Evaluating IC Diet Books 

Following any special diet can be confusing and frustrating if you don't have some sort of guidance. You are not only trying to avoid some of your favorite foods and beverages, but you are not sure what to replace them with. I know where you are coming from. At times I was afraid to eat. Other times I just ate white bread and scrambled eggs, Then there were the times I just couldn't take it any more and I just ate what I want.  Eventually, I figured out my personal trigger foods and have been able to build a varied and nutritious diet from the foods that I can eat and enjoy eating.   

As an interstitial cystitis or painful bladder patient, you may be wondering how to get more variety in your meals as you follow the IC Diet. Although you probably know I have a cookbook for IC patients, as I said, I don't have a problem promoting or discussing the other books. I think there is room for as many cookbooks as people will publish, and those few that are out there right now each have their own purpose. I will go in order of publication date.  

1998 Bev Laumann's Taste of the Good Life: This book has a lot of gourmet type recipes that people with interstitial cystitis may enjoy if they really like to cook. The recipes also combine an IC Diet with the low oxylate diet, which may or may not be appropriate for an individual patient.  

2007 IC Recipes: I am afraid I cannot recommend this one. The overall quality is poor with bad grammar, only a few, overly simplistic recipes, and it is even printed with odd pages thrown in from some long lost romance novel. It is almost as if it was thrown together without much thought.  

Updated 2010 Confident Choices: A Cookbook for IC and OAB (over 200 recipes) This is my IC cookbook. I am an IC patient and also a registered dietitian, and the book is based on the standardized IC Food List that I helped create. I have divided the cookbook into chapters based on recipe type. There are also substantial discussions about nutrition, meal planning, ingredient substitution, a basic interstitial cystitis flare diet, and instructions for the IC elimination diet. I wrote the book so that people could open it and follow every recipe, even if they are only following the Bladder Friendly list. The book also includes a grocery list that you can personalize and is compact enough to fit in most purses so you can take it along with you in case you need to refer to it at the store. I also have 30 recipes in the Customizing the Interstitial Cystitis Diet book which also has a LOT of information in there about stress reduction, recipes, and has patient stories.  

2010 Mia Elliot's the Happy Bladder Cookbook: Mia is an IC patient who saw a void and filled it beautifully! Many people are beginning to use e-readers, smart phones and even their computers to read their books, and the cookbook market is no different. Mia's book is searchable with a Table of Contents that allows you to click the recipe and view it. You can even download a sample and browse a couple of pages before you make the decision to buy it.

I welcome comments about the various cookbooks. Email me or post comments on the IC Diet Blog: To read more about these and some of the best interstitial cystitis books, visit the Confident Choices Website.

PS: If anyone would like a copy of the table of contents for the Confident Choices cookbook, I would be glad to send it to you. Just email me at NutraConsults@aol.com.