Grain-free cooking with 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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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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