Sunday, January 15, 2012

Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Before Christmas I had hit a plateau in Charlie's treatments. Despite being organic, Feingold and gfcf since Feb and giving him all the recommended enzymes, probiotics and supplements, his gut issues were not goof away.

The only treatment left was to try the specific carbohydrate diet. This diet was designed by a dr. Haas and popularized by a university of western on researcher named Elaine gottschal. The diet was originally designed for people with crohns, colitis, IBS etc. However since around 2005 it has been used in the autism community with amazing success. The theory behind the diet is that an inflamed illeum, or lower intestine cannot digest disaccharides, or molecules with two sugar groups. So undigested lactose from milk, sucrose from refined sugar and maltose from grains gets fermented by yeast and yeast overgrowth is responsible for g.I. Disorders.

In order to transition to the diet I had to cook 3 meals a day. Also had to say goodbye to white and brown sugar, and say hello to honey. Goodbye to all the gluten free flours, baking mixes and crackers, cookies and pretzels that were costing us a fortune and hello to baking with almond flour from scratch. I made almond flour muffins and cookies and used it to bread fish and put in meatballs.

After a month on this diet full of organic fruits, veg, meat , eggs and fish, nuts and seeds and healthy oils. My son has lost all of his intestinal symptoms. No more gloating, gas. His.
bowel movements are perfect, healthy. He has finally toilet trained!
I wish I had of done it sooner, but very glad that it worked.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the testimony. We love to hear success stories! Any improvement in the behavioral/mental symptoms? Have you read theGut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride? It's the successor of the SCD diet, more fine-tuned and targeting the brain dysfunctions that accompany gut dysbiosis.

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  2. Huge improvement in both behavior and mood. I had read the GAPS website, and due to the difficulty of obtaining raw milk in Canada, I went with SCD, as the recipes are easier to prepare with local ingredients. I borrowed from GAPS with bone broths. I've always got stock for soups and cooking. The other thing that happened at the same time, was So Delicious coconut yoghurt became available in Toronto, so he is eating lots of fermentations as well as probiotic supplements. I've gone off SCD, since he has improved so much. I've brought whole grains back into his diet (rice, oatmeal and quinoa) without any negative effects. SCD is amazing.

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