How This Food Lover Navigates Life With a Digestive Disorder

Welcome to Mindful Menus: Real Life Nutrition When Eating Gets Complicated. In this series we connect with people navigating health challenges to learn how they navigate their day-to-day diets and connection to food. In this installment, we chatted with Taylor Pittman, a 27-year-old with ulcerative colitis who grew up loving Southern staples like oxtails and croquettes, to learn how she navigates cravings for her childhood favorites and what she eats to keep her symptoms at bay.

Taylor Pittman was living an ordinary life as a college student when her life changed forever. After experiencing extreme stomach pain and nausea for seven months, she was diagnosed with the inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis (UC). Soon after, she learned she would need to have her colon and part of her rectum removed and overhaul her entire diet to accommodate her condition.

When she was growing up, Pittman’s parents were consultants and traveled a lot for work, so dinner on busy weeknights often came from McDonalds or Chick-fil-A. However, weekends were sacred in their home and centered around church and family meals. “My dad would make Saturday breakfast—homemade biscuits and a fried potato dish where he’d mix potatoes with flour and onion and dump it in grease. My mom would do the pancakes, sausage, and salmon croquettes,” Pittman recalls. “Then on Sunday they’d always make something my siblings or I wanted. When it was my turn to make a request, I would always ask for chicken wings and my dad’s oxtails, which he’d marinate for three days and then cook in the slow cooker in a gravy. When we got home from church, we’d change out of our fancy clothes, sit down in the kitchen, and salivate as he pulled them out. They were so good.”

These days Pittman can’t tolerate many of her childhood favorites—her UC requires her to follow a low-residue diet centered around foods that are easy on the digestive system. She also developed a gluten and lactose intolerance after her UC diagnosis. “I went from being able to eat whatever, whenever, to feeling like I’m not able to tolerate anything,” she says. “I can’t eat most raw fruit or veggies, nothing with seeds or skin, no beans, nuts, or seeds, and really nothing high in fiber. That takes a huge chunk of food off the table,” she says.

So, what does Pittman eat? And how have her family meal traditions evolved along with her diet? What is her advice to other food lovers with a strict UC diet? Here, you’ll find her answers to those questions and more.

I live with my boyfriend, and each week we stock up on chicken, rice, and pasta so I can make chicken noodle soup or chicken and rice soup. And if it’s affordable, I grab some fish—my favorites are cod and sea bass. Oatmeal, turkey sausage, and almond milk are staples I keep on hand for breakfasts and lunches. I also always buy bananas. They’re one of the few fresh fruits I can eat whole because they’re so gentle on my digestive system. I also pick up additional produce items—like apples, pineapple, spinach, and ginger—for homemade juices throughout the week. Juicing fruits and vegetables removes the hard-on-my-system fiber, making them easier to tolerate. Plus, generally speaking, liquid is much easier for me to digest. It’s expensive to make juice from scratch, but it helps me keep my added sugar intake down compared to drinking store-bought juices.

Sometimes I make sure my groceries are gluten-free, like the pasta for my soup, but sometimes I just want the regular stuff. My gluten sensitivity causes discomfort, but I can have a little of it at home in the evening, take some Gas-X and anti-nausea medications, and go to bed.

Two days ago I was admitted to the hospital because my potassium and iron levels were critically low. I don’t like taking potassium pills because they upset my stomach, so I’m trying to get more potassium through food. I can’t eat a ton of leafy greens, which have a lot of potassium, so I’ve been mainly eating bananas for breakfast recently. I don’t mind them; they’re convenient and quick.

If I have more time in the morning, I’ll use one to make a protein shake. I can’t eat many foods containing protein, so protein shakes are a good option for me—even though I don’t really like them. I usually blend a banana with almond milk and a Premier Protein gluten-free protein powder.

I love foods that taste comforting to me. I was craving something savory the other week, so I had some store-bought rotisserie chicken and white rice, which hit the spot. I also make chicken noodle or chicken and rice soup a lot. They were two of the first safe meals I discovered when I was first diagnosed and struggling. They helped me see that I’d be able to eat flavorful food again, not just plain white rice, for the rest of my life. Plus, my mom made those soups when I was growing up, so they’re definitely comfort foods.

As for to-go options, one of my favorite dishes to bring to work is a baked sweet potato with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. It’s really filling, and it’s easy to make in the morning and pack up to take with me.

I wish I could say I can still eat my dad’s fried potato and onion fritters, but they don’t work for me anymore. We’ve tried tweaking a few things in his recipes so I can still eat them, but we haven’t quite figured it out yet. I’ll keep trying—I’m not giving up on having that again someday!

I also recently discovered that the way my mom makes green beans doesn’t mess with my stomach. She puts them in a Crock-Pot with chicken broth and lets them simmer all day, which makes them really soft and easy on my system. When I was growing up, she would make them that way for all the holidays, and I’m glad I still get to have them.

My boyfriend and I only dine out maybe once a week. I don’t eat fast food because of all my dietary restrictions, but my favorite sit-down date night spot is Agave, a Southwestern restaurant in Atlanta. I loved it before I got sick, and it’s still my favorite for sentimental reasons. My options are limited, but I can get their crawfish pasta and request it without onion, mushrooms, or bell peppers. The pasta isn’t gluten-free, but it's worth the discomfort for a special night out.

When I need to grab some food quickly while I’m out, I usually go to Panera. I crave their salads all the time but can’t really eat them. Instead, I usually get grilled cheese and tomato soup. The Panera near my house has Ezekial gluten-free bread, which means I can eat without worrying about getting sick. And sometimes, when I’m not feeling well, I’ll take myself to Starbucks before work to boost myself emotionally. I usually get a decaf oat milk flat white and a Marshmallow Dream Bar, which is basically like a Rice Krispies treat. It’s the only gluten-free bakery item Starbucks has. It is such a delicious start to the day.

Honestly, not great. I sometimes get really sad about it. It just depends on my mental state at the time. Some days I do really well; others, I just figure I will get sick again anyway, so I might as well enjoy the food I want. If the craving is strong enough and it won’t do too much harm, like a pasta dish, I have it. But for other things that will really harm me, like Caesar salads, which I crave all the time, I never give in. In those moments, I treat myself in other ways, by buying a new perfume or something to make myself feel good.

The biggest thing is advocating for yourself with your doctors. If I had known how to do that earlier, I think I would have gotten help sooner and wouldn’t be where I am now, with no colon and going in and out of the hospital. I even started an ulcerative colitis community on TikTok called Chronically Tay. When I was first diagnosed, I’d never even heard of UC before, and now I’m able to talk to others with the condition, and we support each other. We all just wanted to find other people out there like us.

It gets hard for me to want to eat anything solid, so I go back to a no-solid-food diet: protein shakes, water with electrolytes, those little frozen Italian ice cups, and broth. And if I do eat something solid, I stick with plain things like oatmeal or rice.