Vegan SCD...maybe it CAN be done!

[LaLa]

I just did a bit of quick research and I sent this email to an online friend. Tell me...with the use of coconut kefir and almond yogurt...what am I missing? It really looks like it could work for those Vegans who want to try SCDiet. This is just one day done quickly, but obviouslly there is potential!~
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I just entered some Data into FitDay and here is what I came up with off the top of my head for meeting your daily requirements of nutrients while staying close to your personal goal of calorie intake and also staying on foods that are SCD safe (they are across the stages, but all within the SCD.Lentils are more advanced SCD safe foods, but they are on the list!)
It would require a lot of eating!
LOL
But the total daily calories are 1761, which isn't bad.
The daily nutrients are all met, with the exception of B12, which is hard to get on a vegetarian diet (and is controversial) and calcium. On this day you'd be getting 55% of your calcium recommendation, so that would be an area for improvment or supplement?

This could obviouslly be improved upon, and many things like Pears and Apples can be used to make pear cookies and pancakes on the SCDiet so there are options. Water would be the main drink (maybe herb tea). Or fresh juicing some of those daily fruits? Also, if you did make the yogurt or keifir water from almond or coconut, that would be wonderfullly healing for your gut!

Here is a list:

a seaweed salad of the following. Eat the whole salad throughout the day!
4 tablespoons of each:
Agar, Kelp, Wakame, Laver. I don't know off hand if Apple Cider Vinegar is okay on SCD or lemon? Either of those would be nice with the seaweed, but not sure if they are safe. I think lemon is good for the gut, but have to double check.

1 medium
banana, apple, pear (cut up in a bowl for breakfast)

Throughout the day snacks: Eat 1 avocado, 1/2 Cup almonds, 1/4 Cup cashews, 1/4 Cup brazil nuts

Lunch : 1 cup boiled spaghetti squash with 1/2 cup broccoli 1/2 cup boiled carrots

Supper: 1/2 Cup lentils (prepared SCD style) 1/2 Cup broccolli, 1/2 cup boiled carrots

dessert: 1 Cup blueberries drizzled in honey


Downside, while you are getting your nutrients and keeping your calories low, you are not getting enough protein for your recommended amount. With this day of food you would be getting 48 of protein. Not terrible. You could up your almonds to get closer to goal. Maybe make a batch of monster cookies and ignore the calories for the healing process?

I just wanted to demonstrate that it may not be so bad to use the gut safe foods. It will be a bit time consuming, but I'd be willing to try it!
You can read more about SCD here:
http://www.pecanbread.com/
Obviouslly it CAN be adapted to a vegan diet (cause I just did that!) but you'd have to do the homemade yogurt or kefir water and an enzyme. It would be an essential step.

Or just doing the blood testing would point you in the right direction too. Either would be good choices.
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[LaLa]

Here is some nutritional info on the seaweed salad - I was assuming this would be boiled or steamed

regarding the seaweed: with those I listed you'll be getting rid of radioactive metals with daily ingest of kelp, getting calcium, beta carotene, and B vitamins with Wakame, protein, vit E, C, B with Laver, and more calcium, iron, iodince, A, and B with Arame. Agar gives calcium, iron, and can act as a laxative. It also carries radioactive wase from the body like Kelp. It is a common vegetarian alternative to gelatin.

[LaLa]

How to make coconut kefir

Links to coconut and almond yogurt starters - homemade

[greencat]

Personalized SCD

My family is on SCD, and it has been a journey of its own. I started it as a recommendation from LaLa, but had no intention of staying on it for this long at first. Yet, we had such a positive results from SCD, I am very appreciative to LaLa for recommending it and giving me many support and advice. We have been on SCD for almost two years. My DD was a little over 2years old, my DS under a year when we switched to SCD.

In our success, I found two main things that worked better with SCD. They are: Eating SCD yogurt everyday and keep vegan recipes to combine with SCD recipe as guide.

We are still at battle to cure the Leaky Gut, caused by yeast overgrowth and constipation. As I made trial, success and error with SCD, I start to modify our SCD within the SCD legal foods. I found the SCD yogurt is a must, but have a better success when we don’t eat dairy. We eat a little of goat cheese; my DD eats goat yogurt, but my DS can only tolerate almond yogurt. So, between three of us, I have two yogurt makers. (I like “Euro Cuisine Yogurt Maker since I can make 6 glass jars at a time, and I can boil the jars for sanitation. I like the fact that I can eat one jar at a time without contaminating the rest of the yogurt, and start making the next batch with extra jars. And, not using a potentialy harmful cooking utencils are important to me. I like the glass jar vs. plastic.) I read somewhere that colon friendly bacteria thrive better if you eat it in the empty stomach, so we eat the yogurt in the morning. Since I see a better result with additional probiotic, I sprinkle some on the yogurt, too. If you are using digestive enzyme, you need to take them separately.

If you can not tolerate dairy or choose to be a vegan, the almond yogurt or coconut milk yogurt is a way. You can make almond milk from blanched almond. Coconut milk from can is easy to use, but you need to find the one with no additives/ SCD illegal, which it can be a challenge. Adding gelatin is a great idea, if you don’t like the runny yogurt which almond or coconut yogurt will be. I looked into making coconut kefir, but it is contraversial since kefier bacteria resenbles yeast. However, I think it will be the first food that I will add once our yeast condition stables better along with other fermented food. If you are not a SCD practitioner, you can use soy milk, almond milk from package or rice milk. I just recommend boiling it first, then bringing it down to the yogurt appropriate temperature before you add the starter. So, you won’t grow mold or bacteria along with probiotic, and to culture the yogurt properly.

One of our mistakes with SCD was that we ate too much protein. As you will find out when you start the SCD, you are cooking a lot. And, the easy thing to cook is meat, eggs and fish. Since we do not eat any grain, the baked goods are mostly from almond mills/ almond flour (and some bean flour). As a result, we started to constipate again. We, who are not vegan, still eat beef (only the grass fed), buffalo, ocean fish, smoked salmon, canned fish, cage free chicken and eggs (but no pork recommended by "Maker's Diet"). But we cut back on baked goods and meat consumption all together. I found keeping your body’s acid/alkaline balance affects how our body functions. The alkaline diet will help our body to be a not so friendly place for the yeast to grow. So, I added more menus with raw and slightly cooked veggies. This is where vegan recipe comes in handy.

[LaLa]

I am curiuos is the Agar could be a Vegan sub for gelatin in thickening the almond yogurt? If anyone tries that, let us know!

Greencat, thank you for that great information!

[greencat]

What is Agar and vegans don't eat gelatin? If so, what is in the gelatin?

[LaLa]

Horse hoofs in the gelatin! Gross, huh? Agar is a seaweed that is used in place of gelatin by vegetarians. I have never tried it as that. I put it in soups, but I have never used it in that form, so I am curious how it works!
Here is more about that
Agar by Wikipedia

[JaneS]

Seaweed and Agar are high in polysaccarides and are "illegal".

I would be very concerned about vit. A deficiency on a vegan diet, because that in itself can lead to colitis and inflammation of epithelial cells (skin and intestines, as eczema often goes hand in hand with gut issues).

The gelatin from animal bones is very soothing to the gut and also contains glutamine, the primary building block of gut cells. There are very good reasons why it's included on the SCD as well as other gut healing regimes... it's not just for thickening, it has important nutrition.

I'm not saying you can't, but I think these are some reasons why I personally wouldn't. I used to be mostly vegan too so I can understand the thought process.

Bone broths, raw milk and high vitamin cod liver oil were integral to my healing. Although I realize they are not "required" on the SCD, I truly believe this type of condition only starts in a nutrient deficient body. And that the RDA is no where near sufficient for correcting deficiencies, allowing for healing, as well as superior health.

Also I thought yogurt made from alternative milks are not as strong as dairy too? I really takes a massive amount of probiotics to shift the gut balance.

[LaLa]

While the yogurts made with non dairy may not be as strong, many people (non vegan included) just cannot tollerate dairy (our family included). So, coconut and almond yogurt are still better than none. We also used a Metagenics powdered probiotic, which was great

Good to know about the seaweed Jane! I was wondering!

Even without the seaweed, though, the above day does meet vitamin A requirements. It can be done. It isn't as ideal as using the bone broths and cod liver oil is SO beneficial that it's hard to compare going without, but there are Vegans who need to heal the gut who simply will not eat meat or eggs to do so. I am hoping to brainstorm something to help those people. As for our family, we do rely on organic pasture raised meats for our omegas, aminos, and a big chunk of protein.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of homemade yogurt probiotic concentration for the different styles of homemade yogurt?
Anyone know?

Oh, and I was thinking that a willing adult could make sure they ate their proper amounts of veggis and fruits and nuts, but I think it would be difficult for most children to eat the amount they'd need, so this bit of data I am gathering really is intended for adults.

[JaneS]

Originally Posted by LaLa

Even without the seaweed, though, the above day does meet vitamin A requirements. It can be done.

Not if the gut is so damaged that it cannot make the beta carotene conversion. When I researched this I found that even the best estimate of beta carotene to retinol (vit. A) conversion was 12:1 by the IOM. Meaning you have to eat six carrots a day to make the 5,000 UI of the RDA of retinol.

However, 21:1 is now though to be the current estimate, meaning 10 carrots/day. And these estimates are in NORMAL guts, who knows what damaged guts do.

And since I've studied native diets, which averaged 50,000IU/day of vit. A for optimal health, I just remain unconvinced of the RDA as being the correct amount to shoot for, or even the amount required for healing, which one would assume the body needed more in times of stress to regenerate itself. It's certainly not for vitamin C for ex.

Because there is also research showing that damage to the epithelial lining of the gut can be caused by vit. A deficiency itself.

[LaLa]

So assuming the gut is damaged and not absorbing vit A through foods on a Non Vegan SCD diet, how do you address that because the issue will there either way, will it not?

Also thinking here....Assuming a person is not absorbing ... well that is kind of the point of getting on SCD to eliminate those starches and let the gut heal, which will, in turn, allow those foods / vitamins to be absorbed properly.
"By removing starches and sugars, dysbiosis is corrected. The result is a decrease in intestinal inflammation and healing of the intestinal tract." The same premis applies, of course. While Vegan isn't as good in comparison, certainly with legal supplements, enzymes, kefir, and yogurts I still have yet to see proof that it can't be done!

Also, while the dairy is strongly urged in BTVC, many parents of autistic children (myself included) completed this diet without any traces of dairy and without dairy yogurt subs (using powdered probiotic instead) and it worked brilliantlly! So while many say you Can't or Shouldn't do it without the yogurt...again it is a GREAT thing for the gut, but that doesn't mean the principles of SCD cannot be accomplished without the yogurt. We are not the only family who has found that to be fact.

And for reference, here is an account from a family who did the SCDiet while vegetarian and saw great success with it! From Pecanbread.com

I am Jay, mom to 4.7 year old boy in the spectrum. I have been doing SCD (YES, with the yogurt) since April this year. ..........
My son has tolerated the yogurt very well and we are vegetarians also and this had made it even tougher. I could isolate the REAL food allergies that my son had only on SCD. The very next day after starting SCD, my son became more alert and everybody could tell the difference. After 3 weeks on SCD, I also did the GSE/No Fenol combo and I don't know what helped more but my son's incredible eyecontact is back and here to stay. We did an OAT test after 4 weeks on SCD and saw that his clostridium level had gone from 8.5 to 4.2 , 0-0.9 being normal. Our DAN doc DR. Green was surprised to see the results and started giving me ideas on what culture I could use to make yogurt. He was the same person who freaked out when I first told him about yogurt. ...

Again, I am not saying that it is BETTER or AS GOOD to do this diet Vegan, but I am saying that the principles of eliminating those illegal carbs can be met while eating a nutrient rich vegie or vegan diet. (which could really help a lot of people who will not eat animal products, but who need to heal their guts).

[LaLa]

And I haven't read through it, but Dr. Fine (EnteroLab) has helped many people overcome gut problems of a wide range and I am pretty sure he encourages a Vegan diet. Here is a link to his nutrition page
http://www.finerhealth.com/Educational_Info/Nutrition/

[cathe]

Are cashews okay? I have a recipe for cashew yogurt and it's pretty thick.

[Gale Force]

Interesting project LaLa. I think vegans probably could benefit from a veganesque SCD but that's not to say it would be as effective. The vitamin A example is a good one. The issue is that veg sources of vit A are carotenes, not retinol. Animal sources have retinol which do not have to be converted -- they are already retinol. If your body does not make the conversion, you need the retinol in your diet. In that case, you need some animal.

I don't know about lab work for vitamin A, but someone could be tested to see if that's one of her problems.

I don't know about the cashews Cathe for SCD since I was a candida diet gal myself, but they are a big no-no on the candida diet because of their high mold content. It's ashame. There is no other nut like the cashew.

[JaneS]

Originally Posted by LaLa

So assuming the gut is damaged and not absorbing vit A through foods on a Non Vegan SCD diet, how do you address that because the issue will there either way, will it not?

It's not that a damaged gut is not absorbing vit. A, it's that a vegan diet that contains beta carotenes from veggies only will not effectively be converted to vit. A in a damaged gut since such low levels are converted in a normal gut.

Vit. A is in animal foods only. I take high vitamin cod liver oil (and eat grass fed dairy, seafood and pastured eggs) to help meet my requirements for A.

Also Elaine Gottschall was against doing the diet without animal products as well but she cited protein requirements.

[JaneS]

Originally Posted by cathe

Are cashews okay? I have a recipe for cashew yogurt and it's pretty thick.

Yes, cashews are "legal" on SCD, however, they do contain a lot more starch than other nuts. Almonds and pecans tend to be more easily digested for beginners.

[LaLa]

Yes I know she was against it, but I'm trying to think outside of the box here
I believe that while there may be one "great" way, that doesn't mean other ways are by default, worthless. There may still be some good worth for Vegans.

Okay, so the Vit A question is one that Vegans/Vegetarians must have an answer for on their diets as a whole (because from what you are saying that is an issue for them regardless of SCDiet or any other Vegan diet...). I know that my sister does not feel that the "recommended" calcium or B12 are necesarilly required by people on a healthy Vegan diet based on her readings into that (of course I don't know the details, so anyone who does...please share!)


I'd be interested to hear what some experts in the study of Vegan/Vegetarian nutrition have found relating to Vit A?