Specific Carbohydrate Diet (Scd)

[Melati]

My husband and daughter (18 yrs old) both have celiac disease. My daughter has been diagnosed with refractory celiac disease and has more serious problems, but my husband also has had ongoing, lingering issues even on a gluten-free diet for 15 years. They are both just starting on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. I would love to talk to anyone else out there who is doing this. We have a few questions that I can't seem to find answers for online at the SCD websites. (maybe I just don't know where to look)

Our 24-hour (SCD "legal") goats milk yogurt came out a bit runny and quite sour. I think this is probably normal, but just want to confirm with someone. I'm also wondering how do you really know if the machine worked properly and kept the yogurt at the right temp for the whole 24 hours so as to use up all the lactose?

I also made French Cream with Half and Half. (the 24 hour kind) It came out much thicker and not nearly as sour as the goats milk.

Since starting the diet this past weekend (and eating the yogurt) my daughter's stools are being affected. She doesn't normally have diarrhea as a regular symptom, but is saying her stools are soft, light-colored and come with lots of gas. Does this mean she's reacting to the yogurt, or is it a detox symptom? Can you start detoxing after only 2 days? She's already been off sugar and grains for a long time. (although she was still eating some things considered "illegal" on the SCD, which we've now cut out.) She has been off cow's milk for over a year. Up until we started the SCD and made our own yogurt, she was eating store-bought goats milk yogurt from Trader Joe's and seemed to handle it ok. (???) So maybe she shouldn't have the French Cream??

Thanks! ~Melati

[Takala]

Hi Melati,

I did the Specific Carbohydrate Diet in the beginning, around 8 years ago, but I used it as a guide and did not follow all the "rules" strictly. At the time I avoided all dairy, even yogurt. This SCD diet was invented by a northern European lady who had great but sometimes eccentric ideas about foods, and I found some of the rules pretty contradictory.

My rule for myself is that even if a diet says "yes," for a certain item, if it doesn't work for me, it just doesn't work. Makes life simpler.

No matter what I did, I could not get comfortable with yogurt. Even now, years later, there is like one brand I can do a little of. I can eat lots of hard cheese as long as it's organic. Go figure. I'm convinced that a lot of yogurt still has lactose. It was almost comical. I was, by gosh, going to make myself find and eat yogurt every day. I was going to put it in gluten free baking. I finally gave up. Thank God.

But the probiotics! And it must be HOMEMADE ! Uhm, I figure I get enough of that from other food. Olives, saurkraut....

I am part Northern European and probably then carry enough genes to tolerate dairy in my healthier state, as an adult, but for some people, this just isn't going to happen.

Be cautious, also, that things like tomato juice, and juice based drinks, which USED to be perfectly safe in America, are now run through processing plants where they make all sorts of juice drinks with added ingredients. Including grain byproducts as thickeners. I used to use tomato juice a lot to replace the tomato products that the SCD said were bad for me. Now I just use plain canned tomato products, ingredients, "tomatoes," and it's a lot safer.