Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) "slow and steady" support thread - Page 3

[hummingmom]

There's a GAPS thread in Traditional Foods that got started a few days ago; maybe someone there might have a suggestion?

The GAPS concept is interesting, but there's no way I'd be able to do their intro diet in the third trimester. Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Last night, I was feeling a wee bit peckish at dinnertime... and ended up having three 1/4-lb hamburger patties, a couple of bananas, a big glass of grape juice, and 1/2 lb of cheese. And that's not including all the after-dinner snacks. It turns out that I've actually gained a few pounds in the last month. Well, at that rate, I should hope so! LOL

On the down side, I took the kids for an extra-long walk in the park today, and got a bit overheated and thirsty... and now I'm having a flare of my CFS/ME symptoms. I was really hoping the SCD would help with that, but I guess not in the short term, at least. Maybe I should start taking extra EFA's. I think the baby is stealing them all. Seriously, I was in relatively good health after having each of my daughters, but had a really bad flare after DS (the middle child) was born. I was seeing an acupuncturist at the time, and she said it was because he was a boy, and pregnancies with boys are very different from pregnancies with girls. She didn't explain why, but I just read recently that boys need a lot more EFA's, so I guess that's part of it.

BTW, I'm still reading the Sinclair low-starch book. In terms of eliminating starch, it's even more strict than the SCD: no bananas or beans whatsoever; even apples, mango, pineapple, avocado, and most cooked vegetables are suspect. (For the questionable foods, you're supposed to get a dropper bottle of iodine, and test samples of the food to see if it changes color.) At the same time, it's less strict regarding sucrose and lactose. The author acknowledges that disaccharides can be a problem, but encourages people to use their own judgment as to how much they can handle. All in all, it's definitely a "control of symptoms" diet rather than a true healing diet. The author has actually developed more intolerances in the years that she's been on it, which isn't a good sign. I'm not sure if she's starving out the bacteria, or just making them really angry...

[momofmine]

Thanks for the heads up on the GAPS thread over there. Yeah, I don't think there is any way you could do it third trimester unless you ate a ton of veggies like Butternut squash and had someone constantly preparing soup for you. Even still, I don't know. I am basically starving right now, because I cannot keep up with cooking for my boys and cooking soup for myself. I do think it's helped though, even just for this week, to do the GAPS intro. For me at least, I had started really craving fruit and nuts and carbs again, after trying some raw fruit, and I knew my body was not ready for that.

I am just inching my way back up to where my boys are on SCD. We still aren't doing anything raw yet, but I can I just say that my older child has gained over SEVEN pounds in less than two and a half months?? ::::

I can't even tell you how overjoyed I am. It is so clear they needed this diet. before we did the SCD, I was trying to load them up with fat, doing coconut oil, smoothies, etc, etc, and he was actually losing weight. His poops were just falling apart in the water, and I don't think he was absorbing the nutrients he needed from his food. Now, I am just amazed. He has had a resurgence of being hungry all the time again though. Sometimes it seems like he easily eats 3-4 times as much as I can in one sitting.

I read the reviews of that Sinclair book on amazon. She actually says you can eat ice cream because it's frozen? I don't get that. I think the SCD makes a lot more sense, but it's an interesting theory.

What I found most interesting though was that a reviewer said she talks about klebsiella in the book, and people with an overgrowth of this really benefit from her diet. When my older child was a toddler and we did the CDSA, that was the main pathogen found in his stool! AND he is the one who still doesn't do the greatest with butternut squash. Makes his stool more mushy, lots of smaller pieces. Still doesn't fall apart in the water like it did pre-SCD, so I have continued to feed him butternut squash, just not every day. but, like I said, he is just so hungry all the time, so I feel like he needs as much variety right now as I can get him. Taking out winter squash would be hard. I am just going to stick with it for now, the long haul approach.

I do want to add in enzymes or juice from sauerkraut really soon, just have been too overwhelmingly busy lately to get anything new started!

[jamie79]

I havent read the whole thread, but can you do SCD with a LOT of food allergies? I mean A LOT!!

Jamie

[hummingmom]

Originally Posted by jamie79

I havent read the whole thread, but can you do SCD with a LOT of food allergies? I mean A LOT!!

Grains and starchy vegetables are out altogether on the SCD, and beans and nuts are out in the beginning (and some people never manage to tolerate them), so you can definitely manage without those. You do need to use some kind of nuts if you want to make the substitute breads, muffins, etc., but they're not nutritionally essential.

As for dairy and eggs... it's not too bad if you have to eliminate one of them, but if you have to eliminate them both, it would be really hard. Still, there are some people who've managed it. Basically, as long as you can eat some meat and/or seafood (including bone broth and organs), some fats, a few fruits, and a few not-too-starchy vegetables, it should be do-able.

You might want to check out Pecanbread.com. They also have a pecanbread Yahoo group that's very active. Many of their members are using the SCD for autism spectrum conditions, and quite a few of them are dealing with multiple food allergies and intolerances.

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask.

[hummingmom]

Momofmine, that is awesome about your DS's weight gain.

I wish it worked like that for my DD. Her behavior was better during the few weeks that she was on the SCD, but if anything, she was getting even skinnier. She seems to be gaining more now that she's just gluten-free. (I'm still going light on grains for the children, so the main difference is that they've gone back to having raw milk with their meals.)

Last night's dinner was inspired by all the GAPS talk. It's basically an attempt to use up a bunch of CSA vegetables. It's a "mid-stage" recipe, because the fennel is pretty fibrous. I didn't try it on the children (they had some leftovers), but DH and I thought it was delicious.

In a wide, deep skillet, heat:

2 cups frozen chicken broth
2 cups frozen sliced cooked chicken

When the broth is melted, add:

1 bunch greens (I used Red Russian kale), stems removed, leaves left whole
1 leek, white & light green parts only, thinly sliced
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 fennel bulb, cored & sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled & cut in half
1 bay leaf

Sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt and 3/4 tsp dried thyme. Simmer until done to taste.

The flavor was wonderful, and it was a pleasant change from all the fatty food we've been having recently, but it took three huge bowls before I felt full. I'm not sure if I could even last a day on that alone. I admire your persistence on the soup regime!

[hummingmom]

Woo-hoo! My Optimal Diet books have arrived from Poland. I'm so excited.

After looking over the first book, I'm confident enough to try eating this way for the rest of the pregnancy. Dr. K estimates that 2 million Poles are already following the diet (that's around 5% of their population), including many pregnant and nursing women. He does recommend upping carbs to 100-150 g at the end of the third trimester, so that the baby can build glycogen stores.

The OD is a natural fit with the SCD or GAPS; you just have to tweak your meals so that they follow the prescribed protein/fat/carb ratio, and make sure to get the ideal kind of fats and proteins (from organ meats, eggs, etc.). The only tricky part is that some of the recipes use a little wheat flour as a binder. I'll have to figure out something to substitute, so as to get an edible result with the correct ratio.

Anyway, just wanted to share that. I'll start an Optimal Diet thread in the TF forum, in case anyone else wants to discuss it.

[momofmine]

I need to try some probiotics. Are you taking any hummingmom? I need to make some fermented veggies too. Feeling slow and overwhelmed today...I need to stop staying up so late!

[hummingmom]

No probiotic supplements here. I've just been using the homemade yogurt, and sometimes a little bit of finely ground sauerkraut.

I've realized that I need more structure in my eating habits; otherwise, I forget to eat, get too hungry, then binge on fruit or cheese. : As I said in the Optimal Diet thread, I think the super-high fat thing would be too extreme for now. I've been thinking about aiming for 2400 calories, as follows:

60% from fat = 1440 calories (160 g)
20% from protein = 480 calories (120 g)
20% from carbs = 480 calories (120 g)

These seem like reasonable numbers for pregnancy. Dr. Brewer recommends at least 100 g of protein, so no problem there. As for the carbs, based on what I've seen on low-carb discussion boards, even mainstream OB's say that 75-100 g should be enough to stay out of ketosis.

This means that I'd need to eat 6 meals/snacks a day, averaging out to 20 g protein, 20 g carbs, and 26 g fat each. Yikes... I haven't been eating anywhere near that much, aside from the binges (which are usually after the children are in bed, and I have time to relax and realize how hungry I am).

So it would need to look something like this:

Breakfast (7:30)
Mid-morning snack (10:00)
Lunch (12:30)
Afternoon tea/snack (3:00)
Dinner (5:30)
Evening snack (8:00)

I'll try making up a bunch of entrees and snacks that are fat/protein balanced: egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, bacon & eggs, cheese spread, creamy yogurt, liver pate, meatballs in sauce, etc. Then I can just eat those with a large serving of steamed vegetables, or a moderate serving of fruit. Along with the honey in my coffee, that should do the trick.

Wish me luck... we'll see how well this works.

[hummingmom]

Just an update... the high fat thing is going really well for me, and also for my toddler, who's taken to it like a duck to water. She wasn't crazy about eggs before; she would eat them, but only if there was nothing else around. When I add a lot of butter, though -- like a tablespoon or more per egg -- she gobbles them down and kicks her legs in glee. Now that I'm not so worried about getting calories in her, I've stopped giving her the organic baby formula, and have started her on the SCD as of today (though I'm skipping the intro, as she's so tiny). She's had by far the most antibiotics of any of us, thanks to her surgeries, so it would be surprising if she didn't have at least some sort of imbalance.

I've been on the diet for just over two months, and have progressed to a variety of more fibrous vegetables, and small amounts of the very finely ground almond flour from Digestive Wellness (i.e., early stage 3 on the Pecanbread chart). The almond flour seems to agree with me better than the almond butter did, probably because it doesn't contain the skins. I still have occasional cycles of joint pain/fatigue/stool weirdness, but nothing drastic, so I just wait it out and things are back to normal in a day or two.

The other two children will probably be staying off the SCD until after Easter, though I'm trying to make most of their treats legal anyway, so as to ease the future transition. (Okay, who am I kidding, it's so I can share them. ) I have some food-grade cocoa butter in the fridge, and I'd love to use it to make white chocolate truffles in our mini Easter egg molds, but, sadly, the cocoa butter isn't officially designated as legal. It only has 0.5% as much theobromine as cocoa does, so it's hard to see how it could hurt... but still... I don't want to start bending the rules at this point. I guess I'll just make something different for myself. Hazelnut truffles might work, if I can find a way to get them to stick together. Suggestions would be appreciated. I love hazelnuts.

For our St. Patrick's Day breakfast, we had buttery scrambled eggs with green onions, smoked oysters wrapped in bacon, Kerrygold cheese, and diluted apple cider. Later on, I made a "pudding" with raw cashew butter and bananas. With so much delicious food, I'm not tempted to cheat. Well, sometimes I do feel like chocolate would be nice. : But I cheated with a little bit of chocolate in my first week on the diet, so I know from experience that it would just leave me feeling sick.

Any luck with the probiotic foods? I forgot to mention that we get our sauerkraut from the refrigerated section at Whole Foods. It's expensive, but we're eating so little of it at this stage, it didn't seem worth the effort to make our own. They have a couple of legal brands, with several flavors: plain cabbage and salt, kim chee, beet sauerkraut, etc. Very tasty.

[momofmine]

It sounds like things are going great for you guys! I think it's a great idea to ease the kids back onto the diet. It can only be good. I'm glad you are doing well with the fat. That has definitely been the case around here. It sounds like you guys have introduced more variety than we have, and maybe we should too.

I was holding off on the almond flour, and just doing pecan butter, but we hadn't had any for a while. Then I ordered some more, and it came a couple of days ago, and the kids have had a lot of it. I was thinking to myself, we should slow down on this, because we had it, then had a break for several weeks from it, and now I should introduce it back in slowly again. But that was just two days ago, and today my older ds had a slight poop accident, thinking he had to pass gas but poop came out. This used to happen more often before the SCD, but since SCD it hasn't happened once, until today. Then he did go to the bathroom, and it was very very soft, but not falling apart in the water. So I think we need to hold off on the pecan butter again and do that more slowly. Do you think I should try the almond flour instead? I have some of the blanched, skinless finely ground kind from Lucy.

And can we talk about vegetables and fruits? First vegetables, I feel like I am cooking all the nutrition out of them and am wondering when to go with slightly less cooked, and when to expand the repertoire. What vegs are you eating and how are you cooking them?

What about fruits? Have you done any raw fruits yet besides banana?

I was bummed about the setback this morning, but I really think it's from overdoing the pecan butter.

About probiotic foods, we've just been so busy, but I HAVE to make time for this this week. I was thinking about either making sauerkraut or trying coconut yogurt. I am just reluctant to do dairy yet. Any thoughts on what probiotic foods might be best to intro first?

[hummingmom]

Originally Posted by momofmine

Do you think I should try the almond flour instead? I have some of the blanched, skinless finely ground kind from Lucy.

I'm pretty sure that the skins are more of a problem for us than the finely ground nuts themselves. I haven't tried pecans yet, but they'll be next on the list. For now, I've just been making one batch of almond muffins a week, and we eat them over the next two days or so. I do react to the muffins somewhat -- nothing major, but I've noticed some minor joint pains and digestive stuff, especially if I have more than two a day. I think this might be die-off, or a salicylate reaction (or maybe both; some people think that salicylate reactions are related to parasites, of either the visible or the microscopic kind). Either way, it's not bad enough for me to cut them out altogether.

I thought raw cashew butter would be okay to introduce, but then I read on Pecanbread that cashews are a very advanced food overall. Not sure about that??? They do have a lot of carbs (DH is now on Atkins, so I've been checking everything), and the low-starch diet book said that they were very starchy. We just used up the last of the jar, so I'm going to hold off on buying more for now, and do a more controlled trial later on.

And can we talk about vegetables and fruits? First vegetables, I feel like I am cooking all the nutrition out of them and am wondering when to go with slightly less cooked, and when to expand the repertoire. What vegs are you eating and how are you cooking them?

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but after we'd been off the intro diet for a week or two, I just went to "medium steamed." For instance, I'll peel the carrots, cut them into fairly thin coins, and steam them for maybe 15 minutes. Enough to take the crunch out of them, but not so much that they're falling apart. Same goes if I'm sauteeing them.

Our current vegetables are mainly carrots, yellow squash, winter squash, mushrooms, avocado, artichokes, asparagus, canned green olives, onions, garlic, green onions, celery (strings removed), chard (leaves only, no stems), and spinach. We're starting to try the more fibrous stuff, such as brussels sprouts, and I've stopped peeling and seeding the yellow squash. I'm also having about 2 tbsp. of the finely-ground sauerkraut, a couple of times a week.

What about fruits? Have you done any raw fruits yet besides banana?

I've added some green grapes, and a little peeled raw apple... maybe 1/4 of an apple. Once or twice, I've also had a few bites of raw celery (the tender inner stems) and raw mushrooms, when I got hungry while cooking. In those small quantities, they haven't seemed to cause any problems. I'm looking forward to slowly adding more raw foods, as our choices of produce are already quite limited due to sensitivities -- no tomatoes, peppers, berries, etc. -- and I'm a bit concerned about vitamin deficiencies.

Looking at the Pecanbread chart, I guess I'm in late stage 3 or very early stage 4 for fruits and vegetables. OTOH, I'm going a lot slower with the nuts, more like early stage 3, with no plans to increase them soon. I think the nuts are probably more important if you aren't having dairy.

About probiotic foods, we've just been so busy, but I HAVE to make time for this this week. I was thinking about either making sauerkraut or trying coconut yogurt. I am just reluctant to do dairy yet. Any thoughts on what probiotic foods might be best to intro first?

I'd do the sauerkraut. It's not much trouble to make, though it does take a few days to get going, and it seems to help if you make a large batch (we use a half-gallon Mason jar).

Just worked it out, and I'm about 2.5 months into the SCD; the time has really gone by fast. I've had some great days, and a few fairly crummy days, but overall I do feel noticeably better. I'm nowhere near 100% yet, but I know this diet is supposed to be a long-term thing. Besides, my current situation isn't the most conducive to healing, as I'm not getting enough rest or quiet time. After DD2 got out of the hospital, I said that I needed a 6-month vacation, but as it turns out, I haven't had any vacation at all. I've pretty much been running on adrenaline for the past 18 months, taking care of the children and trying to get a handle on all the clutter that's built up (which, itself, is a major source of stress). In homeopathy, they'd call that a "maintaining cause," something that stands in the way of a complete and lasting cure. I'm sure most of us have something similar going on. Diet can help a lot, but it's only part of the picture.

On that note, DH is going out of town for a week, so I'm going to lie low and probably not read/post too much. I'm planning to subsist on stewed chicken, vegetables, yogurt, and butter... and the children can finish off whatever illegal convenience foods are still lurking in the back of our freezer.

[hummingmom]

FYI: I was just reading some old posts on the Pecanbread list, and noticed that the Organic Prairie bacon may contain corn starch (added to the packaging, to prevent sticking). I knew this was true of the lunch meats, but thought the bacon had been verified to be okay by an e-mail from their customer service. Just goes to show what Elaine Gottschall always said... "you have to get it in writing, on company letterhead."

We still have a bunch in the freezer. I think I'm just going to rinse it well and wipe it dry with a paper towel before cooking it. There aren't any other bacons that are nitrate-free and cured without sugar... and bacon is such an important source of fats for me. It's a dietary supplement, honest.

What I'm going to do from now on, though, I don't know. Prosciutto is too salty and low-fat to work as a substitute. The natural salt pork from the HFS is *way* too salty, and IMO kind of nasty tasting. I think I'm going to have to get some pork bellies and build a smoker in the back yard.

[momofmine]

Originally Posted by hummingmom

We still have a bunch in the freezer. I think I'm just going to rinse it well and wipe it dry with a paper towel before cooking it. There aren't any other bacons that are nitrate-free and cured without sugar... and bacon is such an important source of fats for me. It's a dietary supplement, honest.

I think that actually Elaine said that if the only bacon you could find was cured with sugar, then to fry it very crisply and only have it once a week. I never did that though, didn't want the sugar. But,we get just plain "sidemeat" which is cut like bacon, just a little wider. And then I put salt and pepper on it and fry it. If you can think ahead to defrost it and put the S&P on it the night before, it's even better, but I never think ahead like that! And it is easy because it defrosts pretty quickly, because it's on the thinner side. We can get this at the butcher, from the good kind of pigs! We also buy a whole or half pig at a time from our sustainable, free-range, abx-free, organic meat source, and I ask the butcher to cut some if it that way. I so the same with sausage. I just get plain ground pork, add S&P, thyme, and sage, and fry it crumbled or form into patties. Yeah, we eat a lot of sausage around here too.

I am totally realizing this about fat also. I need a LOT of fat or else I really start craving carbs and go overboard and can't break the cycle.

[momofmine]

I think I need to try some more raw fruits with the boys too, just little quantities, and expand our vegetables. Thanks for posting what you're eating now. I am also thinking about doing enzymes for them, and I might try to make coconut milk yogurt, since we aren't doing dairy. I feel like I've been just squeaking by the past month with no time for expanding into new territory. But it's been a full three months! They seem to be doing well, though. Thanks for sharing! Hope your week goes smoothly!

[hummingmom]

I'll have to look for that cut of pork. Our Whole Foods doesn't seem to carry a lot of the fattier cuts of fresh meat, unfortunately.

We could fry the other bacon crisp for a treat, but then I'd have to throw out the drippings. Bacon is really most valuable to us as a convenient cooking fat, to add extra calories and flavor to lean meat dishes. For instance, here's something that I made recently. I bet it would work great with the sidemeat.

Veal Kidney and Mushrooms
-------------------------------

Chop 4 oz. fatty bacon and put in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Once it's given off a bit of fat, add:

1 leek (white & light green parts only), sliced
4 oz. button mushrooms, sliced

Saute for several minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked through.

Raise the heat to medium, and add:

1 grass-fed veal kidney, halved lengthwise and fatty core removed, sliced into 1/4" pieces

Stir until kidney is brown on all sides. Lower the heat and stir in a pinch of dried thyme, then continue cooking until the kidney is done to your liking.


This was a huge hit with me, and I'm sure DH would have liked it just as much if he'd been home. The girls weren't so thrilled with it, but they did eat about half of their servings. DS ate everything but the mushrooms, and then ate most of his sisters' leftover meat. :

I have to say, though, I have no desire to eat kidneys more often than every three weeks or so. A little goes a long way with organ meats!

[hummingmom]

Okay, I'm not doing a great job of staying offline. But I really wanted to ask about this.

The new baby is growing fast at this point (Babycenter says it's the weight of a Savoy cabbage, LOL), and I think I really need to crank up the carbs. I'm up to about four bananas a day, plus about 8 oz. of juice, a couple of teaspoons of honey, and assorted vegetables. I just added it up in my head, and I think it's around 150 grams of carbohydrate. It still doesn't seem to be enough. I've read that some SCDers, who didn't make a point of getting enough carbs during pregnancy, had smallish babies. I know Kwasniewski says that's a good thing, but I'm not willing to bank my baby's health on his theory at this point. Besides, he allows carbs pretty much ad lib in late pregnancy, and doesn't restrict starches per se... so, less strict than what I'm doing now.

I don't want to add much honey, as it's basically empty calories. Besides, too much honey, juice, or bananas seem to make me more tired. And if I increase the other fruits, veg, or nuts much more, I'll get digestive troubles.

How bad an idea would it be to add some split lentils or split peas, just as a temporary thing? : I know it's not recommended until all symptoms have been clear for 6 months... but are they going to cause a long-term setback, or could I just go back on the proper diet for my stage after the baby is born?

On the one hand, I really need more carbohydrates, and I think (based on past experience) that the nutrients in those foods would be especially beneficial. On the other hand, I have this fear that cheating, before all the bad guys are under control, might help to breed resistant "gut superbugs."

Argh.

[momofmine]

Yes, I hear you. That is a tough call. It seems to me like when I was on the Long Island list years ago there were several pregnant women that did just fine. I can tell you my experience with my 2nd child. With my pregnancy for DS1, I started out vegetarian, ate very high carb, and tested GBS+ and had one shot of abx in labor. Then we went on SCD for three years. Then I got pregnant with DS2 within about 6 weeks of going off of SCD. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I went back to about 90% SCD. I ate no sugar at all, not even one teeny tiny cheat, and I limited grains. I ate on the low carb side, but I can't say that I remember how my carb intake varied in the 3rd trimester. I do know that I did not want to test + again for GBS, and I really felt that eating that way was the right thing to do.

The only non-SCD items I allowed myself were:
--one piece of Ezekial bread a day (occasionally two)
--I also sometimes had Larabars, more towards the end of the pregnancy. So yes, I guess I probably was consuming more carbs towards the end. But I seriously ate almost what we ate before when we had been on SCD, minus the almond flour muffins.

I gained less weight the 2nd time, about 20-22 pounds, and my baby was a perfect and healthy 8 lbs 7 oz. With DS1 I had gained about 50 pounds and he was 8 lbs and 16 oz, but he arrived about five days past my due date. So, I don't really think there was much difference in their weights. AND, I did test negative for GBS the second time.

So, now about you......what about just increasing the foods like butternut squash, avocado? I think the lentils are pretty gassy and that would feed the bugs. Have you tried enzymes? That might allow you to have more carbs. I'm sorry I'm not more help. It's late here, but I'll think about it and post back tomorrow.

[hummingmom]

For some reason, I didn't see your post until just now. Thanks for sharing your experience.

I've been GBS+ with all of my previous pregnancies, regardless of diet, supplements, etc. (I think I was actually on the SCD when I got tested the second time.) Avoiding antibiotics was one of the main reasons why we planned home births for #2 and #3, though it didn't work out either time. On the up side, I didn't have the IV penicillin with #3, due to the urgent c/s. I sometimes wonder if that's why her digestion has been better than the others'. She ended up getting a *ton* of antibiotics -- and some formula that was added to the breast milk in the early weeks, to increase calories -- but at least my gut flora would have been reasonably good.

In fact, if we ever come to the point of really understanding all this stuff, I think antibiotics might be found to be helpful in some very tough cases. That sounds weird, but there are people on the SCD lists who've had major improvements in their IBD after taking vancomycin (while following the diet, including yogurt). If you were to fast someone for a few days, give them powerful abx that pretty much wiped out their gut flora, then start feeding them again with 100% breast milk from a reasonably healthy mother, you might be able to "reset" things. KWIM? (Not that I have any fondness for vanco... that stuff is horrible. DD still has a white mark on her forehead where it destroyed one of her veins.)

Looking back, I was hardly eating any grains when DD was in the hospital, as there weren't really any GF grain dishes on the menu other than white rice (which I avoided on nutritional grounds). I had a fairly simple whole-foods diet, consisting of meat, eggs, dairy, potatoes, refried beans, cooked carrots & peas, salad, apples, bananas, and coffee or tea. Not bad for hospital food... and it was great not to have to think about cooking and cleaning up. I was just joking with DH that my dream is for that guy with the hairnet to show up at my doorstep three times a day, with trays for all of us.


It's good to hear that your "lower-carb baby" was a healthy size. I did end up holding off on the split peas -- I soaked and prepared them, but then put them in the freezer for now. I'll probably end up just feeding them to the children.

Unfortunately, I overdid it on the fat yesterday; with DH away and various errands to run, I was too busy to cook balanced meals for myself, and ended up eating a lot of raw butter and raw milk cheese (I mean, truly a LOT, by anyone's standards ). It had me feeling pretty ill, and now I have an aversion to the stuff. But, oddly enough, I feel quite good today. Maybe I'm now fully loaded on fat-soluble vitamins? Or maybe it was an unintentional gall bladder flush. Anyway, I won't be doing it again any time soon.

Last night's dinner was grass-fed hamburger patties, cooked in a little tallow, with some slivered carrots and thinly sliced white onion added to the pan to cook alongside the meat. Very easy and good. This morning's breakfast was eggs over easy, and yogurt & wild blueberry smoothies. I've found that I can't handle very sweet smoothies, but it turns out that the entire bag of frozen blueberries only has about as much sugar as one banana. I did add a tiny bit of raw honey (about 1/2 tsp per serving), and the children also had some applesauce swirled in, which looked very nice.

Now that we're having such simple foods, I'm starting to pay more attention to presentation. Last night, I used a jar lid to shape the hamburger patties into proper circles, and they really did look much more appealing than the lumpy kind I usually make. I also bought some little square silicone molds, to make muffins that look like individual loaves of quick bread. What can I say... I'm turning into the SCD Martha Stewart.

[leighann79]

I just ordered the book last night. I'm wanting to for sure get my youngest and my DH on this diet. DD1 and DS will be along for the ride. I also need to be, but wasn't sure if now was a good time to start. I'm 26 weeks pregnant. Does it say anything in the book about starting while pregnant? Or, do you ladies have any advice?

[hummingmom]

Hi Leighann... I was going to bump this up for you, but I see you've already been here! Sorry nobody has replied yet. I guess we've both been busy.

Elaine Gottschall has said that starting while pregnant is fine. You just need to make sure to get enough carbohydrates. I've found that adding plenty of extra fat has also been very helpful, as it keeps me from getting too hungry.

Feel free to ask any other specific questions.