Who can the Specific Carbohydrate Diet help?
The SCD focuses on digestive disorders, aiming to eliminate foods that cause digestive troubles in susceptible people with conditions such as celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and lactose intolerance. Families of those with autism and related disorders have also been turning to the SCD to help treat those conditions.
The SCD is not just about eliminating troublesome foods, but also about keeping your digestive tract healthy, a shared value that's behind the current probiotic yogurt trend. "Scientific evidence is starting to confirm that people with certain digestive disorders can develop high levels of bad bacteria in their gut," say Bager and Lass, "so the SCD aims to control intestinal bacteria through homemade probiotic yogurt and eliminating more complex carbohydrates that can ferment in the gut if left undigested, causing bad bacterial overgrowth."
One of the main health benefits of the SCD is its reliance on whole, unprocessed foods and its subsequent elimination of empty calories. And while whole grains are praised for their nutritional values for those who can digest them, Bager and Lass stress that you can maintain a nutritious diet without them. "There's nothing magic in grains -- you can get the fibre, vitamins and minerals from other whole foods, such as almonds, squash and beef."
Cooking with the SCD
Bager and Lass's cookbook offers SCD followers delicious, nutritious meal ideas, but their recipes are for everyone. "People without digestive disorders can enjoy the benefits of indulging in elements of a grain-free cooking style," they say, "because it is nutritious, provides your diet with new variety and tastes great."
Almond flour (or ground, blanched almonds) is a key ingredient in SCD cooking, because you can use it to prepare grain-free versions of many classic Western foods, such as baked goods, crepes and crackers. "Almond-flour baking is much easier than regular gluten-free baking, which can involve combining many different flours and hard-to-find ingredients," say Bager and Lass. "Almond flour produces baked goods that are not only delicious, but guilt-free and healthy."
Other suggestions for simple changes include breading chicken with almond flour instead of grain flour, preparing "pasta" with spaghetti squash instead of wheat noodles, and serving grated, blanched cauliflower in place of rice. "When you cook with pure ingredients like this," say Bager and Lass, "the results can't help but be both delicious and healthy."
Curious about SCD cooking? Get started by trying the following recipes:
- Baked Brie
- Cheddar Cheese Biscuits
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