What food is good to take trekking for acid reflux?

Question

There are quite a few questions here about suitable foods for different excursions / types of food to take etc. Inspired by questions like this and this I decided to finally ask this one.

I happen to have Acid Reflux which, for those who don't know what it's like, is like a permanent heartburn / indigestion feeling at its best, at it's worst there are chest pains, constant burping, and the oh so attractive 'sicky burp'. There are a number of foods which are supposedly good for Acid Reflux, but I'm not sure which would be good for trekking and I am unable to go too long without meat before needing some. For example on a bad AR day or a few days meat free a burger settles my stomach best, and this has been talked over with my doctor.

What foods are good for trekking, but also won't upset to stomach / Acid Reflux?

Answer 1

Its an answer which you may not find specifically good for you, but rather more of a generic approach towards a person suffering from Acid Reflux.

Narrowing down the scope up to foods/meals over a trek, I'd suggest:

• Yogurt. You can try Trail Yogurt Recipe
• Peanut butter as against eating Walnuts, Almond, etc.
• Whatever that is rich with Fiber: Oatmeal, Blackberries, whole grain products, You can find bran cereals, digestive biscuits and fiber bars nearly everywhere.
• Have a tea, with Ginger. Ginger helps.
• Eat Salads, though without Tomatoes and Onions. Let the Salad be green with Celery, Parsley, Cauliflower and other Green vegetables.
• Trekking diet should contain fruits, but you can only afford to have Bananas, Melons.
• Chicken and Fish are good to have, but remove the skin as its high with fats. You can have it boiled, baked, do not fry it though.

You didn't ask for it, but I'll suggest what you should avoid eating:

• Citrus fruits: Lime, Grapefruit, Orange
• Curd and allied food that contains Lactic acid.
• Lactose rich diet: Milk and allied products. The Lactose Intolerance can vary person to person.
• Avoid fried meat, Pork, Beef.
• Avoid Potato chips, Fries and Onion rings.

Enzymes and Acids play a huge role in Digestion. The more heavy you eat, the more enzymes and acids are needed and hence secreted. High-Fat foods are hard to digest, that can really cause you a trouble.

Answer 2

If I had to bring one thing for acid reflux, it'd be a bottle of citric acid powder.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as crackpot-ish, but it's solved the bulk of my acid reflux problem.

Any evening I ate pizza or legumes, like clockwork I'd be lying awake half the night from extreme acid reflux, the kind you have to swallow. If I wanted to get up early, then I couldn't eat my favorite meals. It was terrible. Antacids seemed to do nothing (i.e. stomach seemed to compensate with more acid).

Dad always drank soda (carbonic acid) with his meat to help digestion, and I wondered if there was anything to this. Some websites say there is. The theory is that acid reflux is a result of excessive stomach churning from indigestion, and that supplementing your HCl with some extra acid can actually aid digestion and calm the stomach contractions that are pushing acid up your throat. So I started drinking dilute lemon juice with the acid-causing meals. It turns out I can actually sleep at night after a problem-meal. So I drink lemon juice with almost all my meals now.

Could the effect be psychological/placebic? Could be. Will it work for everyone? Maybe not. But the acid I still get with any meal now is manageable/ignorable.

So, PERSONALLY, on a trek I'd bring a bottle of citric acid powder.