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Diet in chronic cholecystitis
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025

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Diet for chronic cholecystitis seems to be the most effective and correct way to treat this disease.
Chronic cholecystitis is a dysfunction of the gallbladder due to frequent inflammations occurring in it. Inflammatory processes in the gallbladder can be caused by many factors, such as: congenital deformation of the bile ducts or the gallbladder itself, obstruction of the bile ducts, neoplasms in the abdominal cavity, physical injuries to the gallbladder, metabolic disorders, poor nutrition, and an insufficiently active lifestyle.
This diet involves fractional and frequent meals, often about 5 meals a day. During this diet, there are some restrictions on the products that should be consumed during the diet. So, the diet for chronic cholecystitis involves almost complete exclusion of fatty, fried and smoked foods. During the diet, the consumption of fatty types of fish, meat and poultry is excluded, such as: salmon, salmon, pangasius, herring, mackerel, goose, duck, all parts of turkey and chicken, with the exception of pork fillet, lamb, etc.
It is allowed to eat boiled food, almost all types of porridge (except pea and millet), low-fat dairy products, 15% fat sour cream, hake, tuna (only not canned), chicken or turkey fillet, veal and beef. It is also allowed to eat baked varieties of permitted fish, meat and poultry, steamed protein omelette, fresh vegetable salads without the addition of onions or garlic, seasoned with low-fat kefir or a small amount of 15% sour cream.
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Treatment of chronic cholecystitis with diet
Treatment of chronic cholecystitis with diet is not only the right decision, but also a necessary condition for the successful recovery of the patient. This diet is completely complete and offers variety in the diet. The diet for cholecystitis contains a high amount of proteins, vitamins and mineral salts, carbohydrates are present in limited quantities and any fats are practically excluded.
When following this diet, the main source of protein is meat, low-fat cottage cheese, skim milk, and dried bread (bakery products made from white flour are not recommended). However, when choosing products for the diet, remember that any fatty food can harm your liver and gallbladder, so your diet should contain low-fat varieties of fish, poultry, and meat, such as: beef, chicken fillet, turkey fillet, veal, cod, pike perch, carp, navaga, or pike.
An important aspect of the diet for cholecystitis is the method of cooking. Meat or fish must be boiled or steamed, you can also bake them in the oven without adding fat, but the latter method of cooking is not recommended during an exacerbation of cholecystitis. Also, during the diet, you will have to completely exclude any broths, except for vegetable ones (excluding the addition of peas or beans to such broths).
What is the diet for chronic cholecystitis?
Based on the existing regulations and restrictions regarding certain products in the patient's diet, the question arises: what kind of diet for chronic cholecystitis? First of all, it should be noted that its essence is to, while maintaining full saturation of the body, create conditions for chemical sparing of the liver and promote normal functioning of the bile ducts and improve bile outflow. The diet for chronic cholecystitis involves fractional meals 4 to 5 times a day in small portions. Systematic nutrition always at the same time has a beneficial effect on the processes of bile secretion.
The total weight of the daily ration should not exceed 3 kg, of which 1.5 to 2 liters are free liquid. Table salt is allowed in quantities of no more than 8-10 grams per day. It is necessary to refrain from eating very cold dishes, the temperature of which should not be lower than 15 degrees Celsius. Hot dishes should not be heated to more than 62 ° C. To promote the normalization of the digestive system, there is a need for natural dietary fiber, which is mainly found in wheat bran. In slightly smaller quantities, they are present in nuts, fruits and vegetables, in rolled oats.
Wheat bran can be consumed in its natural form in the amount of 2-3 tablespoons, as well as dishes prepared from it. Wheat bran is prepared as follows: 2-3 tablespoons are steamed with boiling water and infused for half an hour. After that, divided into four parts, they should be eaten during the day, washed down with milk or used as an additive to soups and borscht, to porridge. A decoction of bran also has a positive effect. It is prepared by grinding in a coffee grinder, then poured with boiling water and boiled for 10 minutes. After letting it brew from several hours to one day, the decoction is filtered and sugar and lemon juice are added to it. Honey can be used as an alternative to sugar.
Diet 5 for chronic cholecystitis
Diet 5 for chronic cholecystitis defines a diet that consists of eating small amounts of food 5 to 6 times a day. Food for this diet should be boiled or baked so that a rough crust does not appear. Stewed and steamed dishes are also allowed. Ready meals should be heated to a temperature of 20 to 52 degrees Celsius.
It is recommended to include in the diet well-cooked porridges with milk mixed with water from buckwheat and oatmeal, and rice. Vegetarian soups with mashed vegetables and well-cooked rice, oatmeal, finely chopped potatoes, pumpkin, carrots are allowed. Dietary prescriptions also allow eating milk soups mixed with water, cream soups and creams. The number of permitted bakery products includes: bread from wheat flour of the 1st and 2nd grades, dried rye bread from peeled and sifted flour, as well as unsweetened cookies.
Dietary recommendations regarding meat provide the opportunity to include lean meats, beef, veal, chicken and turkey, rabbit meat in the diet. Before eating, all tendons must be removed from the meat, and the skin must be removed from the poultry. For cutlets, use lean mince, and they must be steamed.
Diet 5 for chronic cholecystitis allows you to diversify your diet with lean fish - steamed, boiled and in cutlets. You can eat lean soaked herring, stuffed fish, seafood salads.
Dairy products allowed in this diet are represented by milk, fresh curdled milk, kefir, acidophilus milk. You can eat low-fat and semi-fat cottage cheese, as well as low-fat and mild cheese.
You can diversify your menu with vegetables using raw, mashed, boiled or steamed vegetables: greens, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and beets. They are prepared as mashed potatoes, soufflés, etc. In addition, you can make baked and steamed omelets from eggs. To do this, you need to stick to the ratio of half or one whole yolk to 1-2 whites.
Tea and coffee should be brewed weak; tea can be with lemon, and coffee – with milk. Rosehip decoction and fruit and berry juices are also useful drinks.
Consumption of butter should be limited to 10-20 g per day. Table salt is allowed no more than 10 g per day.
Diet for chronic calculous cholecystitis
Before moving on to the question of what diet should be for chronic calculous cholecystitis, it is necessary to define what this disease is. Chronic calculous cholecystitis is a form of this disease that is characterized by the formation of stones in the gallbladder. The disease is also widely known under its other name - cholelithiasis. This type is the most unfavorable in terms of prognosis, since it causes blockage of the bile ducts and in almost all cases leads to the need for surgical intervention.
The onset of gallstone disease is signaled by attacks of pain in the right hypochondrium. In some cases, such pain symptoms may occur after eating, especially if the food was heavy and fatty. Due to this, factors such as a healthy lifestyle and diet seem very important for successful recovery. The set of treatment measures necessarily includes dietary prescriptions from the relevant medical specialists.
The list of permitted and undesirable products for consumption, which regulates the diet for chronic calculous cholecystitis, is based on diet No. 5a. This diet is aimed at promoting the optimization of the processes of bile removal from the body. After several months of such a diet, they switch to therapeutic diet No. 5.
According to dietary recommendations, food should be boiled or steamed and should not contain heavy animal proteins. The patient's diet should not include millet, cabbage, sausages and smoked meats, berries and offal. Consumption of alcoholic beverages is strictly prohibited during the entire course of treatment.
Diet for chronic acalculous cholecystitis
Chronic acalculous or noncalculous cholecystitis is characterized by a state of chronic inflammation in the gallbladder. In most cases, this disease is accompanied by motor-tonic disorders of bile outflow functions, the peculiarity of which is that they do not lead to the formation of stones.
One of the methods of treating chronic acalculous cholecystitis is diet therapy. So, the diet for chronic acalculous cholecystitis involves a diet characterized by frequent - from 4 to 6 times a day fractional meals in small quantities. The frequency and fractional nature of meals is a factor that contributes to the fact that the gallbladder is emptied regularly.
It is not recommended to eat fatty, fried and spicy foods, carbonated water and alcoholic drinks such as wine and beer are also prohibited. It is recommended to refrain from eating baked goods, nuts, egg yolks, cold dishes, raw vegetables and fruits.
The diet for chronic acalculous cholecystitis, if the disease has entered the acute stage, prescribes the use of freshly prepared food exclusively in warm form. The main method of cooking food should be boiling or it can be steamed. Dishes from cereals and vegetables can also be baked in the oven.
Diet for exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis
The diet for exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis involves frequent and fractional meals up to 6 times a day. Cooking food when the disease has worsened requires a more careful approach to this process. All products must be washed and cooked very thoroughly. Vegetables should be cooked exclusively as mashed potatoes, meat and fish - only mashed or boiled. The amount of salt used in cooking should be significantly reduced.
Below we will consider one of the options for a one-day menu for a patient with acute chronic cholecystitis.
For the first breakfast you can eat oatmeal with milk and cottage cheese paste. With tea with sugar and lemon, a little white stale bread with butter in an amount of no more than 5 grams is allowed.
The second breakfast includes applesauce and dry biscuits with rosehip broth and sugar.
For lunch, we offer stale white bread, potato or carrot soup, boiled fish or boiled vermicelli with steamed meat soufflé. Vermicelli can be replaced with mashed potatoes. Also for lunch - jelly, compote, juice or kissel.
For an afternoon snack, you can have white bread croutons with fruit juice or rosehip infusion.
For dinner, you can have a steamed cutlet or protein omelette. An alternative is cottage cheese soufflé. After eating, you are offered to wash it down with rosehip broth or berry jelly.
Before going to bed, drink a glass of milk, kefir or yogurt.
When the diet for exacerbation of chronic cholecystitis leads to the disease retreating from its acute phase, after consultation with a doctor, you can gradually begin to introduce more other products into the diet, which helps to ensure adequate nutrition for the body.
Diet for chronic pancreatitis and cholecystitis
The usefulness of bread is beyond doubt - it is rich in vegetable proteins. But in this case, the maximum usefulness is only for stale or specially dried bread. It is better digestible, which mainly applies to bread baked from white flour. Rye bread contains a large amount of vegetable fiber, which helps optimize the functioning of the intestines, including the process of emptying the gallbladder. This prevents the occurrence of bile stagnation.
The diet for chronic pancreatitis and cholecystitis includes rye bread and raw and boiled fruits and vegetables. Vegetable soups are recommended without any restrictions.
As for eggs, it is necessary to consider in more detail all the pros and cons of their use. The fact is that eggs contain cholesterol, which is one of the factors in the formation of gallstones and adversely affects the functioning of the liver. In the absence of exacerbation, it is permissible to eat one whole egg with the yolk once a day. Whipped whites can be used to prepare meat, fish, cottage cheese or vegetable soufflé, fruit and berry mousses.
The diet for chronic pancreatitis and cholecystitis involves including only fresh, frozen or steamed fish in the patient's diet. Frozen fish must first be thawed at room temperature. It should be taken into account that long soaking in water can lead to the loss of many useful substances by the fish. In order to boil the fish in pieces, you need to pour boiling water over it, and in the event that you need to remove the extractive substances contained in it, the optimal method is steaming.
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Diet menu for chronic cholecystitis
The diet menu for chronic cholecystitis is based on the principles of diet No. 5. The diet is distinguished by a complete composition of all the substances necessary for the body. The diet of a patient with chronic cholecystitis should not include products that are characterized by high cholesterol content, which is typical of yolks, lungs, brains, liver, kidneys. Broths are also prohibited for chronic cholecystitis - be it meat, fish or mushroom, smoked foods, marinades, canned goods, sausages, legumes, sorrel, spinach, radish, green onions, garlic, spices, lard, cocoa and chocolate - which contain extractive substances. It is recommended to exclude fried foods from the patient's menu and include more products that have a lipotropic effect in the diet. These include: buckwheat and oatmeal, lean meat, fish, the consumption of which prevents the formation of excess fat deposits in the liver. To ensure better bile drainage, you should drink approximately two liters of liquid per day.
The diet menu for chronic cholecystitis requires frequent (up to 5 times a day) and fractional meals, which should not be chopped, steamed or baked.
As an example, let's look at one of the possible menu options at the recovery stage.
During the first breakfast, it is suggested to eat boiled fish or soaked herring with a side dish of buckwheat porridge or boiled potatoes. You can spread 5 grams of butter on white or black bread. Sweet tea with a slice of lemon or a cup of weak natural coffee with milk are allowed.
For the second breakfast - cottage cheese with sour cream, which should be no more than 10 grams, or cheese. Alternatively - a little mild cheese. One apple and a glass of rosehip broth.
For lunch you can have vegetable vegetarian soup, for the second course - stewed carrots and green peas with a steamed cutlet or boiled meat. Compote of dried fruits or fresh fruits.
For an afternoon snack, we recommend unsweetened cookies or rusks from a bun or loaf, with tea with sugar and lemon.
For dinner, you can have cabbage rolls stuffed with boiled meat and rice, or a cottage cheese casserole with soaked prunes. Tea with honey, jam, or a glass of rosehip infusion.
Diet recipes for chronic cholecystitis
In order to provide the body with proper and complete nutrition during the disease, there are various recipes for a diet for chronic cholecystitis. Let's consider some of them.
- Beef cutlets with vegetables
To prepare them, the meat is boiled until done and cut into pieces. After cutting the carrots into cubes and separating the cauliflower into florets, the vegetables are stewed in a small amount of water, to which butter is added. The vegetables stewed in this way are combined with the meat and, after salting, passed through a meat grinder, after which you need to add eggs and 5 grams of butter. The resulting mass is thoroughly whipped, and cutlets are formed from it, which are fried in a frying pan greased with butter. If desired, pieces of boiled potatoes or vermicelli are laid out around, everything is greased with sour cream or sour cream mixed with flour, sprinkled with grated cheese and baked in the oven.
- Potato soup
Washed potatoes are peeled, cut into slices and together with carrots, washed, peeled and cut into cubes, sautéed in butter or stewed in a small amount of water. Onions must be peeled and cut into slices, sautéed in butter. First, the prepared potatoes are placed in boiling water, and after 10 to 15 minutes, the onions and carrots must be added there, and the soup must be brought to readiness.
Diet recipes for chronic cholecystitis also suggest making all kinds of jellies. Let's take orange jellies as an example.
The oranges are peeled and squeezed to extract the juice. The zest (the orange part of the skin) should be cut into thin strips. Cold water is poured over the gelatin in a ratio of 1 to 6-10, and after it has swelled for 30-40 minutes, the excess water is strained through cheesecloth. Hot water with sugar added is brought to a boil, and the prepared zest and gelatin are placed in the syrup obtained in this way. After this, stirring continuously, the syrup is brought to a boil and filtered. The next step is to add orange juice to the syrup and stir. Then everything is poured into molds, which should be kept cold - about 8 degrees Celsius for 1-2 hours.
To remove the jelly from the mold and place it on a plate, hold it in hot water for 1-2 seconds, wipe it with a towel, cover it with a plate, turn it upside down and shake it a little.
What can you eat with chronic cholecystitis?
With so many dietary restrictions, a reasonable question arises: what can you eat with chronic cholecystitis? If you dig deeper, it turns out that people suffering from chronic cholecystitis can eat quite a lot of healthy and, most importantly, tasty dishes and products. For example, from flour products, you can eat dried, not fresh and in no case freshly baked bread, preferably from rye flour or second-grade wheat flour. In order to make eating bread more enjoyable, you can dry it in a toaster and eat it chilled.
You can also eat baked pies with meat, apples, fish or low-fat cottage cheese and all sorts of casseroles made from low-fat cottage cheese, semolina and vermicelli - fortunately, it is now easy to find the most suitable recipe on the Internet. Of the meat products, you can eat beef, veal, chicken and turkey fillet. Of the fish, it is allowed to eat navaga, perch, pink salmon, cod, pike perch and hake, but the fish should also be boiled, steamed or baked in the oven.
Recommended soups include vegetable broths, fruit soup, skim milk soups, or borscht without beans, meat, or cooked in a non-meat broth. You can eat low-fat or fat-free fermented milk products, such as sour milk, kefir, yogurt, etc. Eggs can be eaten in the form of a protein omelet and one egg per day. Sweets include marmalade or candies that do not contain chocolate, fat, or cocoa, but no more than 60 grams of sugar per day. Drinks include weakly brewed black or green teas, fruit drinks, herbal teas, vegetable or fruit and berry juices.
What should you not eat if you have chronic cholecystitis?
Despite the fact that the diet for chronic cholecystitis is quite balanced and complete, it is important to remember what you should not eat with chronic cholecystitis.
One of the first is a ban on the consumption of flour products made from white flour, puff pastry or shortcrust pastry, fresh or freshly baked bread, cakes and pastries with cream. It is also recommended to refrain from eating fatty meats - lamb and pork, fried meat and game (duck, goose). In addition, with chronic cholecystitis, sausages, smoked meats, canned food and offal should be excluded from the diet. If you like caviar, salted, smoked or fatty fish, such as chum salmon, sturgeon, unfortunately, you will have to forget the taste of these products. After all, they are included in the list of what you can not eat with chronic cholecystitis.
In addition, chronic cholecystitis requires a diet that does not contain fats of either vegetable or animal origin: lard, margarine, mustard. The ban also applies to eggs, fried or boiled. It is necessary to refuse to include mushrooms, green onions, pickled vegetables, radishes and horseradish in the diet. Chronic cholecystitis forces you to part with such a delicacy as ice cream, as well as soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. With this disease, you will have to give up cocoa and black coffee.
With caution, it is permissible to consume fermented baked milk and fatty (6 percent) milk, sour cream, cream, salted cheese and fatty cottage cheese.