One of the first blogs I found when I started SCD was Beth’s blog. She did SCD for her daughter Amy who suffered from Crohn’s disease. Beth always had the best recipes! Every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas I make her stuffing and pumpkin pie. I’ve never felt deprived at the holidays and even people who didn’t eat SCD loved the food.

She wrote a cookbook that is now available in print – The Turtle Soup SCD Cookbook. While it would make a great Christmas present, I would suggest buying it beforehand to enjoy the stuffing and pumpkin pie.

For anyone wondering what I eat for holiday dinners, here’s my go-to list:

• Beth’s stuffing recipe
• Roasted turkey (in a covered pan, stuffed, no extra prep)
• Sweet potato and apple casserole (sub butternut squash if you’re on SCD)
• Steamed carrots smothered in butter
• Steamed green beans smothered in butter
• Homemade cranberry sauce (cranberries, honey)
• Homemade gravy (pan drippings + broth + onions, mushrooms, thyme)
• Beth’s pumpkin pie
• Whipped cream (can be made SCD)

Beth’s recipe book is great for everyday food and meals. It’s not a holiday recipe book, she just happens to have the best stuffing and pumpkin pie!

Click on the image to see it close up.

Just before I started on SCD I did a blood test for food allergies – the ELISA food allergy test. I fully expected to get the results back showing a reaction to gluten, red meat, and certain fruits and vegetables I knew had trouble with. In fact, none of those showed up at all. I was ‘allergic’ to bananas and eggs (especially whites), two foods I was eating the most of and feeling good with. This didn’t sound right to me so I started investigating how the test works.

Food allergy tests (IgG – not anaphylactic-shock reaction testing for IgE) are looking for antibodies to certain food particles. This is how the Celiac blood test works too, it looks for antibodies to gluten. If you haven’t eaten gluten, you will always test negative (one reason why a lot of these tests return a false negative, as some people have already gone gluten-free by the time they test). So if you haven’t eaten a particular food, you won’t test as being ‘allergic’ to it.

If you have leaky gut syndrome, where the intestinal wall becomes permeable allowing food particles to cross over and end up in the blood, you will almost certainly test positive for a number of ‘allergic’ responses. This is because food particles aren’t supposed to be showing up in the blood. A working digestive system will break down food particles so that basic amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins etc will be absorbed, not larger molecules of food. If larger molecules get through, your body will treat them as foreign and mount an immune system response.

If you have Celiac disease, the damage done to the intestines leaves you with intestinal permiability. This means you need to be aware that other foods are probably causing you problems and will continue to do so until you heal the intestinal tract. I would argue that most people with gastrointestinal symptoms have some degree of leaky gut syndrome. A food allergy test in my opinion is useless except to tell you that you do in fact have leaky gut. It would probably tell you that you’re allergic to everything you’re eating.

Most Naturopaths will tell you to avoid all foods you test high or moderate for, seeing the test as a final result. Do this and take the blood test again in a few months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if your results are different, showing a higher reaction to the new foods you are eating. My naturopath reacted a little differently. She didn’t tell me to cut anything out, but did introduce me to the concept of rotation diet. Foods that I was reacting to at a high level I would not eat every single day, but once every few days. That made sense to me and helped me get a bit more variety in my diet. Especially with meats which at the time I was just eating beef, chicken and pork. I started eating lamb, duck, turkey and various game meats. I also started trying to get seafood once a week. I had a hard time with vegetables and was scared of raw fruit at the time, so I didn’t manage to get much variety there but I did rotate through the ones I was eating.

Here’s the thing though, rotating these foods, having a bigger variety to choose from, avoiding some (eggs) didn’t result in any noticeable difference. Pretty soon I just went back to my usual way of eating, which happened to be eating a lot of the same things for a few weeks until I tried some new recipes and changed it up a bit. Slowly over time my digestive tract healed without me removing individual foods that had shown up on allergy tests.

For me what worked was focusing on three things.

1. Remove major offenders: these foods are the ones that cause noticeable symptoms, like gluten and most grains for me
2. Add in as much nutritious healing food as you can: foods containing lots of nutrients, especially if you’re like me and have a hard time eating enough, including shellfish, organ meats, vegetable juices, egg yolks, raw dairy, fruit)
3. Fine-tune: change it up if it’s not working and take note of how you feel after eating each meal. Change the time of day you eat that type of meal (for example at one point I felt better eating high fat & meat for breakfast, but now I feel better eating lots of fruit for breakfast, meat later in the day). Take notice of how cooked vs raw food affects you, again taking note of the time of day.

I felt after doing the blood test that it was a waste of money. I certainly wouldn’t suggest anyone do it if money is tight. At least it led me to understanding how this all works a bit more, but I still thinking listening to your body is a much better indicator of what to eat.

I have been making raw milk kefir in place of the SCD yogurt mainly because of simplicity and wanting to get the extra benefits of raw milk. I tried making raw milk yogurt a few times and it just wasn’t as good as the usual SCD yogurt (milk warmed up to 180 first). I do make the SCD yogurt every now and then with sheep milk as a treat.

For making kefir, the process is pretty simple once you have your kefir grains and some milk.

Equipment

• wooden spoon
• jar
• cloth or paper towel

Ingredients

• kefir grains
• milk

Process
Pour milk into a jar. Add about 2 tbsp of kefir grains per liter of milk using a wooden spoon. In the photo above, I put two chunks of that size for 1 liter. Stir gently.

Cover the jar with a cloth or paper towel, secured in place by a mason jar ring or elastic band (see pic below). Keep the jar on the counter for 12 hours.

Remove the kefir grains using a wooden spoon.

Leave the jar of half fermented kefir on the counter for another 12 hours (for 24 hours total) covered with cloth. After fermenting, cover the jar with a lid and place in the fridge.

Storing kefir grains
Store the kefir grains in a small jar of milk, in the fridge for up to a week. You can freeze them in milk as well to keep for longer periods. I just keep mine in the fridge and give them fresh milk and a gentle stir once every week or so.

If you want your kefir grains to multiply quickly, keep the grains on the counter either making continuous batches of kefir or just supplying new milk to them every couple days.

Notes
Kefir grains are sensitive to metal so don’t use metal spoons, bowls, or strainers. I use glass jars and wooden spoons when handling them.

I found kefir grains by contacting my local Weston A Price Foundation chapter and asking chapter members if anyone had some to share. You can also check local classified ads or ask around at farmers markets.

Kefir will ferment a bit faster in warmer temperatures, but doesn’t require a source of heat like yogurt does. In the winter, I place my jar on the top of the fridge or close to the stove so it gets a bit of extra heat.

Some people use a plastic strainer and rinse kefir grains under water. I found this step unnecessary as long as I give the milk a gentle stir once the grains are added.

I find kefir is best used within a week. If kept longer, it will very slowly keep fermenting until it’s quite strong.

On SCD this is considered an advanced food but I wish I had tried it sooner. I found it does help with carbohydrate tolerance and Candida symptoms. It’s worth trying after a couple months on SCD just start very slowly with a spoonful at first and increase the dose from there. I flavour mine just like yogurt, with honey and berries.

I just finished reading the

Management of Celiac Disease by Dr. Sidney V. Haas, the creator of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and his son, Dr. Merrill P. Haas. I found this book really interesting and packed with information. I took pages of notes but hope to summarize a bit more concisely here and then list some things I found most interesting to people following SCD now.

The authors cover a lot of the research on celiac disease up until the publishing of this book in 1951. At the time, gluten was not known to have any role in celiac disease (or maybe even gluten was not discovered yet) so a lot of the research done at the time was in the form of case studies using different dietary methods. It’s no surprise to me that Haas’ diet ended up having the most favourable outcome, since it is inherently gluten-free and provides adequate nutrition for someone recovering from celiac disease. I found this book quite easy to read without having any medical knowledge, so for anyone with celiac who is interested in reading about it, I highly recommend this book. (I bought mine from Digestive Wellness).

Celiac Disease Causes & Symptoms

They spent a good deal of time describing symptoms and diagnosis guidelines, mainly because there was no definitive test available. Of course there still is no definitive test so I found all this information really interesting. Although they describe a lot of common symptoms, they acknowledge that not all of the symptoms have to be present for it to be considered celiac disease. And, sometimes the symptoms are quite mild. Most of the research at the time was done with extreme cases of celiac disease that started in young children. But, the authors stated that this disease could start at any time, in any severity, and was most likely under-diagnosed especially in people who didn’t have the main symptom of diarrhea. They talk about many cases they saw where constipation was the predominant symptom. Psychological symptoms were also very well described.

In a quest to figure out the main cause of celiac disease, the researchers up until the 1950s had followed a few different routes.

• Fatty stools were very common in celiac cases (both in diarrhea and constipation), and fat absorption seemed to be impaired. Noting that fat was well digested (emulsified and broken into fatty acids) it was the absorption that was the problem. Yet removing fat from the diet did nothing to halt the progression of the disease. Many doctors continued to prescribed low-fat diets and continued research in this area, even though there was never any evidence that it played a role in the disease.




• Some cases seemed to show a lack of pancreatic (digestive) enzymes, stomach acid and/or bile. So lots of research was done on administering these as supplements. Some patients saw a bit of improvement in symptoms using various digestive aids, but none seemed to recover.




• A few researchers noted carbohydrate intolerance, either from studying blood sugars or from noting digestive symptoms with varying low-carbohydrate diets. Most low-carbohydrate diets failed because as soon as symptoms abated, a normal diet was resumed and symptoms returned. Or, some kept one of milk, toast, corn or rice in the diet while eliminating most other forms of carbs. Almost all researchers noted that adding sugar would instantly cause more severe digestive symptoms, regardless of the diet. But, some research was done with pure glucose (monosaccharide) showing positive effects.




• One researcher noted a relationship with the bacteria B. bifidum (considered illegal on SCD). When symptoms were severe, this bacteria count was high. When the patient recovered, the bacteria count was much lower. If the patient relapsed, the bacteria count was always found to be high again. This was all without administering any probiotics.

For the large part though, the fat theory reigned supreme at the detriment of the children who were prescribed the low-fat diets. Even though fat was shown not to cause symptoms, and that it was necessary to include fat to avoid osteoporosis and other nutritional problems, doctors kept focusing on removing fat from the celiac diet.

Celiac disease in children at that time had a high mortality rate. So the different treatments attempted had very clear effect on the outcomes. Some diets helped children avoid death, but they still had stunted growth and ongoing symptoms. Some like Haas managed to recover children fully without stunted growth or osteoporosis. There were also a lot of autopsies conducted which showed varying effects of the disease. Many had no noticeable changes to the digestive system, no ulceration, and no effect on the liver. Still some had noticeable changes in the pancreas, and some were found to have ulceration in the colon. Since blood in the stool was not reported as a symptom in these cases, it’s not clear if that was a case of a colitis condition or not. Villous atrophy and changes in the small intestine were somewhat common. Respiratory illness was also quite common, and often preceded initial symptoms or relapses.

Very little at the time was agreed on, except that symptoms and severity varied greatly, anyone of any age could have it, and that protein seemed well tolerated in all cases (in the form of meat). Fat and mineral absorption seemed to be the main problem with growth and bone development. Many suggested using vitamin A and D supplements along with diet. Even though not all agreed on the carbohydrate intolerance, most would omit carbohydrates in the early stages of their diets.

Diet

Of the researchers who noted the difficulty in tolerating carbohydrates, most agreed that cow’s milk was the worst food, and cereals and sugar were also poorly tolerated (fermentable carbohydrates). Cow’s milk that had been treated to become ‘protein milk’ (much like today’s SCD yogurt) was fine. Vegetables and fruit were not always tolerated. So the difficulty was in trying to find a carbohydrate that would help all patients. The banana turned out to be that universal carb. Many different diets had made use of the banana, but only those diets that removed other offending carbohydrate sources had any success. Some naturally gluten-free diets proposed at the time still did not bring about a relief of symptoms, much like the gluten-free diet prescribed today leaves patients with lingering symptoms. Most of these diets still included things like milk, sugar, potatoes and corn or rice.

Dr. Haas’ diet as described in this book is quite similar to how SCD is presented today but with a few noticeable differences. For one, bananas are emphasized much more in Haas’ original diet. In fact, his diet was often referred to as ‘the banana diet’ during that time. He noted that banana powder was found to change the gut bacteria back to normal levels. The intro diet could very well be summed up as protein plus bananas. He spent time finding evidence of other doctors who had used bananas in treating celiac disease with success. He told how in his own practice he had patients eating 4-6 bananas a day. Keep in mind these were mostly very young children, so that made up a big portion of their diet. Also he made a point of showing that while fat absorption was poor, carbohydrates were required to metabolize fats. Also, upon administering certain carbs (such as the banana), fats were once again better tolerated. Anxiety, confusion and depression were often more noticeable when carbohydrates were not being well tolerated. He noted that animal fats were best tolerated. Meat, protein milk and bananas were the first step, with gelatin (sweetened with fruit juice & honey) used as a dessert. Eggs, fruit and vegetables were introduced slowly one by one after symptoms disappeared.

For the ‘protein milk’ he prescribes, there are a few different ways of making it. The basic idea is to get rid of or break down the milk sugars. Whey is always dripped out and discarded. Butter, sour cream and buttermilk were shown to be well tolerated. I can’t help but wonder if the focus on a milk that is tolerated was important to these researchers at the time, because most of their patients were toddlers who were either just weaned off breast milk or formula, and probably using milk as a big portion of their diet. I didn’t see any mention that this was a required part of the diet, just that it was a tolerable protein.

Haas did say this diet cured celiac disease. Without knowing if these cured cases were actually caused by problems with gluten it’s hard to say if SCD would actually be a cure. That said, he clearly had severe cases that responded fully to the diet and these children (and some young adults even) were able to return to a normal diet. One case stood out to me, of a girl who was off and on the SCD throughout her childhood (never strictly) who always had symptoms. Finally the symptoms got worse in her late teen/early 20s and she returned to him. After following the diet strictly for over a year, her symptoms were gone and after a while she was able to return to a normal diet with no relapses.

My Notes

Probiotics might not be necessary: The ‘protein milk’ did not seem to play a role in re-establishing gut flora. Also, they noticed improvement in bacteria levels based on the diet alone. It seems providing a good environment for gut flora is more important than consuming probiotics. This I’ve noticed in my own experience too. They also noted that bananas added to the diet changed the gut flora in a beneficial way.

Yogurt should always be dripped: The protein milk recipes always drip the whey out, and that’s the main method of removing the sugars. On SCD now, it’s advised to try dripping yogurt because many have found it to be better tolerated. I have a feeling dripping the yogurt is even more important than fermenting it for a full 24 hours. Based on my own experience, dripping helps tremendously, and fermentation time didn’t matter as much. Tartness was always the most reliable indicator to me that the yogurt was good. The best method would be to ferment 24 hours and then drip the whey out. Whey should probably be discarded by anyone following the intro and early stages of the diet. I also wonder now if sour cream or other milk products would have been tolerated.

Carbs (in the form of bananas and probably honey) should be used in abundance from the beginning, in balance with fats: I always tried to ‘get more carbs’ by eating squashes, carrots, applesauce and other fruits and vegetables considered well tolerated on SCD. I did poorly on all of them. Bananas were always ok, as long as I ate them with enough fat and protein. I wish now I could go back to the early days and eat a bunch of bananas to see how I reacted. For some reason I always limited myself to one or two a day.

Fat absorption probably plays the biggest role in constipation and diarrhea: Haas reported that fat in the stool was of either free fatty acids (causing diarrhea) or bound with minerals into soaps (causing constipation). I have seen a lot of advice for people on SCD with constipation to eat more fats, and I’m not sure that’s really the best thing to do. If carbs actually help with fat tolerance, then maybe for constipation it would be best to eat more carbs, not more fats. With less fats being bound in the digestive tract as soaps, maybe constipation would be lessened. I think many already know bananas help with diarrhea. As for digestive aids to help fat digestion, they shouldn’t be necessary. It was found that fats were broken down properly, just not absorbed very well. Fat absorption is not something that would improve with taking bile supplements or digestive enzymes.

Nuts were not used in Haas’ diet: I expected this and not just because nut flours were not available at the time. Haas made no mention of nuts in this book. I know a lot of people today think nuts are required to get enough calories or to be able to enjoy treats ‘now and then’ (which turns into every day pretty quickly!). The main concern with celiac diets was to have some form of tolerable carbohydrate and that was found to be the banana. With plenty of protein and fats available from meat, and carbs from banana, there is no need to add nuts.

Haas made a point of noting that although early on in the diet children would want treats, it was often the parents who felt they should be allowed some in order to feel included in social situations or be able to eat normal food. If children were not given these treats and kept strictly on the diet, once they had fully recovered they didn’t care as much for breads and cakes as other children did. This is definitely my experience now. Early in SCD I did eat a lot of the almond flour goods and my desire for treats never went away. Now, I would prefer fruit for dessert.

Periodic flares: Another interesting piece of information was about the ’3 months flare’ that many following SCD now describe. In Haas’ work he found that respiratory illnesses always brought about a flare in symptoms, and these generally happened within the first 3 months of starting the diet. I actually think later flares at 6 or 9 months might be due to introduction of too many nuts that almost everyone ends up doing on this diet. (That’s what I did..)

I think a lot can be learned from Haas and other researchers of his time, especially for doctors treating celiac patients. Currently, if a patient’s symptoms persist, blame is placed upon them for consuming minute amounts of gluten, cross-contamination, or non-compliance. There’s no initial diet to follow until symptoms improve. It’s just a one-size-fits-all gluten-free diet with maybe some advice to take vitamins for obvious deficiencies. What would be better is taking patients through a starting diet specifically for healing before allowing a full gluten-free diet, and not to consider a patient fully recovered until all digestive symptoms are gone, good general health is returned and no relapses in symptoms occur.

I’m a bit late to this but wanted to make sure everyone has heard about the Reversing Food Allergies online course held by Cheeseslave. If you’re trying a diet like GAPS or SCD to heal your gut, this will be a great learning opportunity. The course provides lots of information about food allergies, healing and detoxing, how to prepare many different foods to heal the gut and recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts.

This is being offered at a great time which happens to coincide with a few people doing the GAPS intro together. Baden from the GAPS Guide wrote about it in detail here: http://gapsguide.com/2011/03/16/intro-april-11th/. This is a perfect opportunity to do the intro diet with the support and motivation of others, while learning all the tools you’ll need to carry forward and fully heal with a diet like this.

Here is a sample video from the class, demonstrating how to make beef stock

Click here to see the class outline and watch a sneak peak video of the online course.

As part of a new protocol I’m following, I’m doing a whole lot of serious juicing. Soon after starting SCD I did some juicing (see here for info about juicing on SCD) because I couldn’t tolerate many vegetables or fruit. It was nice to have a refreshing raw vegetable taste after all the soups and stews. I was only drinking about 4-6 ounces at a time and not every day. The GAPS diet recommends juicing a few cups every day right from the intro stages. I never really adopted this practice since by the time I found GAPS I was already feeling quite a lot better and could tolerate some vegetables. Now, in order to get as many nutrients as possible I’m trying to drink a lot of juice.
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Reid Kimball, fellow SCDer, is making a documentary about alternative health methods for healing Crohn’s disease. This is the first documentary I know of that will talk about SCD, other diets, supplements etc for managing and recovering from digestive diseases.

Please support the making of this documentary by donating to this project! So far he has raised over $7,000 dollars but is still a few thousand away from the goal. There’s only 4 days left to donate so please do it today.

Click here to donate at Kickstarter.com

For more information about the project see the main website at http://crohnsend.com/. Also be sure to follow his blog on there too!

As part of the Happy & Healthy Holidays cooking course, Jenny has included a free Thanksgiving lesson.

Click here to sign up for the free class!

The lesson includes:

• A video on how to split, seed and roast a pumpkin
• A menu for a full Thanksgiving supper
• 8 grain-free recipes (dairy and sugar-free with substitutions)

The apple-nut crisp dessert is completely SCD/GAPS legal and is so simple to make. And if you haven’t roasted a pumpkin to get pumpkin puree for making desserts with, then the video will definitely motivate you to try it. On SCD, pumpkin puree in a can is not to be used, so making your own is a must. I have been enjoying pumpkin pudding and pie filling the past couple months that pumpkins have been in season.

If you’re interested in signing up for the full cooking course, or for other individual classes, I have a coupon code NK20 that will get you 20% off the cost of the course. Just make sure to enter NK20 on the checkout page.

Click here to sign up for the full course!

There is a wonderful new online cooking class available dedicated to holiday foods, and almost all of the recipes are suited to SCD, GAPS and Primal diets. I’m really enjoying taking online cooking courses. The fact that this course offers SCD/GAPS/Primal cooking lessons is great! I have done cooking classes in my hometown before, but none are suited to my diet. I know my first Thanksgiving I only ate about 3 dishes because I couldn’t have the rest of the stuff I prepared. Having a bit more guidance on how to prepare a whole holiday feast would have been helpful.

The course material is available for lifetime, so for holiday dinners to come you’ll always have some refresher videos to watch and your favorite recipes stored or printed out. There’s also access to an online forum with all the course participants. This is invaluable as everyone can exchange ideas, help each other out with learning and get questions answered from the course teacher, Jenny from Nourished Kitchen. I had the chance to meet her at the Wise Traditions Conference and she is so amazing!

Check out this video introduction for the course:

I will be signing up for the course too and I’m excited to get some new ideas. My family celebrates Christmas with a nice turkey dinner and we usually have a New Years feast with extended family featuring a roast ham. This on top of Thanksgiving makes for 3 feasts, so I can always use more recipes and techniques to help expand my culinary skills. If you’re on SCD or GAPS and worried about any of the recipes, I’ll be doing them too so we can compare notes in the forums.

Click here to sign up now!

The last day to sign up is November 30, 2010. Classes start December 1st, so make sure to sign up in time.

There are 9 full classes and an extra bonus class. For a full look at the details for each class, click here.

This course is a bargain at $89, less than $10 per class.

Also note, you can sign up for individual classes so if there’s any classes particular that look most interesting to you, you can sign up for them on their own.

Some things you’ll learn how to do in the course:

• Brine and slow-roast a turkey
• Make a fantastic pie crust – without refined flour
• Roast and puree a pumpkin
• Make your own mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard
• Make healthy gifts for friends and family
• Ditch white flour and white sugar in your cookies & sweets
• Make gluten-/grain-/dairy-free versions of your best holiday treats
• Convert your favorite recipes to healthier versions
• Entertain friends and family with over 30 menus and 175 included recipes

You’ll have access to multimedia online lessons, video tutorials, over 30 holiday menus, over 175 holiday recipes, downloadable print materials, and sample shopping lists.

Hope to see some SCD, GAPS and Primal eaters take these courses with me!

SCD & GAPS related

Don’t cook or heat honey – Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride mentioned this during one of her sessions. Her logic was that bees will do everything they can to keep the hive from overheating to protect the honey. Thing is, they mostly do this because warm honey will be more liquid and might drip out of the hive. So that alone is not a reason to not cook honey for eating purposes. Raw honey does have beneficial enzymes and antimicrobial properties, so it’s best to eat it raw, but I see no evidence of eating heated honey to be harmful. I have had more success removing cooked nuts from my diet than cooked honey.

Keep sugar out of your diet, for the rest of your life. Now you’re thinking, what can I bake with? Well, dates, figs, apricots, bananas are all sweet fruits that can be used to sweeten dishes. Or you can just not bake sweet things, which is what I do. Most food going into my oven these days are squashes or meat.
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