Fructose-free Cooking

Fructose is a naturally occurring simple sugar found in many fruits and vegetables as well as honey. While fructose provides fewer calories than sucrose, people who suffer from fructose intolerance cannot enjoy this sweetening option. You should adjust your eating and cooking habits to avoid both mild and serious symptoms associated with fructose intolerance.

Cause of Fructose Intolerance

Fructose intolerance occurs due to the absence of aldolase B, an enzyme needed to break down fructose in the digestion process. When someone without the capability of producing this enzyme eats foods like sugarcane, beet sugar, dates, peaches, apricots and other fruits that contain fructose, the chemical changes do not allow the stored glycogen to be converted to glucose. This can cause dangerously low levels of blood sugar. Fructose intolerance can also be hereditary in nature and depends on a specific gene. If both parents are fructose-intolerant, there is a 25 percent chance their children will be fructose-intolerant.

Managing Fructose-free Diet

The best way to manage fructose intolerance is to ensure you remove fructose from your diet completely. This is only possible if you draw up a meal plan that does not include fructose so you can stick to it. You can include more protein-based foods in your meal. Foods such as red meats, pork, poultry, eggs, nuts, cheese, milk, pasta, rice, butter and some vegetables like cauliflower, spinach, peppers and lettuce are allowed.

Foods to Avoid

If you want to avoid symptoms like excessive sleepiness, irritability, jaundice, vomiting, gastrointestinal disorders, flatulence, bloating, cramping and diarrhea, you must ensure your cooking does not involve ingredients such as corn syrup, fruit juice concentrates, invert sugar or jaggery. Vegetables to be avoided include artichoke, green peppers, cabbage, eggplant, leeks, kale, lettuce, pickles, radishes, tomatoes, squash and turnips. While most of the breads are fine to consume, you should avoid sweetened brown rice and breakfast cereals.

Test Tolerance Level

A good tip for cooking fructose-free meals is to first find out your tolerance levels. Not everyone who suffers from fructose intolerance exhibits the same level of adverse reactions. To find out your level of fructose acceptance, try a no-fructose diet for four weeks and then slowly reintroduce fructose into your diet. You can do this by adding a new fruit or a vegetable you were avoiding earlier. Make sure you introduce a higher dose slowly, since fructose can take up to three days to get out of your digestive system.