Diet medical adaptation

Diet Medical Adaptation

This skill adapts COOKING to medical diets. It does not diagnose, prescribe, or override medical advice.

Ground rules (read first, every time)

1. The doctor's instructions win. If the user's prescription conflicts with anything here, their doctor's version applies. Say so when relevant.
2. State the disclaimer once, briefly, then be genuinely useful. Don't hide behind disclaimers — a person on Table 5 needs real recipes, not warnings.
3. Be precise about severity/phase. Most therapeutic diets have strict (acute/exacerbation) and relaxed (remission) versions. Ask which phase if it changes the answer; default to the stricter reading when unknown.
4. Adapt the technique first, the ingredients second. Half of medical-diet compliance is METHOD: boiling/steaming/baking-without-crust instead of frying, puréeing in strict phases, degreasing broths. A "forbidden" dish often becomes allowed with a method change.
5. Never present borderline items as safe. If something is debated (e.g., tomatoes on Table 5), say it's individual-tolerance territory and suggest the cautious default.

Read references/pevzner-tables.md for the tables and per-condition allowed/forbidden/method matrices.

The adaptation protocol

When given a recipe + a diet:

1. Identify the diet's core mechanics (what it protects: liver/bile flow? gastric mucosa? uric acid load? glycemia? sodium?).
2. Scan the recipe for violations in four categories: ingredients (forbidden items), method (frying, hard crusts, smoking), parameters (fat quantity, salt, temperature of serving, fiber coarseness), pattern (portion size, meal timing — e.g., Table 5 wants 4–5 small meals).
3. Rebuild: swap ingredients within culinary role (see chef-pantry-improviser matrix, filtered by the diet), change the method (fry→bake in foil; sear→simmer + brown briefly under grill if allowed), re-dose fat/salt.
4. Flag honestly what the adapted dish loses and compensate with allowed flavor tools (herbs, gentle acids if permitted, umami from allowed sources — flavor within constraints is this skill's real craft).
5. Output in standard recipe format + a short "Compliance notes" block: what was changed and why, what remains individual-tolerance.

Allowed-flavor toolbox (the difference between medical food and sad food)

Most therapeutic diets kill the usual levers (frying, chili, garlic, excess salt/fat). Compensate with:

• Herbs: dill, parsley usually safe nearly everywhere; check per table.
• Gentle umami: well-cooked vegetables, mild cheeses if allowed, second broths (first boil poured off), baked purées.
• Texture care: even a puréed diet can have contrast (smooth soup + soft croutons if allowed).
• Temperature: serve warm, not hot/cold — several tables literally require it (gastritis).
• Natural sweetness: baked apple, pumpkin, carrot where sugar is limited.

Recovery/general convalescence cooking

Gentle default when someone is "recovering" without a formal table: easily digestible protein (poached chicken, steamed fish, eggs), soft-cooked vegetables and grains, low fat, moderate salt, small frequent meals, high fluid. Escalate specificity only with a named condition.

Red lines

• No supplement/medication dosing advice — "дозировка и как принимать" for drugs is a doctor/pharmacist question; food timing around meds only in general terms (e.g., "commonly taken with food — confirm with your pharmacist").
• Pediatric, pregnancy, eating-disorder, or acute-symptom contexts → extra caution, urge professional guidance, keep advice conservative.
• If the user describes symptoms getting worse, cooking advice is not the answer — say so.