Q. The “power pudding” you wrote about worked for my husband’s constipation in two hours!
Then he found out that prune juice in the morning and dried prunes at bedtime, along with eating less dairy, did the job.
A. Power Pudding is an old trick nurses use to help their patients overcome a sluggish digestive tract. This is a common consequence of surgery and may also be troublesome for many people as they grow older. Certain conditions, such as an underactive thyroid, can also lead to difficult defecation.
The recipe contains unprocessed bran, applesauce and prune juice. It must be taken with a large glass of water.
There are more details on this remedy and other strategies to combat constipation and diarrhea in our Guides to Digestive Disorders and Constipation. You will also find some valuable tips in our previous post on this topic.
Prunes
Prunes and prune juice are an old standby to solve constipation problems. They were so strongly recognized as a remedy for constipation that several years ago plum growers worried that people would eat them only for medicinal purposes. Prunes were renamed and marketed as dried plums (a completely accurate description) to give them a sexier image and more general appeal.
Whether you call them prunes or dried plums, they seem to be even more effective than other dried fruit such as apricots, peaches or raisins at helping things get moving. A review of four randomized controlled trials found that prunes appear more helpful than psyllium, a soluble fiber often employed to manage constipation (Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Oct. 2014).
