectal cancer and liver cancer.
Avoid elaborate cooking methods: Elaborate cooking, such as using many types of herbs and spices (in hot pot), many types of sauces (in grilled meat), or combining many complex ingredients (in salads)... can increase the metabolic burden on the liver, causing hepatitis to recover slowly or worsen.
Marinate with antioxidants: Besides salt and sugar, you can choose to marinate food with garlic, ginger, turmeric, etc., to provide the liver with more antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, while also making the dish more appealing and stimulating to the taste buds.
Cooking food at high temperatures by frying, grilling, or stir-frying produces heterocyclic amine compounds, which in turn increase the risk of colorectal and liver cancer.
Avoid raw foods: Raw dishes such as raw shrimp salad, sushi, sashimi, raw vegetables, raw salads, rare meat, soft-boiled eggs, etc., can pose a risk of food poisoning and liver infection due to the attack of bacteria such as E. coli, Listeria, and Toxoplasma. Therefore, avoiding raw foods will help you prevent unnecessary health risks.
How to choose food
Prioritize soft foods: The diet for people with hepatitis B should prioritize dishes like porridge/stews/soups made from lean minced meat and vegetables because they have a soft texture, are easy to chew, swallow, and digest, and are also very nutritious.
Prioritize complex carbohydrates: Instead of eating a lot of white rice, bread, porridge, noodles, vermicelli, pho, and rice noodles, people with hepatitis B should eat more whole grains (brown rice, wheat, barley, whole-wheat bread, etc.), leafy green vegetables, fresh fruits rich in fiber, root vegetables, potatoes, nuts, and beans.
Prioritize healthy fats: A diet for people with hepatitis B should only contain 30-45ml of vegetable oil or fatty fish oil (salmon, tuna, mackerel, etc.).
If animal fat is present, absolutely do not consume more than 22g/day (or the equivalent of 10% of the total calorie content in your diet).
The diet for people with hepatitis B should prioritize dishes like porridge, stews, and soups.
Choose the right type of milk and eggs: Milk should be skim milk, high in protein. Eggs should be cooked thoroughly, and fresh eggs should be chosen; absolutely avoid salted eggs or soft-boiled eggs.
Minimize your consumption of red meat, especially meat from young livestock: Red meat is high in cholesterol, which can worsen liver inflammation.
Meanwhile, meat from young livestock (calves, lambs, piglets) contains high levels of nucleoprotein – a type of protein that can increase the risk of cancer if consumed in excess.
How to use food
Cooked food should be eaten on the same day, avoiding food that has been left overnight; do not arbitrarily try unfamiliar foods, especially when traveling ;
Keep raw food separate from cooked food to avoid cross-contamination of viruses that cause food poisoning; eat at least four meals a day to reduce the metabolic burden on the liver.