Following a vegan diet can make it difficult to gain weight without consuming many grains (oatmeal, wheat, rice) that are not good for your gut – and if you’re dealing with IBS or IBD, your body can handle it often no legumes (beans, lentils, soy, etc.) so you can get into a downward spiral between your mind’s values and your body’s needs.
I advise vegans dealing with digestive problems to consume at least some fish oil (ideally cod liver oil) for the sake of their health – but that goes directly back to the downward spiral between your values and needs mentioned above. And so I have put together a few well-tolerated vegan ingredients with which you can create your own nutrient-rich shakes:
Vegan building blocks for weight gain
Here are some gut-friendly vegan nutrients (no grains, no legumes) that you can use as building blocks:
- Udos, flaxseed or MCT oil
- Yacon powder
- Lucuma powder
- Sprouted Chia Powder
- Ground flaxseed
- Vegan protein powder; Rice, pea, quinoa or hemp protein (or Absorb Plus VEGAN)
- Not sour fruits; Bananas, peaches, mangoes, papaya, pears, avocado etc.
- Nuts; Cashews, Almonds, Hazelnuts, Macadamia, Pistachios (raw nuts should be soaked and then slowly roasted to disable phytates and other anti-nutrients. If you can’t, just use roasted nuts)
- Seed; Pumpkin, sunflower, hemp, sesame (chia and flaxseed are also seeds, but are already listed above)
- Coconut water
- Nut, oat or coconut milk (but no carrageenan) – cut with 1/3 – 1/2 water if too thick or heavy in the intestine
- Sweeteners: Stevia, Luo Han Guo (monk fruit), raw honey, maple syrup (avoid sugar alcohols such as xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, etc., as these can cause flatulence / diarrhea)
Mix up any of the above ingredients and blend into a smoothie! Try to use 1 tablespoon of healthy oil per shake (start with 1 teaspoon and then work up).
Here are some gut-friendly shake recipes that I like, but you can modify them to include more calories, or increase or decrease fillers, etc. to increase your tolerance. The following measurements are additional guidelines (as I don’t always measure when I create my smoothies!) So you can adjust these ingredients as needed – some people prefer denser smoothies, others a little thinner. You can also add or decrease liquids to your liking in these recipes:
Brazilian tango
1 cup of coconut water or coconut milk
25 – 30 g protein powder (rice, peas, hemp, quinoa)
1000 mg L-glutamine powder
1 tbsp Lucuma powder
2 teaspoons of yacon powder
1 teaspoon of chia powder (or 1 teaspoon of ground flaxseed) – if you want a thicker shake, increase the chia to 1 tbsp depending on your taste
10 roasted cashew nuts
Sweeten to taste
1 tbsp flax or udo oil
Blend until smooth
Creamy goodness
1/2 cup coconut water
1/2 cup nut milk
25-30 g protein powder
1000 mg L-glutamine powder
1/2 cup acid-free fruit
1 tbsp hemp hearts
1 tbsp flax or udo oil
Blend until smooth
Chocolate Nut Butter Swirl
1/2 cup of water
25-30 g chocolate protein powder
2 tablespoons of creamy toasted peanut butter
OR creamy toasted almond butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Sweeten to taste
1 cup of ice cubes
Beat at high speed until smooth
Whole food boost
1/2 cup nut milk
1/2 cut water
1 tbsp hemp hearts (seeds)
10 cashew nuts
2 tbsp pistachios
Half an avocado
1 banana
1 tbsp flax or udo oil
Sweeten to taste
Blend until smooth
Here is a well-tolerated juicing recipe that you can use as the basis for these shakes instead of water or nut milk. You can make a batch of this juice and then freeze individual servings in zippered snack bags or ice cube trays for ease of use:
Intestinal friendly juice base
1 bunch of Swiss chard or baby green
1 cucumber
1 avocado
7 stalks of celery
Handful of parsley
2 apples
1 cup of water
* Makes about 3-4 cups of juice after mixing
You can also use any of your favorite vegetable juicing recipes, but then add the following to your vegetable juice and mix them together to make a meal you can use to gain weight:
25-30 g protein powder
1-2 teaspoons chia powder (or ground flax)
1000 mg L-glutamine powder
1 tbsp flax or udo oil
If you decide to try any of these for yourself, I would love your feedback! Did you change anything in the recipes? Leave me a comment below …
Jini Patel Thompson is an internationally recognized expert in naturopathic treatments for digestive diseases. She healed herself from the widespread Crohn’s disease and has been drug and surgery free for over 20 years. Appeared on numerous podcast, television and radio shows in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, Jini gives people hope and visions on how to cure colitis, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in all natural methods. Her books on natural digestive disease cures have been sold in over 80 countries around the world.
