Love fruit & veg, both cooked and in salads. Tend to get way more than 5 a day! I try to avoid anything with added sugar (gastritis), except baked beans & a little 70% dark choc, though for years made our own baked beans without sugar - so much tastier than tinned! I agree about home made soups being a great way to get veg into the diet and cooking veg definitely makes it easier on a sensitive tummy.
I stew tart-tasting eating apples such as Cox with blackberries (no sugar) - lovely with porridge or a home made cereal mix, moistened with plenty of yoghurt whisked with milk. Baked plums are also delicious cooled and eaten with cereals & the yoghurt mix. I like the mild tasting natural yoghurt brands & buy the high protein types to slow digestion & stabilise blood sugar. It is certainly easy to make your own yoghurt, especially with a yoghurt maker. Also tried & failed to make kefir in mine (with shop bought kefir as a starter) & have baulked at buying the kefir grains, for fear the stuff would die when we go away on hols!
Used to eat a lot of veggie meals, but these days, have a good portion of protein with every meal to minimise hypoglycaemia. Beans, nuts & eggs don't seem enough, so we now eat fish or meat every day. Also eat all sorts of nuts & seeds.
Made all our bread for a couple of years but the lazy way - soda bread - as can't be bothered with all that kneading & proving! These days I buy a thin, small-sliced, wholegrain bread, but only eat a slice or two a day, as too much wheat is sadly for me, tummy clogging. I love stodgy whole rye bread that's really substantial & suety, toasted on one side, spread with good olive oil & well seasoned with s&p or buttered if I'm feeling reckless! To avoid overdosing on wheat I use GF pastas & basmati rice, brown, wild & red Camargue.
For some reason I can't fathom, since peri, oily fish guarantees night sweats will be worse, even though the fish is eaten hours before, at lunch time
Sounds barking admitting that & it took me a long time to put 2 & 2 together, but it does seem to be a fact! Another of the unimaginably weird things I could never have dreamed would come with menopause. We also eat white fish & a lot of chicken, but not much red meat.
Because of osteopenia I try to get lots of dairy & tend to soup up cottage cheese by adding something tastier. Love all cheese but especially brie left out to soften, proper feta, goats cheese & vintage cheddar. I don't go overboard though, as want to keep cholesterol healthy but get a bit fed up the goal posts keep moving on that one
If any of that sounds worthy, I relax it at weekends & on hols & think a little of what you fancy is a very good thing (and a lot is even better!) Love cooking, but cook far less from scratch these days - hot kitchen, sleep-deprived cook & sharp knives to hand mean only fools rush in to interfere.
IBS-C means I'm obsessive about fibre & get upset when I hear the old advice that a high fibre diet, together with drinking plenty & exercising ensures a clockwork gut. It certainly doesn't work that way for everyone! I've also taken probiotics for decades, as a good friend was involved in early R&D for these.
As I've got older, sympathy has grown for anyone who struggles to find a diet that suits them well, as when the digestive tract malfunctions in whatever way, simplistic dietary advice that doesn't work for you can make you feel a failure. It can take an age to work out what's causing problems & it rarely seems to be just one food group!
My bookshelves are groaning under the weight of cook books, nutrition manuals, gut books . . . I know, should get out more! That said, with the fantastic range of foods available these days, I still find it easy to eat well & enjoyably.