Specific Carbohydrate Diet - Crohn's Disease

[bkmundt]

Hi TM Users,

Friends of ours have a teenage son with Crohn's Disease. The whole family have followed the 'Specific Carbohydrate Diet' for a year now which has really helped him to gain weight.

My husband who is a TM consultant showed them the TM with the hope that this will make things easier for them. If you have some recipes that would suit, we would really be appreciative.

Things that he can't have are:

Sugar and anything with added sugar. Rice, pasta, wheat, flour, bread, biscuits and cake all made with flour. Foods with high in lactose eg milk, cream, store yoghurt, soft cheeses, margarine, processed meats and foods. Bacon. No popcorn or fruits and veg with hard, thick skins that are indigestible, eg corn, grapes.

He can have fresh chicken, fish, meat and seafood, almond meal, eggs, homemade yoghurt, hard cheese, butter, nuts, honey, fresh fruit and vegetables (except potato, sweet corn, sweet potato).

Basically all foods need to be made from scratch so that they know exactly what is in it.  His mother makes bread, crackers, muffins, biscuits and cake using almond meal instead of flour.

Help appreciated!

Brad & Kerry
South Australia

[brazen20au]

wow, i have never seen info on this diet before (so i'm afraid i can't really help)
i know there is a book that looks good, i'm pretty sure it's suitable for crohn's - irrisistibles (ack,  how do you spell that lol) for the irritable (?) by sue shepherd

[I Love Bimby!]

Hi Brad and Kelly,

Finally these books have come in handy.. 

The first book is called:
Breaking the Vicious Cycle
Intestinal Health Through Diet
By Elaine Gottschall
This is based on the specific carbohydrate diet.

The second book is
Healing Foods
Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Chohn's and IBS
By Sandra Ramacher
Sandra developed this cookbook after following the one mentioned below.  She also has a website www.CCCCIBS.com

While I haven't gone through and converted any recipes yet, looking at both books, it would be easy to find alternatives (or slightly modify) existing recipes out of the current cookbooks.  Things like Almond Milk, different stocks, guacamole, hollandaise sauce, salads, lemon butter, custards, meatloafs, etc.  Also the stirfry chicken winglets out of the Gluten Free cookbook looks like it would be suitable - not sure about a marinade, pumpkin gnocchi etc.

The second book is sometimes in Big W.  I purchased mine at a Collins bookstore for $34.95.

If you call Sandra (contact should be on her website) she also has the first book available for purchase - going through the website will link you to Amazon.

If you would like me to send through some of these recipes please let me know.

[terstoo]

That must be really hard for the family!

I follow a blog that uses just almond or coconut flour for all her recipes. It's: http://www.elanaspantry.com/

Great site.

[tarosuma]

Hi there
I don't have Crohns but that is pretty much exactly the same diet as I follow.  I would be more than happy for you to pm me and we can swap details and recipes. 
Off the top of my head, I can think of a few that would be suitable.
I make some crackers made out of just basically seeds and an egg to bind.  (in the TMX)
I found a pasta substitute made out of kelp (yet to try but it looks hopefull!)  I live in NZ though so not sure if available in Oz
Can he eat coconut?  I use alot of coconut milk and nut/seed milks instead of milk.  (TMX is great for that of course!)
I make up delicious fudge balls made out of creamed coconut (TMX) almond meal (TMX) ground linseed (TMX) coconut oil, cocoa, honey (I kinda make it up as I go along!)
I make a pizza base made out of eggplant and cheese and then top it with meat and cheese and vegies etc. It is awesome!
I make zucchini slice in the TMX - I use almond meal instead of the usual flour.  It is pretty tasty.
Back onto the coconut thing, if he can eat coconut flour I have a few recipes for cakes and muffins using this.
There is probably heaps more but I have children at my feet just now, pm me for more info if you like.
cheers
Susan

[ahoney]

I would love some recipes, if you found any as I am trying to go sugar and refined carbohydrate free to stabilise my blood sugar levels, most sugar free recipes still contain sugar just in different forms

[shan_k]

Just saw this post now - not sure if you are still after info or not. My partner (and hence me!) followed this diet for quite some time - unfortunately it didn't help him all that much so he is not on it now - although we try not to eat too many carbs still.

The two books mentioned above were really useful - especially the healing foods cookbook. It gave me some inspiration and ideas to get cooking real meals again instead of just steak and veg!

Some of the things we did on a regular basis were:
- yoghurt (you can buy the correct starter from http://www.cheeselinks.com.au/ - if you needed it I could go through our records and find which one it was as not all of them are appropriate for the SCD diet.
- Find a simple cake recipe (like the Almond cake from Santiago in the My way of cooking cookbook - also its in the free version of the thermomix app on the iPhone), and just replace the sugar with honey. Watch the cooking time.
- We made something called french cream (I think we must have got that name from somewhere - just not sure where!!). You basically make it the same way as the yoghurt, using the same starter, but use cream instead of milk. This is a delicious dessert on its own with raspberries and honey, or used as a cream on fruit salad when everyone else is having normal cream. We also froze this and then blended in the thermie with frozen mango and honey....DEVINE! We still make this now
- For gravy blend up the meat juices, a little water and some roasted onions. If you still want a bit more thickness add some nuts. The onions are really good at thickening. I can't remember where we got this idea from - maybe the healing foods book
We had a dehydrator and made dried fruits and fruit rollups by using pureed fruit blended with yoghurt
- You can make pizza bases with almond flour - they taste a little different but are quite yummy
- almond meal, banana and honey pancakes are yummy too

Can't think of anything else at this stage but if you are still after info and have more questions don't hesitate. We have been there done that on this diet.....no-one is that familiar with it and all it's restrictions but persevere. We even had a local butcher making us sausages with no thickener or filler what so ever (a lot do gluten free....but this is a whole other ball game!).

Best of luck

Shan