I did my version of the SCD when I started gluten free.
As long as you are flexible (in that if there is something in the SCD that bothers you, don't eat it. If there is something that is not strictly on the list, but you know you're okay with it.... go ahead) then you should do fine. I think their "illegal" list is way too restrictive and does not make any sense, and I can see
why it doesn't make any sense- they are not sorting it out for gluten. . I think this is why they have so many people say "well, I tried this and I was miserable, diet does not work." Well, yeah, you avoided all this stuff that was actually okay and the stupid "illegal" list is loaded with things that could contain gluten. And good luck trying to get the
Official SCD Diet Missionaries to admit to this problem, they aren't thinking it through, either, and insisting that it is starch. It was the reaction to the gluten which is causing the entire auto immune problem which in turn causes problems with starch digestion. You shouldn't have this problem as you already recognize the need to avoid gluten.
The trick is to find a (good) fat you can tolerate and then suck that down at each meal, preferably with a fruit, a vegetable, and a protein. You have to eat fat and vegetables on this diet or you'll feel famished. It is the exact opposite of how American women are culturally conditioned to eat, which is they nibble at carbohydrates and think "fat" is the devil, and they ignore vegetables.
For example, on the SCD, they use a lot of dairy yogurt. Well, I didn't know about how commercial yogurt is made that sometimes it's still high in lactose, and I didn't know that my gut being damaged was going to be problematic with all yogurts at that time, so I just ended up avoiding it even though a lot of the recipes are "yogurt this and yogurt that," especially with their almond meal baking. And I did fine. They will insist you just have to eat yogurt. No, you don't. This would really screw up a person who reacts to casein protein, if they took it seriously. I can eat hard cheese. I ate a little hard cheese, now and then, instead of the yogurt, and had no problem. The other thing I noticed (mind you, this is like at least 7 years ago, and I was working it off an internet site) is that they used tomato juice for an awful lot of recipes, even when plain tomato sauce or tomato puree would work. Tomato juice used to be just tomato juice, and V8 used to be just vegetable juice, and I drank and used a lot of it. Then the manufacturers started putting a lot of thickening garbage into it, and it took me a long time to figure out that no matter what was on the labels, (which changed constantly) that the stuff was either cross contaminated or actually was using a suspect starch as a thickener. I ended up giving it up, I was really bummed, but I got really tired of playing roulette with what was supposed to be "juice." When the label says "100% natural juice" and it's got a grain products in it, I feel this is a serious misnomer. I was much safer with using a can of nondescript tomato puree with the label that said "ingredients: tomatoes" than using this so called tomato juice that was supposed to be safer, with random starch/gluten crap in it.
As an example of the "official list lunacy," I'm looking at an SCD list right now that is newer, that says no V8 juice. Okay, they finally figured that out. But then they have every other canned tomato product listed as
illegal. This makes zero sense. Then they have tomato juice is okay. Tomato juice comes in cans. I already discussed the problem with probable cross contamination with the most prominent manufacturer in the US above. The problem is not that it's canned. The problem is that it's cross contaminated.
Other foods that they have as so called "illegal" on this particular list are things like chocolate, okra, bean sprouts, chickpeas, yams, and sweet potatoes.
It makes no sense whatsoever to say beans are okay if soaked and rinsed but no chickpeas. Oh, and no pinto beans either. Look, some of my ancestors survived for centuries on beans, corn, and squash as their staples, (and other wild game and greens, seeds, nuts, fruit) and here is some joker trying to nix two out of the three categories and saying the squash can't be canned, only fresh. Oh, please. Others used quinoa as a staple and that's "illegal." Get real. Get rid of the gluten.
I've transitioned out now of the SCD (obviously) and can eat pretty much what I want, other than it has to be gluten free, but I am still fairly carbohydrate intolerate compared to a normal person, and I eat a lot more fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, beans, nuts, seeds (ground up for gluten-free flours) and olive oil and coconut milk than they do. I still grind almonds for baking, but I may mix almond meal with other higher protein gluten-free meals to use for baking, such as amaranth. I can eat cheese as long as it's organic, and rice such as rice cakes, but I have to be very careful with the high glycemic index "white" starches. They don't bother me digestively, more like they spike my blood sugar, but now I gain weight easily on them, too. In fact, some days my diet may be very close to a SCD diet, but telling me that I can eat peanuts, a member of the legume family, but have to avoid properly prepared pinto beans, or that garnet yams are a no no, when I was eating beans and yams with absolutely no reaction long before I dared try peanut butter again, just doesn't make any sense.
To each their own, and good luck.
) The Paleo and SCD will also show you which proteins are better, as some proteins are more fat than good. Good luck and I hope your hunger gets better!
