Acid reflux is caused by the backward movement of food from the intestine to the esophagus.
Acid reflux causes an uncomfortable sensation and some patients suffer acute pain.
Both adults and children suffer from the problem.
Acid reflux is a condition that can be easily avoided by making changes to the daily diet.
The diet recommendations to avoid this problem are that the patients eats small frequent meals at regular intervals.
The portions eaten should be small.
These two basic recommendations should solve acid reflux problems for most patients.
Patients can eat all their favorite foods as long as they restrict the intake to small measured portions.
Avoiding some food helps to eliminate acid reflux.
Alcohol, beer and wine should be avoided to avoid this problem.
Acidic vegetables like tomatoes and citrus fruits should be avoided.
Packaged food items that contain additives and chemicals cause this problem.
High fat food and fried fast food should be avoided.
Onions, garlic, cabbages and cauliflower cause these symptoms.
Herbs like peppermint or spearmint also trigger acid reflux.
Once these herbs, vegetables and fruits are removed from the diet, the digestive process will run smoothly and the acidic content of the food will not return to injure the esophagus.
Coffee, tea, acidic fruit drinks like lemon and orange juice and carbonated soft drinks increase the occurrence of symptoms.
Infants and children suffer acid reflux and begin to vomit.
Parents should carefully monitor the food that causes symptoms in children and avoid serving the ingredients to children.
Food that helps patients with this issue are low fat foods, fresh non-citric fruits, fresh vegetables that are not known to cause this issue, lean meat, fish, carbohydrate food like rice, corn, bread and pasta, soy based food, low fat salad dressings, low fat diary, low fat desserts, low fat cookies, jelly beans and low fat or baked crisps.
The diet should include fresh ingredients rather than packaged ingredients and should be chemical free.
Herbs like ginger, fennel and licorice prevent this problem.
Mineral water should be used to wash down the food.
These are largely personalized diets.
Food should be taken out of or added to the diet depending on the individual needs of patients.
Patients often find that some food that should be generally avoided do not cause this issue while some dietary ingredients that are considered good for this issue may cause heartburn.
An acid reflux diet is at best a trial and error diet.
There are many dietary myths associated with this issue.
Drinking cold milk is supposed to reduce the possibility of this problem but experts believe that milk may be the cause of this problem.
The notion that spicy food causes this problem is also a myth.
Experts believe that patients can enjoy all kinds of food without the uncomfortable possibility of an acid reflux if food is eaten in restricted portions.
Smaller quantities of food relieve the pressure on the abdomen.
This problem is a painful condition that can be easily corrected by restricting food intake and eating small meals.