A Healing Kitchen

Latest Dietary Guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture endorse eating three to five servings of nuts (20 to 30 pecan halves equals one serving), seeds or legumes each day in order to maintain a healthy diet.

Nuts are gluten free! They do not have cholesterol. While nuts and seeds tend to be very high in fat and calories, most of the fat is polyunsaturated or monounsaturated (e.g. almonds, pecans, walnuts).

Nuts are high in vitamins and minerals and are an excellent ingredient for creating muffins, cakes, breads, candies, crackers, waffles, pancakes, pizza crust and the like on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet we use finely ground, high quality skinless blanched almonds in place of grain, rice or potato flour.

Lucy's Kitchen Shop, Digestive Wellness and JK Gourmet (Canada) are sources of quality nut flour. Pecans can be ground in a food processor (Nut butter can also be used).

Many kinds of nuts are useful on the diet, but almonds and pecans are the most popular for baking. Other tree nuts like walnuts , Brazil nuts and hazelnuts can be used too (Cashew is actually a fruit and pine nuts are a seed, but each has a place on the menu).

Cashew must not be roasted as they usually have an anti-caking agent containing starch added to prevent clumping. Legumes and seeds are also advanced foods.

Unfortunately nuts are now persona non gratis at schools because of allergy concerns. About 1% of the population has nut allergy. Peanut is a legume and there is a prevalence of peanut allergy in three million Americans. Peanuts and peanut butter are allowed on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for adults but are considered an advanced food and not recommended for children. Whole nuts and nut pieces in general should be reserved until healing in the gut begins to progress.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet dieters are cautioned not to overdo nut consumption and to be aware that Specific Carbohydrate Diet is not a "nut diet."

Here are two of my favorite ways to use nuts:

In soup- make dumplings. They taste just like Matzoh balls . Start with a mini recipe:

1/4 cup almond flour
1 extra large egg, lightly beaten
Dried parsley
Pinch of baking SODA
Salt and pepper
Drop of honey
2 drops of cooking oil
1 teaspoon grated onion

Combine and stir ingredients until blended. Heat 2 cups homemade chicken soup in a saucepan. Drop batter from a round measuring teaspoon into soup. Cover tightly and simmer 10-12 minutes (no peeking) The dumplings will get much larger. Serve in the soup and cool as they will be very hot.

This muffin recipe is very basic and appears in Breaking the Vicious Cycle. I use pecan flour (just finely ground pecans). Do not eat more than four muffins a day. Easy to stop at four? Not for me: :-)

2 1/2 cups ground nuts
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup filtered pasteurized honey
1/2 teaspoon baking SODA
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 375F. Grind nuts in a food processor and leave in food bowl. Add other ingredients, butter last and bring batter to muffin consistency. Don't over process. Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers and fill halfway with batter. Bake 15-20 minutes. Muffins will be moist rather than light and springy.

Editor's Note: Celiac.com supports the idea that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is gluten-free and can be very helpful for many people, depending on their situation. We disagree, however, with the assertion that Elaine Gottschall makes in her book Breaking the Vicious Cycle that people with celiac disease can be cured by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet after being on it for a certain time period.