[lisa_tos]

According to my nutritionist, a healthy diet is approximately (by volume) one half fresh fruits and vegetables, one quarter complex carbohydrates, and one quarter lean protein. The recipes that follow are low fat, low carb (or complex carb) dishes that are high in protein and vegetables that can be cooked with no or little chopping or mixing. The dishes that are more than one serving are one pot dishes that you can just dump everything into the pot to cook without moving anything heavy.

Also check out “The PDQ (pretty Darn Quick) Vegetarian Cookbook” by Donna Klein for many healthy recipes that can be made with frozen and canned beans and vegetables and other packaged foods. Also look for cookbooks that specify all recipes can be made with only a few ingredients (like 5 or so) and kid cookbooks. They often have recipes folks with RSI's can cook.

Try to fit in one tablespoon of flaxseed oil per day. According to my doctor, if you are deficient in the omega-3 fatty acids that flaxseed oil has, you can develop depression (and chronic pain is depressing enough without having nutritional imbalances exasperating the situation). Keep the flaxseed oil refrigerated and only put it on cold or room temperature food as heat destroys the benefits of this oil. Look for ligand free oil.

Useful tools to cook with a repetitive strain injury


- lightweight 2 quart slow cooker with a removable liner. Old slow cookers are often too heavy for repetitive strain injury folks to lift, but newer ones are much lighter. Look for really cheap one and it's likely to be lighter
- food processor - these are invaluable. They often show up at garage sales if you can't afford a new one. Look for one with a really wide feed tube so you don't have to cut up vegetables in order to put them in a food processor. Check that you can operate the locking mechanism and buttons before you purchase it as some are really hard to operate and some are easy. The Cusinart mini prep mini food processor was easier to use than a regular size food processor when I was at my worst.
- sharp knives are much easier to cut with. You can get a rocker knife from an adaptive device catalog that is easier to use if you have a lot of problems cutting.
- bag opener – you can get them from adaptive devices catalogs and they make it easy to open plastic bags
- pasta pot with colander insert. This allows you pull out the colander insert with just the pasta to drain rather than trying to pour out a heavy pot of water.
- silicone hot pads/mitts – these grip well and insulate very well so you don’t burn your hands even if you can’t sense temperature well.
- “Jar Pop” – to open vacuum sealed jars without any force
- electric can opener

How to cook with vegetables when you can't cut them.

Vegetables are quite a challenge for folks with repetitive strain injuries. Here are some ideas:
- cut them after they are cooked rather than before as most recipes specify
- use a food processor.
- look for fresh vegetables that don't need cutting - baby carrots, small red or small fingerling potatoes, snap peas, sugar peas
- look for bags of pre-chopped pre-washed vegetables in the produce section. A number of these can even be microwaved in the plastic bag they come in. There's a really wide variety now - mixed root vegetables, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, lettuce, spinach. Trader Joe's in particular has a lot of these.
- canned diced tomatoes (make sure it doesn’t have added sugar), canned baby corn, canned water chestnuts, and canned bamboo shoot are often useful additions for recipes
- the frozen food section in supermarkets often have pre-chopped onions and pre-chopped bell peppers which is good for many recipes. I also often use frozen corn, frozen petite peas, frozen stirfry vegetables (without sauce), or frozen artichoke hearts in recipes.
- Santa Cruz Organics has bottled lemon juice and lime juice without sulfates which is great for flavoring dishes without having to squeeze juice. The sulfates are what makes most packaged lemon juice taste funny (and also many people have a negative reaction to sulfates).