{"id":18753,"date":"2025-07-18T11:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T11:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18753\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T11:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T11:01:08","slug":"centra-creates-alpha-gal-friendly-cookbook-for-those-with-dietary-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18753\/","title":{"rendered":"Centra creates Alpha-gal friendly cookbook for those with dietary restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) \u2014 Virginia summer brings the heat, and with the heat comes ticks. According to Centra, Central Virginia has the highest population of people living with the tickborne illness, Alpha-gal.<\/p>\n

Folks with Alpha-gal are not able to eat just anything. Those who have the disease have to avoid foods like pork and beef, as well as other mammal products.<\/p>\n

Centra officials say that with the restricted diet, patients often feel overwhelmed with finding recipes that they can enjoy.<\/p>\n

In response to the increasing number of cases, the hospital system released a cookbook that has Alpha-gal-friendly recipes. The book aims to make Alpha-gal patients feel seen as they navigate the food allergy that comes alongside the illness. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Health officials sound the alarm on rare tick-borne disease<\/a><\/p>\n

Centra’s nutritionists, marketers, dietitians and many others came together to make recipes that are delicious as well as Alpha-gal friendly.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Covarrubias-Lyttle, the director of cultural integration at Centra, says that this cookbook has been helpful to educate patients with Alpha-gal on how to live a healthy life while having the disease. <\/p>\n

“It became really important that not only those living with alpha gal were seen, but they were equipped with not just what not to do. That’s where the cookbook and guidebook came in, because this shouldn’t just be about don’t do but about what you do,” Covarrubias-Lyttle said.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Alpha-gal friendly recipes, the book also contains Alpha-gal educational resources like how to identify tick-borne illnesses, recognizing alpha gal symptoms, as well as prevention and treatment.<\/p>\n

Centra has already given away 1,000 books to patients since May, and they’ve ordered another 1,000. You can buy the cookbook at any Centra gift shop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) \u2014 Virginia summer brings the heat, and with the heat comes ticks. According to Centra,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[17266,17273,17270,17267,17268,97,17272,269,17271,17269],"class_list":["post-18753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-alpha-gal","tag-centra","tag-central-virginia","tag-cookbook","tag-dietary-restrictions","tag-health","tag-health-education","tag-nutrition","tag-recipes","tag-tick-borne-illness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}