Grain-free cooking with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Explore how the Specific Carbohydrate Diet promotes healthy digestion and try two grain-free recipes.

Updated:: 2009-10-06 14:11

Published:: 2008-05-02 00:00

By: Kat Tancock

What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?

To most of us, common foods such as bread and milk are harmless, even soothing. But for people who suffer with digestive diseases such as celiac disease or irritable bowel syndrome, these foods can cause pain, digestive upset or even malnutrition. The solution? To Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass, authors of cookbooks Grain-Free Gourmet and Everyday Grain-Free Gourmet, it's the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), a whole foods approach to eliminating problematic ingredients such as grains, lactose and some starches.

"Whole grains are very healthy and we advocate eating them if you can digest them," say Bager and Lass. But "people with a number of health conditions have seemed to benefit from the SCD."

What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
In the early 20th century, a group of doctors studying celiac disease -- Drs. Sidney and Merrill Haas in particular -- created The Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The doctors noticed that celiac patients became ill when they ate carbohydrates. Over time, the doctors developed a diet that primarily excludes complex carbohydrates (such as grains and starchy vegetables) and for the majority of patients, their symptoms went into remission. The doctors also reported that 82.5 per cent of the 561 children they treated were completely cured of celiac disease.

Elaine Gottschall, author of Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet (Kirkton Press, 1994), developed the modern version of SCD after Dr. Sidney Haas successfully treated Gottschall's daughter's ulcerative colitis with the diet.

The new Specific Carbohydrate Diet
This updated version of SCD excludes most dairy products (with the notable exception of lactose-free probiotic yogurt), grains, starchy vegetables, refined sugar, processed meats and other foods and a number of legumes. (Find a complete list of disallowed foods at breakingtheviciouscycle.info.) "We eat all fruits, vegetables (except starches such as potatoes and yams), nuts, seeds, eggs, some legumes, honey as our only sweetener, and all animal protein, including some forms of lactose-free dairy," say Bager and Lass. "We use nothing that is processed or refined, or that comes in a jar."

SCD vs. gluten-free
These days, a gluten-free diet is the standard treatment for celiac disease. While this works to control the symptoms of many people, others find it insufficient, according to Bager and Lass, who themselves follow the SCD to treat their ulcerative colitis and celiac disease, respectively. "The SCD goes beyond gluten-free to make food easier to digest for people with all kinds of digestive disorders," they say. "It takes a more holistic approach to tackling diseases of the intestine."

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