Stage2 Cottage Pie!

You need:

Minced meat

Carrots

Parsley and chives

Cheddar

Garlic

Olive oil

Pumpkin purée

Nutmeg

Cut the carrots into small cubes. Heat a pan with oil, fry the meat. Add finely diced garlic and the Carrots, season with parsley, chives, salt and pepper. Let it sauté a bit more, but it should not get too dry. Place the meat mix into a casserole or a pie form. 

In a blender, mix pumpkin purée, a dash of nutmeg, salt, pepper and some cheddar. Spread this mix on top of the meat mix evenly. 

Turn oven to 200C, place the pie inside and bake until the pumpkin browns at the side of the casserole. 

Serve. 

You can take this basic recipe and add more veggies when you can tolerate more, like peas, onions, celery and leeks. You can also exchange the pumpkin topping with cooked cauliflower mash. 

Zucchini Bolognese

You need:

Zucchini (roughly one cup per serve, also called courgettes or summer squash)
Garlic
Olive oil
1/2 cup pureed carrots
Oregano and basil
100g minced meat per serve

This dish involves a bit more work than usual, but it is worth it!
,
Peel the zucchini, if necessary (some cannot tolerate the skin yet), then use a Julienne cutter and cut the zucchini into thin stripes, leave the seed bit. You will have now something that resembles spaghetti. Take some paper towels, put the "noodles" on top of it and sprinkle them with salt. Let them rest for at least 30 minutes, then dry them with paper towels. This will result in more firm noodles and avoids them getting too mushy while cooking.
Heat a pot with water and cook the noodles al dente. (I cooked them for 4 minutes, but I prefer the bite)

Heat the oil in a pan with the garlic, roast the garlic, then add the minced meat and the herbs and fry.
Add the carrots and some water, season with salt and pepper and let it simmer until the sauce has thickened. Remove the garlic. Mix with zucchini noodles and serve. If you tolerate parmesano, add as much as you like.

Easy Chicken Spinach Curry

You need:

Frozen or fresh spinach
Chicken breasts
Cooked and pureed pumpkin
Spices
Garlic (peeled, not cut)
Butter, Ghee or coconut oil
Water

Cut the chicken breasts into small cubes.
Heal the oil in a big pan, and add the spices.
(I used cardamom, mustard seeds, nutmeg, cumin, turmeric, fenugreek seeds and long pepper, and a garam masala mix)
Add the garlic and roast it with the spices, until its fragrant.
Add the chicken meat and fry it from all sides, it works best if the oil is really hot, so no water leaves the meat. Add the fresh and washed spinach and let it wilt, then add the pumpkin with a bit of water and salt. If you are using frozen spinach, just add it with the pumpkin and let it all simmer, until it is thickened. Remove the garlic before you serve it.

It does not really matter how much spices you add, or the exact amount of spinach. Adjust it to your palate and to your tolerance levels.

My partner ate it, too, and I had to fight for the leftovers the next day. Sheesh. He isn't even ill.

Carrot Fries

You need:

Carrots, minimum of two per person
Olive oil
Rosemary (can be omitted)
Salt
1 plastic bag

Peel the carrots and slice them into finger long sticks. Place them into the plastic bag, add some olive oil, close the bag tightly and shake it, so the oil will cover every fry nicely.
Preheat the oven to 220 C.
Put some baking paper onto a baking tray, and spread the carrots out evenly. sprinkle some fresh rosemary over them, if you tolerate it.
Bake the fries until they are soft and slightly browned. Take them out of the oven and sprinkle salt over them.
They won't be crispy, but they taste much better than normal fries (according to my partner).
Serve them with the meat of your choice. Especially good with a grilled steak.

Juicy Salmon Fillet on Spinach

You need:

200g fresh salmon fillet per person
butter or coconut oil
1 lemon
1 clove of garlic
salt, pepper, nutmeg, parmesano if tolerated
A lot of fresh spinach (I used a whole bag, just for me)

I forgot to take a picture, so greedy was I to eat, I promise to add one as soon as I cook it again or something similar.

Wash the spinach, remove the stalks, cut the leaves into pieces or leave them whole.
Rinse the salmon (or any other fish) under running water and place it on a baking tray on tinfoil. Squeeze the lemon juice over it, and sprinkle it with salt.
Turn oven on 200 C, and place the fish inside. The fish needs to be checked every few minutes, since the cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillet. It should be done, but not dried out.
Meanwhile, heat a pan with some oil or butter, fry the garlic, then remove it. That way, the garlic taste is inside, but you won't react to it. Add the wet spinach to it, and stir it slowly until all is wilted down. Since this is really fast, try to time it and cook the spinach short before the salmon will be done. Season the spinach with salt and pepper, and use nutmeg if you are off dairy.
Put the spinach onto your plate, grate some fresh parmesano over it, and place the salmon on top of it. If the salmon happened to get a bit dry, add some butter.

Easy and SCD-legal Chicken Roast Dinner

 

You need:

Carrots, peeled and cut into cubes
Pumpkin, cut into cubes
Rosemary
1 whole, organic lemon
Paprika, black pepper, olive or coconut oil, salt
1 whole chicken

Put pumpkin cubes and carrot cubes into a oven roast dish. Sprinkle rosemary over it and some salt. Heat the oven to 200 C and place the dish into the bottom half.
Put a grill rack directly above the veggies.
Rinse the chicken and dry it with a paper towel, place the lemon inside the carcass.
Mix the oil, salt, pepper, paprika and "paint" the chicken all over with this marinade. Place the chicken onto the grill rack directly above the veggies.
Bake for 30 minutes, then turn the chicken carefully and bake for another 30 minutes.

The juices from the chicken will have dropped into the veggies and cooked them to perfection. The lemon inside the chicken will have scented the meat slightly, keeping it moist, but will not have left any real traces to react against.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Curry

You need:

1 cup of cooked pumpkin per serve
100g of minced meat per serve
1 tblsp. coconut oil , ghee or butter (later stage) per serve
tolerated spices like turmeric, cumin, pepper, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg
1/2-1 cup of bone broth per serve

Heat the oil in a pan, then add the spices. Heat up until the spices smell fragrant. Add the meat and fry it. Then add the pumpkin and the broth, and cook it until the liquid has thickened and the pumpkin has fallen apart completely. Salt to your taste.

For later stages, experiment by adding other vegetables like spinach or peas, add garlic or coconut milk.

SCD-lifestyle's Awesome Turkey Breakfast Sausage

This recipe is "stolen" from Jordan and Steve from SCD lifestyle.

It is the best recipe for a SCD legal breakfast during the early stages when you cannot tolerate eggs or yoghurt yet.

You need:

2kgs of minced meat (turkey, beef, pork, I used half pork, half beef)
3 tsp. sea salt
2 tbsp. water
2 pinches of thyme
2 pinches of black pepper
2 pinches of sage
2 pinches of cayenne

Mix the water, salt, and spices with the meat.  Kneed the spices into the meat, thoroughly.
Fill a bread baking form with the meat, cover it with a piece of baking paper.
Bake it at 150 C  for two hours.
Lift the sausage out, cut into pieces and freeze or refrigerate. Use the meat juice in the pan as a base for soup or for the pumpkin curry recipe.
For breakfast, heat coconut oil in a pan, fry a piece of sausage for a few minutes and serve with 1/2 cup of veggie or fruit, pour the hot coconut oil over it.

Heartburn

There are two different reasons why heartburn happens, and the most common one is not the one you might think of.

Too much stomach acid:

It is pretty rare.
It can happen if you were on PPI (proton pump inhibitors) for a while and just stopped, so the stomach suddenly produces too much acid.
You might have eaten something very high in protein, fats and carbohydrates, leading to an increase in gastric juices.
You might be pregnant, and the size of the baby increased pressure in your abdomen, forcing the lower oesophageal sphincter (LES) open, and the acid crawls up your throat.
Or you might have changed your diet, or maybe you are fasting or you are pretty sick, and now you have something called ketosis. Ketosis means your body has switched from using sugars to using fats as main energy source. The molecules the body produces from fat are called keton bodies, and they have a nasty side effect: they are acidic, increasing the over all pH of your body. Additionally, you breathe out acetone, so your breath will smell like you have been drinking.

Home remedies for too much stomach acid: 1/4 tsp baking soda on a litre of warm water, sip slowly.

Too little stomach acid:

Very common. Age, gut dysbiosis, Helicobacter pylori etc. all cause the production of stomach acid to drop.
Without stomach acid, the following things can happen:

• bacteria, parasites and fungi get access to undigested food and ferment it, leading to burping and bloating, and on the long run causes GERD and SIBO.
• This increases the pressure inside the stomach, and forces the LES to open. 
• The sphincter at the end of the stomach does not want the food to pass, since it is simply not digested enough, throwing the contents of the stomach back with force.

If you feel heavy after eating meat, have frequent heartburn shortly after eating and burp even hours later, and your breath smells rotten, you are more likely to suffer from low stomach acid.

Home remedies for not enough stomach acid:
Lemon juice with meals, Vitamin C between meals, or apple cider vinegar.
Or betaine HCL supplementation (with pepsin). Ask you practitioner for details on dosage.

SCD legal Meatballs and Chicken legs

Suitable for the intro diet and all other stages

You need:
lots of chicken drumsticks or thighs, and minced meat
some thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Meatballs: 
mix minced meat with salt, thyme and pepper, form balls, put balls on a baking tray covered with tinfoil.
Turn oven on grill and full heat, grill meatballs in the oven for 8-10 minutes each side.

Chicken drumsticks:
in a small container, mix some salt, pepper, thyme and olive oil. Rinse and dry the chicken legs with a paper towel. Put chicken legs on a baking tray with tinfoil. Now use a food brush (best is silicone) and brush the drumsticks with the glaze from all sides. Turn oven to 200 C, and bake for 15 minutes on once side, then turn and bake another 15 minutes. If the skin is not yet crispy, turn on the grill for another 5-10 minutes. The legs need to be well done.
If you have loose stools, remove the skin before eating.

Re-start

Hello, dearest Reader.

You might wonder why I have started this blog on SCD, home remedies, diets, diseases, etc.. The reason is simple: I got very, very sick.
Two years ago, I suddenly got very, very nauseous. It didn't go away.
The first test was a blood test for Helicobacter pylory. This is a bacteria that can cause gastritis, ulcers and even cancer. It was positive, but too low, so the doctor dismissed it.
He gave me medicine that inhibited my stomach acid, and another one that forced my stomach to empty, even if it wasn't ready. Only one day later, the pain came. And what a pain it was! It felt like a hot knife was stabbed into my small intestine. Additionally, I was still nauseous, had heartburn, burbs, and I started to bloat until I looked 8 months pregnant.
"Its IBS, you are stressed, that's all.". I wish. Being a nutrition scientist, I knew it was not IBS. But now I had to fight for the right diagnose.
They made breath tests, and told me I was only fructose intolerant. They made stool tests and told me I was fine. They made CT scans, gastroscopies, colonoscopies, and five pregnancy tests. I even tried to eat low fructose (FODMAP-diet), but it still made me worse. And the pain was horrible, not even paracetamol helped.
After one year, I made an expensive stool test, which is a comprehensive test kit and screens for dozens of markers, bacteria, fungi and parasites.
It came back positive for 3 parasites. I started the SCD diet to manage my symptoms, and tried to get rid of the parasites. I got a bit better, but the pain was still there.
6 month later, I had enough, and did another stool screening. It showed that I got rid of the parasites, but it also showed that there was Helicobacter again, and lots of it.
I stopped eating overly salty or acidic, and got antibiotics, and the pain got better. Sadly, it just came back one week after I finished my antibiotics, meaning that either I have something else that reacts to antibiotics, or the Helicobacter survived the first round.
My partner also has stomach problems, but not as bad, so my money is on the Helicobacter, and that I got it back from him. Now I have to wait for 5 weeks until I can get retested for Helicobacter.
My partner will get the blood test, while I will do the stool antigen test and the breath test. If the Helicobacter  is gone, I will do another breath test for bacterial overgrowth.
And to survive this madness for another few months, I re-started the scd diet, this time very, very strict.

Stage 3

Meats: pan-fried is allowed now

Eggs: omelets, sunny side up...

Veggies: the ones from the first stages can be fried, the new introduced sadly not yet. Boil them until you are sure to be able to handle the increased fibre. Try: brussel sprouts, cabbage, celery, leek, peas, brokkoli, cauliflower, chard, kale, beets, olives, onions, garlic and bok choi.

Fruits: lime, lemon, papaya, cantaloupe, cherries, figs, grapefruit, kiwi, kumquat, mango, passion fruit, watermelon, rhubarb, berries, dates, dried fruit, oranges. But all peeled, de-seeded, and cooked only. 

Nuts:  nutbutters! Cashew, blanched almonds, hazelnut, pecan. If you have no problems with pecans so far, you can even try to use pecan flour or hazelnut flour! Just make sure to use nuts sparingly. Biggest troublemaker is usually cashews so be careful. 

Stage 2

Meat: Baked meat, and baked legal bacon. No sugar, dextrose or something added, honey should be fine. Try a baked fish for a change, fish is very healthy. 

Eggs

Veggies: only de-seeded, peeled and cooked/roasted is allowed. Try green beans, mushrooms, cucumber, cress or watercress, and bell peppers (roast them to peel). Mix with the veggies from the stage before. 

Raw Avocado

Fruits: allowed are raw banana, and cooked, peeled and puréed pineapple, tomato (peel and de-seed!), plums, apricots 

Dairy: You can actually try some legal cheese now, meaning cheese with no lactose. Try Brie, Camembert and Cheddar. (if the label on the back says <1% carbohydrates, its legal)

Nuts: Try self made almond milk, cashew milk and coconut milk (or coconut milk with no added sugars). A great way to gain weight is eating coconut yoghurt. 

Stage 1

Bone broths: make soups from beef, lamb or pork bones, whole chickens and save the meat. Best are bones with marrow. Boil them for 2-3 hours. The cartilage on the bones is full of glucosamines and other gelatin substances, which help to heal the gut lining. If fat is not digested, remove fat from cold stock. 

Meat is allowed, but it should be boiled, broiled, grilled or baked. No added fats yet, no frying.
Best way to cook meat is not only in soups, but in casseroles. Buy a nice steak and throw into a casserole with allowed veggies and some self made broth, put on the lid and bake for 1 hour . 

Add only one new food at a time, and add only one fruit per two new veggies. Try new food for 3-4 days, and only then try the next. This is important in case you get a delayed reaction. 

Allowed Vegetables:  spinach, butternut and buttercup pumpkins, summer and acorn squashes and zucchini. Peel and de-seed everything, an cook them soft. If necessary, puree it. 

Fruits: be careful, especially if you have candida or SIBO. Only low amounts, and only cooked and puréed. 

Allowed are: grape juice gelatin (1;1 diluted), pear sauce, apple sauce. If you have problems with fructose, a fruit sugar, try cooked berries before apples.

Mild spices and herbs are legal at this stage.  Use cooked parsley, thyme, oregano, cinnamon and clove (natural antiparasitics), cardamom, cumin, depending on what you like or what you eat. 

Self made yoghurt is allowed, if you are sure that you are not allergic to dairy proteins. Don't try kefir yet, kefir is a really strong probiotic. 

Honey: start with tiny amounts, and be extra careful in case you have SIBO or Candida. Best is raw honey, and even better is medical active Manuka, which is sadly expensive. Eat between one tsp and one tblsp before each meal if you have helicobacter pylori and peptic ulcers. 

If no nut allergy is present, introduce self made pecan nut milk, or almond milk.  Use yoghurt starters for nut milk yoghurt. The lactobacillus acidophilus and the streptococcus thermophilus are very important probiotics. But eat only small amounts. 

Common SCD mistakes and hints

Honey: too much, and too early. Honey is high in carbohydrates, and it can feed candida and parasites. It is proven that manuka honey can help with bacteria and ulcers, but it should still be treated carefully at the beginning. 

Fruits: same as honey, plus they have acids. If  an ulcer or GERD is present, this should be limited.

Yoghurt and kefir: it is very, very important to make them yourself, to get the probiotic, immune modulating and wound healing effects but without lactose. And if dairy intolerance is unclear, it should be avoided at the beginning. Might be substituted with self made nut yoghurt, but only if  no nut allergy is present.

Coffee and black tea: they have acids that can aggravate the inflammation. Drink green tea instead, or Oolong tea, which is only half fermented, so it is between green and black tea. 

Eggs: often problematic. Try with care in a later stage, and start with raw eggs in soup or boiled. 

Nuts: should be ingested only in small amounts. They are rich in fibre, and fibre might aggravate SIBO. Especially troublesome seem to be cashew and peanuts, so delay the introduction of those. 

Supplements:  Helpful, but not necessary, depending on the underlying problem. Common are: digestive enzymes, Betaine HCL, bile salts, Vitamin B complex, multivitamins (no iron!), s. boulardii and L.acidophilus. Should have no carbohydrate fillers as starch, maltodextrin, lactose, sugar. 

Not doing the intro diet: the intro diet is a very important part of the diet. It should be done at least for two days, but not longer than 4. Best to start on the weekend due to possible side effects like fatigue, bone pains, headaches etc. 

Else: prepare food in batches and freeze. Plan ahead. Stay focused, and acknowledge your setbacks. Give it 3-4days time when new food is introduced: a small amount on day one, a bigger portion on day two, and on day three. If no adverse effects occur, try the next. If adverse effects are experienced,it is necessary to go back a step and to wait 2-3 days. Retry the offending food at a later stage. Additionally, try to introduce at least two new vegetables per fruit. This is to avoid overflowing your system with sugars. 

The SCD Intro Diet

Allowed: 

Carrots,  whole chicken (or two), salt, pepper, thyme, eggs and minced meat. Carrots can be substituted with Zucchini. Eggs should be avoided if tolerance is unclear. 

Only cooked , roasted or broiled meat is allowed at this point.

chicken soup: Put salt, pepper, the peeled and cut carrots, and the whole chicken with lots of water into a huge pot and slowcook it for a few hours (2-4). Or use a slowcooker. Or a pressure cooker, which saves even more time.
Fish out the carrots and put into fridge for eating whole, pureed as a dip or pureed into the soup.
Fish out the meat and the bones and collect the meat, throw out the bones. Put meat into fridge.
Pour the broth in a big container and into the fridge, too. If you have loose stools, remove the fat after it cooled down, since it might give you trouble. If you are constipated, leave it in. 

Make meat patties with the tyme, salt and pepper only, put them on a baking tray with tinfoil and put them into the oven (grill, highest temperature, upper tray). Broil for 8-10 minutes, turn them, and put them back for another round. Store in fridge. 

Allowed beverages: Water and herbal teas only. Drink plenty. 

The Intro diet should be followed for a minimum of 2 or a maximum of 4 days. 

The Special Carbohydrate Diet - SCD

Suited for: 

Crohns, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Autism, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Colitis Ulcerosa, SIBO, Candida, general digestive problems, Celiacs. 

How it works: 

With complete restriction of easy fermentable carbohydrates and slow reintroduction of complex carbohydrates, the damaged gut is healed, the probiotic flora is changed, and more nutrients are taken up. Due to the complete lack of carbohydrates, blood sugar levels are kept low. 

Pros and Cons: 

Hard to follow at first, since it is very restrictive. Cooking skills are helpful, but not necessary, since they will be picked up. Needs to be tailored to personal flavour and situation/disease. Supplements might be helpful, but are not necessary. It is a nutritional complete diet after the first few restrictive stages. 

Does it work?

Preliminary studies are very positive. Diet has been around for over 50 years, and thousands of followers swear by it. Cookbooks are available. Personal experiences have been very positive. 

Source: 

Elaine Gottschall: Breaking the vicious cycle

How To: 

This is my personal version of a very restrictive SCD, to avoid sugars as long as possible. 

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Meatballs

You need:

Cauliflower
Minced meat (I used beef, but chicken should work, too)
Self made bone broth or water
Salt, pepper and  nutmeg to taste

Cut the cauliflower into florets, as close to the heads as possible.
(the stem is very hard to digest and not legal yet).
Boil the florets in either broth or salt water until soft.
Prepare meat by spicing it with salt and pepper, and form little balls.
Blend the cooked cauliflower soup until creamy.
Drop the meatballs into the soup, and let it boil for 5 minutes, so they are cooked through.
Sprinkle with nutmeg and some herbs ( I used some chives).
For more calories, add some butter or coconut oil.

Pumpkin Pancakes

This is suitable for SCD Stage 1

You need:
2 eggs
1 cup of boiled pumpkin
some stevia or honey to sweeten
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom...
coconut oil

Mix all in a blender, then fry in a pan in coconut oil until nice and golden.
You can also bake them in a greased muffin tin until golden.