Q. After months of daily diarrhea, my teenage son just underwent biopsies and was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Gluten can sometimes be irritating for people with Crohn’s, so we are trying to avoid it in his diet. That means we can’t use store-bought coconut macaroons, though we read in your column that they could help calm diarrhea.
I have modified the recipe on the package of coconut to make him macaroons. He’s been eating them for the past couple of weeks and the constant diarrhea has subsided. Best of all, he is starting to gain back some of the 22 pounds that fell off him over the past few months before he was diagnosed.
Here’s my recipe: Mix 6 tablespoons sweet rice flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon almond extract, 4 egg whites, one 14 oz. package of shredded coconut, and 1/3 cup chocolate chips. Drop onto the cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees until the tops turn light brown, about 15 or 20 minutes.
A. Thanks for sharing your remedy. It sounds delicious. Many people with the inflammatory digestive tract disease known as Crohn’s suffer from chronic diarrhea. In fact, we first learned about coconut macaroon cookies for this problem from Donald Agar, a Crohn’s patient. He discovered the benefits for himself and notified us so we could alert others. He found that two macaroon cookies daily controlled his diarrhea.
